FiveNinjas Slice LibreELEC preview build

    OK, I've been looking at a nice simple way of doing this, if you get some of these link to heatsinks when you stack two together, so the fins mesh, they are 11.7mm high, in my Slice, they just touch the top of the case when sitting on top of the CPU.
    You can then use some of this link to thermal sticky tape to stick one heat sink to the CPU and another to the lid, the fact that the fins are meshed together, all be it not tight, will help the CPU run much cooler, you will need to be carefull when removing and replacing the lid, to make sure you don't move the lid sideways, before the fins are no longer meshed. You could probably even put some thick heat sink goo between the fins so that when you put the lid on the thermal contact between the two sets of fins will be better, but it might get messy and I doubt it'll make a huge difference.
    Using this set up, with the heat sink just ballanced on the CPU (not stuck to CPU or lid) I now get tempreatures of 49C CPU 29C case, so the CPU is 6C cooler than my previous heat sink effort; this is while playing wma music files, with the Spectrum visulisation, which provokes 100% CPU usage. Without any heat sink I get CPU 70C.
    Photo of Slice with heat sink.
    Regards, Kevin.

    Edited once, last by bleep42 (November 22, 2016 at 1:35 PM).

    • Official Post

    I think the best option is a simple finned heatsink that can be attached with a small dab of [heat] conductive paste and a small elastic band around the SO-DIMM board to hold it in place. This would be simple for users to apply and doesn't result in direct contact with the casing. Solutions that achieve case contact will be thermally more efficient but there's a higher risk of mechanical damage; not from thermal flexing, but when a fat-fingered user puts a huge gob of paste on the CPU which uses all the tollerance up and places stress on the SO-DIMM connector. The CM3/Slice has been designed to run quite happily at high temperatures so the goal of adding heatsink is not to achieve the best possible thermal transfer; only to reduce the temperatures enough to keep the thermometer off-screen. I'm only seeing it during large library scans or when trying to software decode HEVC content that it can't handle (with any level of overclock) so it's not really a big deal.

    Quote from chewitt


    ... reduce the temperatures enough to keep the thermometer off-screen. I'm only seeing it during large library scans or when trying to software decode HEVC content that it can't handle (with any level of overclock) so it's not really a big deal.

    No hope of a Slice water cooled mod then :D
    Roger

    • Official Post

    A note for anyone self-building things from my slice-8.0 branch on GitHub:

    Gordon figured out how to make Kodi correctly detect an IEC958 device which allows the S/PDIF output to send lovely 5.1 output to an AVR *BUT* you must ensure the "Sync playback to display" option in System > Playback is disabled for multi-channel audio to work. If you have SP2D enabled *all* audio is resampled to 2.0 PCM. In older Isengaard/Jarvis Kodi builds it's possible to have SP2D enabled and still get multi-channel output (sort of a bug that's fixed in Krypton) so if you update to these builds this might catch you out.

    NB: The snd_slice.conf to enable 5.1 output will be in v7.90.009 which is sort of ready but waiting for Kodi 17-beta 6 which is taking an age to be released due to some unresolved addon update/crash bugs affecting Windows Kodi builds.

    • Official Post

    I'm not sure what the message was but it was not an LE distro/OS update notification. Until 20 mins ago there were no Slice/Slice2 project files on our releases server and those files are not indexed and will not result in notifications yet. Later today when v7.90.009 is made available you can perform a normal manual update from within the LE settings add-on.

    • Official Post

    v7.90.009 is released. If you are already on an 8.0 alpha release you can (or should be able to) manually update from within LE settings by selecting the LibreELEC-8.0 release channel then clicking view releases and selecting the single option available. If updating from an older OE based version you will need to manually copy/paste one of the tar files below to the box.

    LibreELEC-Slice.arm-7.90.009.tar <= CM1
    LibreELEC-Slice2.arm-7.90.009.tar <= CM3

    Quote from chewitt


    v7.90.009 is released.

    hi Chewitt

    I have installed the .009 version and I find that the Raspberry Pi VNC service no longer works. I uninstalled the service and it refuses to re-install. Did remove service, reboot device, then add service back in etc and still not working. Reverted to .008 build and it installs and runs as before.

