Pinepower Desktop 120W

[marc.d]

Hi all,

I received my pinepower desktop earlier this week, and seems to be working fine when just used for charging devices.

However, when using the pinepower to supply power to a Raspberry Pi 4 (or even to a Lattepanda Alpha) through the type-C port, I'm seeing that the output power just drops then returns randomly, resulting in the SBCs to reboot, and that even multiple times per day. 

Initially I thought this was because of me plugging and unplugging the usb cable to charge my pinephone on the quickcharge port, but apparently, after leaving the pinepower desktop on overnight, I figured that the SBCs had rebooted multiple times!

It is strange to see this behaviour, and I would like to know if anyone else is experiencing this issue.

I'm aware the device is promoted as a charger, but I would like to know if this is considered normal.

Thanks!

PS: Feel free to move this message to a different thread if needed, because apparently there is no dedicated forum for the PinePower desktop to this day.

[xalius]

Sounds a bit like PD negotiation not working, do you know what power level the RPi4 is negotiating for?

[lot378]

I think the Pi4 does not have a PD chip so negotiation does not happen. Also, I think there was something about Pi4 having one resistor shared on CC1/CC2 instead of one per line and this made it incompatible with USB-C PD chargers. Boggo standard PSU for Pi4 is probably only/best way to go. Was it ever fixed?

LattePanda Alpha - this seems to have issues with USB-C PD with the PD chip on the Alpha getting confused between being in sink/source modes. No idea if this is related or not but raises a red flag in general. Probably best to use the power brick provided with the Alpha.

[marc.d]

This definitely is interesting information, thank you both.

The type-A ports won't provide sufficient power to my Lattepanda Alpha, but I'll try power feeding my Pi4 through one of the regular USB type-A ports.

I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Enjoy your day!

[marc.d]

A little update: I'm running my RPi4 with an uptime of 4 days of the first 5V (green) type-A USB port now, so that is good!

[pfeerick]

Also, I think there was something about Pi4 having one resistor shared on CC1/CC2 instead of one per line and this made it incompatible with USB-C PD chargers. Boggo standard PSU for Pi4 is probably only/best way to go. Was it ever fixed?

It should be... there was supposed to be a revision within a few months of it being discovered in mid 2019... and we're more than a few months in the future from that!