no video on x5-z8350 cherry trail

  • This is a weird problem: i have this Dell Wyse 3040 thin client, a great little device with dual displayport output. It runs stock linux, which can easily be replaced with another os. This is a cherry trail box, is has an atom x5-z8350 with native 64bit uefi firmware (yes, finally!).

    LE installs and runs great in 64bit uefi mode, no problem there. Now the only problem is: when playing back video, video runs for about 3 seconds and then freezes. I can revert back to menu (the frozen video reverts to background), and then i have to stop the stalled video manually. Combined with a flirc usb receiver this tiny box makes a really great LE device, so i'm hoping the video playback issue can be resolved.

  • Set your energy preference back to "performance" at UEFI settings.

    This is a problem, i've searched the dell firmware back and over twice, there are no energy preference settings. I can set c-states, turbo b**st, and something else c-states (cant remember), but no performance settings.

  • Ask Dell, they should know what they write on boot. I'm very sure the video stop comes from UEFI, not LE.

    I believe you! Problem is that these dell wyse 3040 boxes are being sold primarely as thinclients. Seems no one at dell is waiting for a guy asking about uefi settings. Even reimaging these devices is a pain in the ***, since they use some kind of deployment tool, with uefi pxe booting.

    That leaves me with almost no options; i was hoping i could get the box booting in csm legacy mode and run LE like that, but that also seems to easy to be true. CSM booting disappeared as soon as i enabled uefi booting and i'm searching for a way to get csm module enabled again.

    These cherry trail boxes, even a fancy dell wyse, keep giving me a headache!

  • Looks like Dell is blocking max. performance at firmware level. Maybe max. performance leads to heat problems, or whatever issues.

    The only "solution" I see is a firmware hack.

    That would make sense, because these 3040 boxes are really tiny. They fit in the palm of your hand. I already was wondering about the incredible small footprint these cherry trail units have. This was what attracted me to them in the first place. I can imagine that the current "normal" power setting is good enough for them to just do thin client tasks on a simple linux os. Nothing fancy there. Doing h264 30mbit 1080p decode is a whole other story. Could well be they burn on "perfomance" power mode, looking at how tiny they are.