    I use my test Slice headless and VNC to access the device for loading music.

    Happy to retest any suggestions / updates

    Roger

    Can you install 009, enable debug logging then try to install the VNC service. Then run:

    Code
    cat /storage/.kodi/temp/kodi.log | pastebinit
journalctl -a | pastebinit


    and post the links.

    Quote from milhouse


    Can you install 009, enable debug logging then try to install the VNC service. Then run:

    Code
    cat /storage/.kodi/temp/kodi.log | pastebinit
journalctl -a | pastebinit


    and post the links.

    ABaW  
    MFJX
    after shutdown, remove power and reboot to retry install

    JhVD
    FgPe

    Log of process followed is below

    • Notes from install v .009 vnc test
    • Using UltraVNC Viewer version 1.2.0.9
    • VNC working in .008
    • Copy .009 tar to .update
    • Reboot Slice
    • .009 updated OK, verified version number on boot and in System Info
    • VNC try to connect: VNC failed to connect to server screen
    • Uninstall VNC add-on from Slice
    • Add-ons Services uninstall: OK
    • Enable debug logging
    • Install Raspberry Pi VNC 8.0.102 by Anton Voyl: does not give any indication of installing after select “install”, wait a few minutes. (install on v .008 shows an install message as soon as install is selected)
    • Turn off logging
    • ABaW
    • MFJX
    • Power off Slice, remove power
    • Turn on Slice, boot OK (no VNC add-on installed)
    • Enable logging
    • Select add on as above and click install. Same result, wait a minute, reselect and try to install again, same result.
    • New logs JhVD and FgPe

    Hope this helps
    Roger

    Edited once, last by g7ruh (December 7, 2016 at 11:54 AM).

    Code
    Dec 07 11:12:01 nkdslice sh[1675]: dispmanx_vncserver: error while loading shared libraries: libssl.so.38: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

    The libssl.so library in 7.90.009 is version 39, not 38, so you need an updated Raspberry Pi VNC add-on that uses the new library file.

    I see "Raspberry Pi VNC 8.1.102 by Anton Voyl" in the LE repository (on a regular RPi2, not a Slice) which should be using version 39 and be compatible with 7.90.009.

    Make sure your LE repository is up to date (force an update by clicking on "Check for updates" in the blade menu within the add-ons browser) and that you are then able to download 8.1.102.

    Quote from milhouse
    Code
    Dec 07 11:12:01 nkdslice sh[1675]: dispmanx_vncserver: error while loading shared libraries: libssl.so.38: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

    Make sure your LE repository is up to date (force an update by clicking on "Check for updates" in the blade menu within the add-ons browser) and that you are then able to download 8.1.102.

    Milhouse,

    thanks, if you saw my earlier reply, I was wrong, I did the update on the earlier version so no wonder I was confused. ( have a bad head cold at present so I blame that!)

    Anyway, yes it works as you suggested, no need to reinstall the add-on, just did a manual update and it works fine again.

    thanks and kudos to you

    Roger
    [hr]
    hi Chewitt

    I have now loaded .009 and testing on my audio system, thanks to milhouse for helping get VNC working.

    I am impressed with the way Chorus 2 has matured, my reason for using VNC was to select music for playing, as the Slice is headless. I could not get on with any of the web based interfaces, they did not do what I wanted or were very slow (or both!). I tried early version of Chorus 2, it was OK and the best so far to that point but still slow. I suspect that the underlying slowness was caused by the earlier versions of Libre / Kodi. In the current version it is fast and is now on my list for further testing with a view to using it rather than VNC.

    I have a large collection of music, over 700 CDs converted to flac, so a fast interface is appreciated.

    Keep up the good work
    Roger

    Edited once, last by g7ruh (December 8, 2016 at 3:29 PM).