Raspberry Pi 4

I have just bought myself a UGREEN USB-C HUB. It doesn’t work on my Pi4.

With two converters in ‘series’ (CtoA and AtoC), my nice new USB-C hub now works. I am still using GPIO power.

Devices on the Hub are Keyboard, Mouse and mSATA drive.

The Element 14 “Pi Desktop” (as sold by CPC Farnell) consists of a case plus the mSATA HAT. The case is designed for the Pi 2 / Pi 3, so can’t be used with a Pi 4 as the power/USB/Ethernet ports are in different positions.

You are right – the case can’t be used.

But the HAT will sit nicely on top of a Pi4 and the onboard mSATA can be connected to an external hub with a cable. My new Element 14 “Pi Desktop” kit arrived this morning and the on-board mSATA works with a USB cable. A much neater solution and the board also provides GPIO power.

PS My original Pi Desktop board still does not work with a Pi4, but the new one does. Strange, as they are both marked as Rev03: The only visible difference is that new board has a lithium battery socket added.

PPS My thanks to all involved in getting the Pi 4 working. (albeit, with only one USB port)

PPPS CPU Temperature of 49’C at 700MHz idle. Also nice.

I have been running my Pi4 with SDIO power …

To avoid misunderstandings. I do not mean that. The Pi-Top offers a “power off” function that can be activated during shutdown and switches the Pi-Top off. Works with my Pi3B + but not with my Pi4. The whole thing is controlled via the GPIO header. I have no details. I think I have read that the Pi4 can work like the Pi3B but does not have to. Depending on the software.
I use an OTG cable …

and a Pi hub hat

and an SD card switch

to choose between RISC OS and Linux before booting.

Great set up Raik, makes me almost wish that I still had a PiTop 1. I wonder will the Pi-Top folk go back to a Pi-Top 1 design for the Pi4 or modify the current design. Your OTG cable looks a perfect solution for powering the Pi4 and having a keyboard/mouse.

Has anyone worked out how to run the PI4 at higher clock speeds in RISC OS?

Has anyone worked out how to run the PI4 at higher clock speeds in RISC OS?

You’ll need some sort of cooling otherwise the cpu will spend most of the time being throttled.
The maximum clock speed is 2147MHz. Default is 1500MHz. Find the ‘[pi4]’ section in config.txt.

[pi4]
arm_freq=2147
over_voltage=6

the list of over_voltage / arm_freq that I’ve used on various pi4 are as follows:-
2 / 1750
3 / 1800
4 / 1900
6 / 2000

But its a game of silicon lottery, I can’t get any of my pi’s to run at 2147 for 24 hours a day reliably.
As for cooling, if I remember correctly, I could run riscos at a constant 1800 arm_freq and stay not too hot without any cooling with a heatsink/fan. That Pi is now in a flirc case (a big heatsink with no fan) and never gets over 55 deg when running riscos at 1800 24/7.

If you are using all the cores (unlikely in riscos at the moment) then up to 1800, passive cooling with a heatsink should be ok.
My pi4 supercomputer ‘CrayPi1’ runs 24/7 @ 1800 in flirc cases and just keeps cool enough (<70 not to need any extra cooling). Any higher freq will need fan cooling (in my experience).

Note. ‘CrayPi1’ consists of 7 pi4’s and is currently running rosetta@home, it can just outpace a 6 year old high end(ish) PC running the same project (that’s 21 cores vs 6 hyper threaded cores).

Note

Thanks Chris and Jeff, I am using 1750 as a starting point and will work my way up to 2147. Jeff love the name of your machine CrayPi. I have a PiMoroni fan shim and that seem to keep the CPU cool.

Happy to report that my Pi4 is now running at 2GHZ and keeping well below 60C Thanks for the help.

I had a look at the Geekworm website (https://geekworm.com/products/)and the Raspberry Pi 4 x857 usb3.0 mSATA SSD Expansion Board looks very interesting. When the Pi4 has operational usb 3 ports, this would turn the Pi4 into a great Desktop computer.

I see that the Pi Foundation have just launced a new Pi4 with 8 GB of ram and better USB C power support.

Cool – I guess I’d better finish off these changes then!

Yes please Jeffrey, that would be amazing.

Applications are limited to 3MB in any one core, so don’t get too carried away – the USB stuff is probably more pressing.

The USB stuff is probably more pressing.

Chris agreed, got carried away with thoughts of 8GB compared to the glory days of 32K on a BBC Micro. The Pi foundation have launched a 64bit version of Raspbian which can address the full 8GB. Perhaps we could have a bounty to clone Jeffrey, Ben, Sprow and the tean?

Just to report the 8GB rpi4 boots into RISC OS ok. Just uses the first 4GB. It’s also no longer necessary to wiggle the USB C connector to get it to power on using a USB C power pass through hub.

