[SOLVED] New R. PI 3 B+ overheating with almost zero activity

[richlion2]

Hello,

I decided to go for the newest Raspberry PI 3 B+. Once I managed to get it running with Raspbian I discovered an overheating problem. I would like to ask how likely this is this a one case item problem, how common is it?

Apparently it should not overheat, but it goes like this. I start it up, open one browser session with Skype, I can open one music stream and probably browse around to read. At some point after 5-10 minutes it just freezes. The processor is so hot...
I purchased heat sinks and attached them.
https://www.modmypi.com/raspberry-pi/ac ... -kit-black

Still the same, except it takes about 15 minutes to freeze. I started to update my system using "sudo apt-get upgrade" and half way through the process the system froze again.

What does actually "everyday use" mean?
http://www.zdnet.com/article/no-your-ra ... s-creator/

I purchased an case with a fan, but I suspect this is an item I would have to send back to have a replacement.

Any opinions?

Richard

[jamesh]

That does sound like a defective device. Probably best to RMA it if no-one has any other ideas.

[PeterO]

What is the CPU usage monitor showing when doing the things you mention ?
PeterO

[gkreidl]

Check the memory usage. It may just have started to swap ...

[richlion2]

Check the memory usage. It may just have started to swap ...

About 20% used out of 1GB.

[richlion2]

What is the CPU usage monitor showing when doing the things you mention ?
PeterO

I'll make a snapshot and post it this evening when I am at home.

Attached is a picture of my device with heat sinks.

Apparently some people report that if the temperature goes to high there should be a warning in the Systray. There is none.
https://www.reddit.com/r/raspberry_pi/c ... erheating/

Some people are doing stuff like ffmpeg, however how does it compare to just browsing in 3 browser sessions?

The definition of "normal load" is rather vague. Running a radio stream (jazzfm.com BTW) seems ok for a couple of hours, but as soon as I start doing more it just stalls and crashes.

[jahboater]

You can display the temperature easily with:-

vcgencmd measure_temp

[richlion2]

You can display the temperature easily with:-

vcgencmd measure_temp

Thanks for that
I installed psensor, but it doesn't display the temp.

[MaxVMH]

Have you tried re-installing Raspbian? Probably something wrong with the hardware, but you never know ...

You can display the temperature easily with:-

vcgencmd measure_temp

Just to add, if you created a new user, you need to run it as superuser:

Code: Select all

sudo vcgencmd measure_temp

[jahboater]

I think its a hardware problem - a faulty Pi (unusual) or some kind of damage from electrical abuse of the GPIO.

The heat management of the new 3B+ is so good that I have been completely unable to get it fully throttle back (to 600Mhz) let alone crash or freeze.

[mcnewton]

Check your power supply? Haven't got the newer Pi, but on the ones I've got using some PSUs (even ones marked up as apparently being good enough) have given similar symptoms. Maybe the latest model is more resilient to this though.

[drgeoff]

Check your power supply? Haven't got the newer Pi, but on the ones I've got using some PSUs (even ones marked up as apparently being good enough) have given similar symptoms. Maybe the latest model is more resilient to this though.

A power supply that gives 5 volts will never be the cause of a RPi overheating.

[richlion2]

Hello,

thank you all for responding. Just popped in to post an update.

This was a corrupt SD card issue. I could not get any update/upgrade done, the file system would get corrupt and kept crashing.

There is another thing. The day after all the overheating problems that I experienced just after starting the machine seem to have vanished the next day. I suspect maybe when plugging the heat sinks on the RPI they require some time to operate and wait for the adhesive to settle in - I am no expert, just a rough guess. The second day I was watching the tempreture and it was not near the 100 C the day before.

After replacing the SD all went well I have my RPI up and running. I did rig a temporary solution, found one 5V fan lying around, so I connected it to the USB port and the temperature now hovers around 30C , without the fan 50 C with Chromium browsing and stuff.

There is also another thing. When I stream a radio station like jazzfm.com on Chrome and Firefox the music is distorted and jittery. I think those browsers are very CPU/Memory hungry it causes those performance issue. Not with Midor, this one runs perfectly and smoothely.

I also decided to increase my swap walue from 100 to 200 (top shows 2048 MiB) which is double the MEM RPI has as when I am running some videos in Chromium not only it starves the RPI from memory, but SWAP would go to zero and I my system would grind to a halt. I now installed and use Midori as my main browser, with 8 tabs open there is enough room in the memory - aprox. 40M free.

I'll mark the post as resolved. Happy days.

Richard

[richlion2]

Check your power supply? Haven't got the newer Pi, but on the ones I've got using some PSUs (even ones marked up as apparently being good enough) have given similar symptoms. Maybe the latest model is more resilient to this though.

A power supply that gives 5 volts will never be the cause of a RPi overheating.

I purchased the official Respberry power supply. I would go for any cheap, if this is to be safe and reliable.