How to make sure my PI4 has the firmware that fixes hot cpu?

I bought another microsd card and did a apt full upgrade on Pi OS. Unfortunately, as soon as I went back to the volumio card, the firmware also went back. @volumio, what can we do here? My pi4 is too hot!

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What I can tell is that 67 is a perfectly fine temperature…
You want to be below 80…

It’s actually running at 61-63 after I did sudo apt full upgrade on pi OS, but I can’t understand how that can affect anything if volumio brings back the firmware?

My RPI 4 running Volumio, usb DAC, touchscreen, DSP (brutefir) :slight_smile:
System Information

OS info

Version of Volumio: 2.835
Hostname: volumio-rpi4
Kernel: 4.19.118-v7l+
Governor: performance
Uptime: 0 days, 0 Hrs, 4 Minutes, 38 Seconds

Audio info

Hw audio configured: USB AUDIO
Mixer type: Hardware
Number of channels:
Supported sample rate: 

Board info

Manufacturer: Raspberry Pi Foundation
Model: BCM2835 - Pi 4 Model B
Version: b03111 - Rev. 1.1
Firmware Version: Apr 27 2020 14:33:37 - 3a8f1793b758d6fb7f375edaa260e069ecd34c88

CPU info

Brand: Processor rev 3 (v7l)
Speed: 1.50Mhz
Number of cores: 4
Physical cores: 4
Average load: 27%
Temperature: 57°C

Memory info

Memory: 2031152 Ko
Free: 877604 Ko
Used: 1153548 Ko

Storage info

INTERNAL storage - Size: 27379Mo Used: 1637Mo Available: 24324Mo (89%)

Yes, that’s almost the same case, except I have a digione.

Why not implement a sleep mode where the unit will have a chance to stay cool when not in use? It can be awaken when the user access volumio.local

You can still try to change the governor
To see available

cat /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_available_governors

then, you have to be root

sudo su

and

cd /sys/devices/system/cpu
echo ondemand > cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor

gives

System Information

OS info

    Version of Volumio: 2.835
    Hostname: volumio-rpi4
    Kernel: 4.19.118-v7l+
    Governor: ondemand
    Uptime: 0 days, 0 Hrs, 32 Minutes, 48 Seconds


Audio info

    Hw audio configured: USB AUDIO
    Mixer type: Hardware
    Number of channels:
    Supported sample rate: 


Board info

    Manufacturer: Raspberry Pi Foundation
    Model: BCM2835 - Pi 4 Model B
    Version: b03111 - Rev. 1.1
    Firmware Version: Apr 27 2020 14:33:37 - 3a8f1793b758d6fb7f375edaa260e069ecd34c88


CPU info

    Brand: Processor rev 3 (v7l)
    Speed: 1.50Mhz
    Number of cores: 4
    Physical cores: 4
    Average load: 28%
    Temperature: 52°C


Memory info

    Memory: 2031152 Ko
    Free: 849844 Ko
    Used: 1181308 Ko


Storage info

    INTERNAL storage - Size: 27379Mo Used: 1637Mo Available: 24324Mo (89%)

Actually the difference might be the governor. Volumio uses performances while Raspbian uses ondemand.
We did use performance because it’s helping with USB glitches on older PI models

I repeat myself: 67 is fine as a temp

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So you wouldn’t bother changing the governor to onDemand, if I I don’t use any usb?

just test… no risk

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@volumio so considering I run pi4 with digione and SPDIF, this won’t affect sound quality in any way?

No it won’t.
But I wouldn’t bother even changing it :wink:

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I already did, haha. The temperature is actually falling as we speak!

Will future updates of Volumio update the firmware version, considering it is from april?

Yes, as soon as the new 5.X kernel is stable enough for our use

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Awesome!

onDemand makes the unit run at 58-59 celcius when not in use. Since the FW is from April 2020 I don’t suppose the new 5x kernel will make much difference to the temp anyway. Will updates in Volumio change the governor back to performance?

I shall stop thinking about it as per your instructions :wink:

No, now that you edited a file manually, it will persist among updates

And yes, just focus on the music and stop thinking about temps :wink:

Will do! 10 degree celcius lower is still a pretty nice improvement though.

I have 6 Pi’s running synchronised Hi-res. None of them go above 52 playing non-stop, but all running PcP. (PcP does ‘on demand’ by default)

If you really want to dig in deep, there seem to be some good suggestions here about underclocking and other tweaks. But to me 59 still seems to be well below the danger zone anyway.

After I shut down the unit and powered it on again, the governor was changed back to performance?

Tested again, then restarted, and it changes back to performance?

The only way I managed to override Volumio is to use the following in /etc/rc.local

sleep 5
echo ondemand >/sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu0/cpufreq/scaling_governor
exit 0

Sleep has to be there or Volumio just overrides it.

Perhaps @volumio should add an option for the user to change the governor in the UI, instead of it always running performance.

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Change in this file:

/etc/default/cpufrequtils