Disabling USB/Ethernet chip on RasPi3?

  • The combined USB/Ethernet chip (LAN9514) is a known power leech on the RasPi_s, and power consumption is a concern in my setup.

    In my setup, now having Raspi 3 I do not need either the Ethernet port, nor the USBs (networking over WiFi, which is onboard now (on a separate chip), so no need for a USB dongle).

    I know how to power down the LAN9514 in a Raspbian distribution, however I have no idea how to achieve this in LibreELEC.

    Does anyone know?


  • Maybe if you described how it's done in Raspbian.

    So, this is how you do it on Rasbian. What do you do for LibreELEC?

    As root:

    Bash
    #!/bin/bash
    # disable
    echo 0 > /sys/devices/platform/bcm2708_usb/buspower
    # enable
    echo 1 > /sys/devices/platform/bcm2708_usb/buspower

    accordingly, from a normal ssh, at the prompt session that would be:

    Code
    $ # disable
    $ sudo sh -c 'echo 0x0 > /sys/devices/platform/bcm2708_usb/buspower'
    $ # enable
    $ sudo sh -c 'echo 0x1 > /sys/devices/platform/bcm2708usb/buspower'

    Alternatively instead of buspower there is also bussuspend, but that one cannot be reactivated, only by a reboot.

    See also here (Stackexchange) -- the chip alone draws 200 mA!

  • Thanks,

    I would have tried, but don't have my libreELEC up and running yet.

    Is LibreELEC also Debian based? Or even Raspbian based?

    Anyway, I think this is useful info in general, as with the proliferation of Model 3 more and more setups might not need these interfaces either, and 200 mA is not peanuts!

    I know # is a comment, I put it in there myself, wasn't in my source I'd figure why not put workable code (resp. usual convention wrt. $-prompt) if using the [[Code]] tag.

    Edited once, last by szabi (November 23, 2016 at 2:40 PM).