Jumbo wimp slots and 2GB RAM disc would be useful though.

And it’s a big, but not that big, hello from an 8GB RPi4. Rather pleasingly it just worked. The USB power problem is sorted, power is now via a USB C hub with power-through. On board EtherGENET, tick. 3899MB RAM is reported.

and the tean?

Ah, the tean.
That mystical hamster like creature that trundles the wheel that makes the power that makes all of this work.

New Pi, new revision code.

A somewhat empirical suggestion.

--- ADFS::ROOL.$.ROOL.RPi4.BCM2835.RiscOS.Sources.HAL.HAL_BCM2835.s.GPIO_00	2020-05-29 16:04:42.0 +0100
+++ ADFS::ROOL.$.ROOL.RPi4.BCM2835.RiscOS.Sources.HAL.HAL_BCM2835.s.GPIO	2020-05-29 16:04:42.0 +0100
@@ -327,2 +327,4 @@
         DCD     GPIORevision_RaspberryPi_Mk4_B
+        DCD     BoardRevision_Mem_8G+BoardRevision_Model_B4+(4:SHL:BoardRevision_Rev_Shift)
+        DCD     GPIORevision_RaspberryPi_Mk4_B
         DCD     &FF

-- ADFS::ROOL.$.ROOL.RPi4.BCM2835.RiscOS.Sources.HAL.HAL_BCM2835.hdr.BCM2835_00	2020-05-29 16:05:46.0 +0100
+++ ADFS::ROOL.$.ROOL.RPi4.BCM2835.RiscOS.Sources.HAL.HAL_BCM2835.hdr.BCM2835	2020-05-29 16:05:46.0 +0100
@@ -333,2 +333,3 @@
 BoardRevision_Mem_4G        *   4 :SHL: BoardRevision_Mem_Shift
+BoardRevision_Mem_8G        *   5 :SHL: BoardRevision_Mem_Shift
 BoardRevision_Manuf_Shift   *  16

What does the tean think?

What does the tean think?

Deep in the basement of ROOL House, a lonely tean pauses for 10 clock cycles to read the message. With a shrug of the shoulders mutters “it is not for me,” and passes it back to Wimp_Poll. Then continues on with the endless uphill cycles, with further mutterings “What next, support fot 4 cores, 64 bit RISC OS, NVMe support for Pi5, where it all end?”

I know it does not make sense but I have taken the plunge and opted for a Pi 4 with 8 GB of memory and a Pimoroni fan shim.

Cool – I guess I’d better finish off these changes then!

It would be great, at least, to be able to use the additional RAM for RamDisk and DAs. I have some Basic code that can easily saturate my current setup (1 GB RAM). I could try to convert it to use DAs.

> no longer necessary to wiggle the USB C connector

My understanding so far was that Pi 4 Rev. 1.1 1GB had a faulty USB C connector and would not work with powered hub. And that Pi 4 Rev. 1.2 2GB and 4GB had this fixed and would work. But now you are saying to work properly the improvement made in Pi 4 Rev. 1.4 8GB is also required?

> I have used an ACE4U hub to get my Pi 4 up and running

The Ace4U hub is originally for the Pi A. But there is also the BIG7 hub with the same driver chip made for the Pi B which would fit better under the Pi 4. Is there any reason this would not work?

http://www.uugear.com/product/ace4u-4-port-usb-hub-for-raspberry-pi-a-3a/

http://www.uugear.com/product/7-port-usb-hub-for-raspberry-pi/

And that Pi 4 Rev. 1.2 2GB and 4GB had this fixed and would work.

It works, but you need to play with the USB cable.
With Pi 4 Rev 1.4, it’s just fully working.

I did not make tests for now, but this device, placed between the Pi and its PSU, should just work:
https://www.amazon.fr/Posugear-Adaptateur-Aluminium-Transfert-Chromebook/dp/B077M9KRFF/

> no longer necessary to wiggle the USB C connector

I have come to the conclusion that a lot of my perceived problems with a Pi 4 were because you can wiggle the connector and the various other USB connections needed to run a Pi 4 with an SSD (or mSATA). They were all loose electrically as well as mechanically!

I have now added a wooden splint to the USB-C socket and the adapter and connector plugged into that. I have also added some physical support to all of the other USB connections and hey presto; a much more movement tolerant computer.

I know it does not make sense but I have taken the plunge and opted for a Pi 4 with 8 GB of memory.

It makes a lot of sense to me. It guarantees that you get a Release 1.2 board (no USB-C hardware fault and up-to-date firmware) and, presumably, a much bigger RAM Disc

Still ticking along nicely at 2GHz and only 35’C.