Hi,
I currently have an issue were music stops and the only way I can get it back is to reburn Volumio to an SD card as it gets corrupted. I was sure it was a faulty rpi3b so I changed to an rpi4b (both using an Allo digione hat) guess what? It still happens. Loading raspberry OS shows low voltage even though I measure 5.12v going in. So I’m assuming I’m not delivering enough power. My PSU is capable of 3.5A. So to prove this, I’d like to turn the USB ports off as I read it can save 1A and therefore give me me a bit more headroom.
Can anyone tell me how to do this in simple terms please? I’ve never coded before so I need treating gently 
thanks
it could be that the power supply is not giving what i should i had that with a 5.2v 5amp power supply,
( in real life it deliverd max 1,5 amp )
can you measure your power supply? i switched back to a original 5.1 / 3amp supply and no low voltage anymore.
I’m definitely delivering 5.1v to the pi but I’m unable to check the current.
i had 5.2 Volt only the amps where missing.
I think turning the USB off will certainly help if I can find out how.
all i can find about it is this:
After the eeprom update (rpi-eeprom package version 11.0),
I can turn off the power via
echo '1-1' > /sys/bus/usb/drivers/usb/bind
Hermann
Dec 20 '20 at 20:01
// How to turn USB port power on and off in Raspberry PI 4 - Stack Overflow
Why will turning the USB ports off save you 1A? Better just to get yourself a good power supply (one that you can trust delivers the current advertised).
Turning off the USB is damn sight cheaper than buying a better psu. The one I have is a filtered linear unit that cost more than my wife knows. I don’t want to give up on it.
Anyway, I’ve just borrowed a USB tester so that proved its not power. With the Allo digione, it only pulls 0.61A which is way below the max output of the psu. I guess I’m back to square one regarding corruption issues.
measure your boot in that moment it has peaks and that gives under voltage…
it doesn’t show you what your power supply can deliver.
You know info about your psu in the initial post would have been helpful? Are you using branded sd cards?
How long before your card is corrupted? Could you run the RPi without the HAT for long enough to rule out that? Just fishing here, because we need details to help. A system log might give clues.
That’s true but it says 3.5A on the spec. I kept my eye on it throughout the boot and it seems stable with no transient spikes unless of course they are faster than the tester can register.
Though to be honest, the corruption always occurs about an hour in to playing when everything should be warmed up nicely
don’t believe all they write on it… mine delivered only 1,5 amp on my pi 4 it was a 5,0 amp on specs.
and they said in store bad batch but the second one i got from a other batch the same results.
i switched back to 3 amp orginal version and what happend all running great again.
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A bit of random input from me. Are you using WiFi or ethernet. I had the exact same problems with volumio freezing and being non responsive, I was burning it onto an SD card every few days.
Problem totally disappeared when I connected through ethernet rather than WiFi. Now it’s always stable, I can’t remember the last time it didn’t work.
I’m only using the official pi power supply.
Unfortunately I’m already using ethernet. The latest thing I’m trying is to use a USB c to twin USB A power lead. So I’m powering the rpi from two USB sockets. Hopefully this might allow more headroom. I played it for an hour yesterday without problem. Finger crossed
If you don’t have any USB peripheral connected to your Raspberry Pi, enabling or disabling the USB interface will not make any difference. 1A is the maximum current you can deliver to USB peripherals, but if you don’t have any, no current is consumed.
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Hi Datunwalnut
This is very odd - I am having a similar issue with an Allo Digione on RPi3 and RPi4 in that my SD Card gets corrupted on a regular basis.
I thought it was my IFI iPower initially after seeing a ton of complaints about it not being powerful enough and seeing the power warning icon appear from time to time with it. With this PSU, the card would corrupt within hours or sometimes a day or two if I was lucky.
I swapped it out for the official RPi PSU and that seemed better in that it only corrupts the card on a monthly basis - but still annoying.
This is my second unit for my office.
In the house, I have an Allo USBridge Signature with an Allo Digione Signature hat on it. The USBridge and Allo Digione Signature have separate power supplies and this unit hasn’t had a problem in two years. Really stable. However, I can’t pinpoint why this should be a more stable machine because I use an eMMC memory card with it (eMMC). Plus the power supplies on this machine are: Allo Nirvana for USBridge Sig (Nirvana SMPS) and Audiophonics LPSU25 (https://www.audiophonics.fr/en/hifi-power-supply/audiophonics-lpsu25-linear-regulated-low-noise-power-supply-usb-220v-to-5v-2a-25va-p-11364.html) for Digione Sig.
Sorry, I can’t offer any advice but I thought I’d let you know you’re not alone.
I’ve ditched all my cheap SD cards and I’m using just a Sandisk SD card now. The time frame for the problem to happen isn’t easy to say - I can use the RPI for a couple of hours a day without corruption and then the next day an hour in to listening, off it goes. Before buying the HAT, I was using both the RPi 3 and 4 just to USB. The Rpi 3b was being run off the official RPi PSU. If you could tell me how to run system logging, I’d set it up and post it.
Thanks Dom,
It’s certainly a weird one. At least it doesn’t sound like a faulty RPi if you’re getting it too.
No - know Allo like to use a lot of capacitors to level out power supply hiccups on Boss and Digione. You don’t think that the capacitor is somehow feeding power back into the Rpi?
Get Samsung memory card if you want something bulletproof, mine has been going for more than year without corruptions in car use, were the power is shutdown instantly when the key is removed, and the pi is powered by phone charger.
Like i do everything one should not do with my current install.
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