[Volunteer needed]Too high DRAM clock speed MAY be causing you random crashes/freezes

[LinAdmin2]

For testing the maximum RAM speed running applications is tedious and prone to errors.

I suggest to use an adapted version of ram test intended for PC hardware.
Instead of different versions for different speeds, the clock frequency could also be set in the menu.

Whenever I buy new RAM for my PC's I run this program for at least a day and this allowed me to detect quite a number of faulty RAM chips.

[gotomech]

For testing the maximum RAM speed running applications is tedious and prone to errors.

I suggest to use an adapted version of ram test intended for PC hardware.
Instead of different versions for different speeds, the clock frequency could also be set in the menu.

Whenever I buy new RAM for my PC's I run this program for at least a day and this allowed me to detect quite a number of faulty RAM chips.

You're right, but for me, I dont usually even make it to running applications. If I get past log-in, I'm happy. And firefox is usually a consistent load, to freeze my phone past that. Just trying to hit the sysytem with an addon install. It was that level of unstable.

Now that I have some level of known stability though, I can go deeper into that test. However, since the rate of updates is so fast, and keeps moving the bar. I'll probably do that once all the software updates and power saving features are mostly done. I've had almost a 100MHz stability increase just over the last 6 months alone.

[4carlos]

I have a brand new Pinephone Manjaro with Phosh Beta 4 and massive stability issues. Every few minutes the screen goes black and I have to log in again.

I found this posting and would like to know whether the solution described can also be used for the Pinephone Manjaro. At the moment I am not that familiar with the system and need a little help with it. I can flash the * .bin files (as described), but the Pinephone does not boot afterwards.

For which system are the "patches" intended? PostmarketOS, Manjaro, Mobian or others? Which versions are they suitable for? How exactly do I have to use them (step by step) would be welcome.

Thanks in advance

[desca]

I have a brand new Pinephone Manjaro with Phosh Beta 4 and massive stability issues. Every few minutes the screen goes black and I have to log in again.

Do you mean that you have to reboot each time?

Just in case: There were reports of the screen going dark if the rubber collar thing was missing on the proximity sensor (but I believe that would happen pretty quickly, and not after minutes).

[dukla2000]

I have a brand new Pinephone Manjaro with Phosh Beta 4 and massive stability issues. Every few minutes the screen goes black and I have to log in again.
...

That is phosh crashing - it isn't the most stable environment but every few minutes is exceptional.

..
I found this posting and would like to know whether the solution described can also be used for the Pinephone Manjaro. At the moment I am not that familiar with the system and need a little help with it. I can flash the * .bin files (as described), but the Pinephone does not boot afterwards.

For which system are the "patches" intended? PostmarketOS, Manjaro, Mobian or others? Which versions are they suitable for? How exactly do I have to use them (step by step) would be welcome.
...

The patches are relevant to any of the images, however, a simpler up front trial would be to download/install Mobian on an SDcard and try that. The reason I suggest Mobian is if anything it probably has the least aggressive memory speed compared to the others. But in fact if you run a release from SDcard you avoid the whole eMMC speed anyway.

Once you have a bit more confidence in your phone then you can decide if you want to try Manjaro from the eMMC again, or carry on with Mobian or whatever.

[4carlos]

Thank you for the hints. The problem is a bit difficult to describe.

1. It doesn't matter whether I install on an SD card or in the internal memory.

2. It happens with Manjaro Phosh Beta 4 (stable, unstable) and Mobian (last stable, nightly). Ubuntu Touch (nightly) runs stable (huh), but the call function is very unreliable and UT is not well maintained.

3. My test application for Manjaro Phosh and Mobian is Firefox. This program is the quickest way to find the bug. Firefox starts and shows its standard intro. After entering a URL, the page loads and then the screen goes dark. There is no longer any visible reaction. Typing is still accepted, but completely in the dark. Switching off and on shows me the login again. After logging in, the screen goes black again. From this point on, the screen goes dark in almost all programs during interactions (tapping, swiping ...). This has been since the first moment and switched on since I got the phone.

Remedy: Blind tap on the lower edge of the black screen to minimize the program. Switching off and on shows the login screen again. After logging in, the screen is on again and the program is minimized in the upper area. I can only close it because opening it again causes a black screen.

So my hope is this thread here. I tested the hardware with the test image from the Pine64 website. All functions of the phone have been completed successfully.

What have I done?

I have flashed some * .bin files on the SD card and in the internal memory, the highest, medium and lowest speed to see an effect. After flashing (with dd ...) with the files from this website, the phone no longer starts. The LED only blinked red (with Manjaro Phosh Beta 4), with Mobian only green.

In a Manjaro Phosh Image (developer 2021-01-02) I found 3 * .bin files (u-boot-sunxi-with-spl-pinephone-492.bin, u-boot-sunxi-with-spl-pinephone- 552.bin, u-boot-sunxi-with-spl-pinephone-624.bin). I was able to successfully flash the 492 file. However, I cannot find any effect. I still get the black screen.

I flashed it via jumpdrive. "lsblk" showed me the phone memory as "sdb".

In a root terminal

# dd if = u-boot-sunxi-with-spl-pinephone-492.bin of = / dev / sdb bs = 8k seek = 1

I'm not sure if I did everything right?

Is this really a DRAM problem or is the proximity sensor responsible? It also reacts very sensitively, but when I leave the screen area, the screen switches on again.

[4carlos]

I solved the boot problem by using a different SD card.

Not resolved is the black screen problem. I tried all the DRAM patches for Manjaro Phosh and Mobian from 492 to 624 MHz and had more or less success. No patch makes the phone stable. I also bought my son a Pinephone and both came together in one delivery. His phone is stable from the start, so I suspect that the memory chip quality is poor on some devices? Selling an unusable device is not good business. The quality control should definitely get better.

I have no idea. What else could I do?

[4carlos]

It's mid-March and the problem persists with Phosh Beta 6 as well. The advice to buy a new motherboard is not acceptable. I'll put the pinphone aside as a big flop. At least it works with UBports UT as the only OS without any problems. Too bad.

[Narvod]

Hi,

I'm running Mobian (so default is 552Hz, right?), and although it is pretty stable, I still have random crashes from time to time. So I would like to try a different dram clockspeed to see if it can get even more stable !

But this post is not very recent, so I've got a few questions :

1. are the packages in the OP still usable today, or are they now outdated? 
   
2. I can see on the git release page of Arch for the pinephone that they provide a modified u-boot as well, do you know if it's up to date and safe to flash for Mobian as well?
   
3. in the same spirit of 2, the command they use for flashing u-boot is with dd is almost the same as in OP, except with `bs=1024 seek=8` and not `bs=8 seek=1`. What difference does it make and is one better than the other? 
   
4. If I flash the modified u-boot, I suppose I won't be able to update it when an update is available on the mobian repository?
   
5. How can I backup or find the original u-boot that comes with Mobian, so that I can revert back to it in case something goes wrong, or if I want to install an update of u-boot from the Mobian repository, if/when there is one ? (I tried `dd if=/dev/sdX of=uboot-backup.bin bs=8k seek=1` as suggested here but ended up with a Backup of more than 1go so I stopped the process. I also found u-boot binaries under /usr/... but I am not sure which one is the one I want )
   
6. and last but not least : do you think this issue is going to be solved upstream at some point, or will some of us always need to mess around with the ram clockspeed to get a stable system ? In other words, should I wait that this issues is solved by the devs, or is changing the clockspeed my only option? ^^'
   

And that's pretty much all I.d like to know

Edit: I've got the posmarket os convergence (3go RAM) community edition

[eugenr]

Hi,

I'm running Mobian (so default is 552Hz, right?), and although it is pretty stable, I still have random crashes from time to time. So I would like to try a different dram clockspeed to see if it can get even more stable !

Phoc 0.6 (part of Phosh) and older (?) is known to crash often. That's the current on my Mobian. It seems to be more stable with phoc version 0.7:

https://forums.puri.sm/t/multi-poll-bug-...za/12724/5