Rockbox Technical Forums

Support and General Use => Hardware => Topic started by: nexekho on June 01, 2010, 08:21:28 PM

Title: Serious heat issue with Fuze V2
Post by: nexekho on June 01, 2010, 08:21:28 PM
Ok, I understand that the Fuze V2 port isn't yet considered even stable but I've been playing around with it and it seems stable enough.  I'm more worried about the blistering heat Rockbox seems to cause the little device to put out; it never even gets warm with the original firmware and fourty seconds of metronome is enough warrant to cause the screen to flicker and die (probably owing to the heat damaging the ribbon cable; when it cools down it comes back) and the battery to empty.  I fully comprehend that it's a freetime project and it's nowhere near complete, but this is a serious potentially device ruining issue that I personally believe could warp/desolder components in minutes and the CPU clock rate needs to come right down before a Fuze blows up.
Title: Re: Serious heat issue with Fuze V2
Post by: Chronon on June 01, 2010, 09:03:29 PM
Solder requires very high temperatures to melt.  I am pretty confident that the temperature of your player is quite a large margin away from this.  If a cable was damaged, cooling would do nothing to improve its operation.  The phenomenology that you are seeing most surely has another explanation.  LCD not operating correctly probably has to do with some chip overheating. 

It would be much more helpful if you can figure out exactly what conditions cause this behavior to appear. 

Are other Fuze v2 owners seeing anything similar?
Title: Re: Serious heat issue with Fuze V2
Post by: nexekho on June 01, 2010, 09:06:53 PM
It hasn't actually fixed; after about ten minutes it's started flickering and the brightness appears capped at 40%.  There is another thread where normal Rockbox usage has killed a FuzeV2's LCD.  In my case it appears to be linked to the glowing ring of light; the screen problems only persist when it is on.  Weirdly, it seems perfectly capable of displaying video on full screen brightness unless I do something that lights up the ring.
Title: Re: Serious heat issue with Fuze V2
Post by: saratoga on June 01, 2010, 09:26:25 PM
I fully comprehend that it's a freetime project and it's nowhere near complete, but this is a serious potentially device ruining issue that I personally believe could warp/desolder components in minutes and the CPU clock rate needs to come right down before a Fuze blows up.

With the clock maxed out, the CPU only puts out ~150mW, which is not enough to heat the inside more then a degree or so.  The only thing in the Fuze capable of generating that kind of heat is the lithium ion battery, and only if it fails.  I strongly recommend you replace your fuze immediately.  Serious battery failure is a fire hazard. 
Title: Re: Serious heat issue with Fuze V2
Post by: nexekho on June 01, 2010, 09:30:44 PM
The battery in the Fuze is up top (I know, I've taken one apart before to try and save it from water death, sadly I failed) and this heat is coming from the very bottom left corner whenever the blue ring is on.  The PCB shows that there is a big blocklike component of some description which looks like some kind of power amp.  Given its close proximity to the USB socket I'd say that's what RB has possibly blown up.
Title: Re: Serious heat issue with Fuze V2
Post by: saratoga on June 01, 2010, 09:44:56 PM
The battery in the Fuze is up top (I know, I've taken one apart before to try and save it from water death, sadly I failed) and this heat is coming from the very bottom left corner whenever the blue ring is on.  The PCB shows that there is a big blocklike component of some description which looks like some kind of power amp.  Given its close proximity to the USB socket I'd say that's what RB has possibly blown up.

Its some analog component so I doubt this is a rockbox problem.  Since we don't really use it I'm not sure what it does.  Maybe a voltage regulator for the battery or the LED lights.  Either way, my point stands, something has failed completely and you absolutely should not turn the player back on.  Replace it. 
Title: Re: Serious heat issue with Fuze V2
Post by: funman on June 02, 2010, 04:43:19 AM
Perhaps the button LEDs are not designed to be powered on for 10 minutes as the OF never does that unless you scroll for 10 minutes.

1 minute with LCD on and LEDs on doesn't cause any heating on my fuzev2
Title: Re: Serious heat issue with Fuze V2
Post by: nexekho on June 02, 2010, 04:52:51 AM
I'm not entirely convinced.  It isn't covered by warranty because technically it's a screen issue (which pretty much no limited warranty on the planet covers) and the power management system could easily experience undefined behavior if the wrong registers are set, etc.  To you who said you've had one running with no problems, run Doom for fifteen minutes with the screen on full and see how long it lasts.  I've also noticed that the original firmware now says "GOODBYE" when I turn it off; it never used to do this before I installed RB and even after reintroducing the firmware that used to be on the device it still comes up with it.  Weird.
Title: Re: Serious heat issue with Fuze V2
Post by: funman on June 02, 2010, 07:16:29 AM
I think the OF introduced "GOODBYE" message a long time ago (on Clipv1/Fuzev1 at least, I don't remember if it was ever absent in Fuzev2 releases).

Do I have to actually play doom to cause overheat or can I just run it and leave it for 15 minutes?
Title: Re: Serious heat issue with Fuze V2
Post by: nexekho on June 02, 2010, 08:16:16 AM
Mine started having problems with metronome but it got rediculously hot with most plugins.  Also make sure your brightness is on full.
Title: Re: Serious heat issue with Fuze V2
Post by: funman on June 02, 2010, 10:15:04 AM
Does it happen if you reduce brightness?
Title: Re: Serious heat issue with Fuze V2
Post by: bolski on June 02, 2010, 12:25:28 PM
I have felt it get warm, but no warmer than it's gotten with the normal firmware.

I've played Rockbox for Fuze v2 for about 3 hours straight on a trip this past weekend in my car and no screen flicker or anything.

Title: Re: Serious heat issue with Fuze V2
Post by: funman on June 02, 2010, 12:45:37 PM
The backlight current (in sink1) can be modified in 32 steps of 1.2mA (0 - 37.2mA)

Perhaps 37.2mA is too much?

I never use full brightness.
Title: Re: Serious heat issue with Fuze V2
Post by: Jennifur on June 02, 2010, 01:13:14 PM
The backlight current (in sink1) can be modified in 32 steps of 1.2mA (0 - 37.2mA)

Perhaps 37.2mA is too much?

I never use full brightness.

It might be. I don't know the math off hand though.
Title: Re: Serious heat issue with Fuze V2
Post by: saratoga on June 02, 2010, 01:41:15 PM
37 mA is comparable to the normal current of the player, so thats not going to heat up the device.  Its also not that much current split across 4 LEDs. 

Since the battery was implied to discharge a lot faster then the 5 hours that would take driving the LEDs, I don't think its the issue here.

Title: Re: Serious heat issue with Fuze V2
Post by: Beefy2k on June 06, 2010, 08:55:03 AM
I've also noticed that the original firmware now says "GOODBYE" when I turn it off; it never used to do this before I installed RB and even after reintroducing the firmware that used to be on the device it still comes up with it.  Weird.

I have a V2 and the goodbye message was always there, both before and after installing RB.  My guess is you just quit paying attention to the screen when the little animation faded away.

this heat is coming from the very bottom left corner whenever the blue ring is on.

You can turn off the blue light in the settings.  Have you tried that to see if it makes a difference in the heat levels?  That info might help them troubleshoot the problem?

I turned off the blue ring on mine and turned down the brightness to almost its lowest level as soon as I installed RB just for battery life so I can not validate your issues.
Title: Re: Serious heat issue with Fuze V2
Post by: cowkleaver on June 10, 2010, 06:17:40 PM
I can verify that I have seen this same heat issue on my V2.  Whatever is causing the issue, it persists across both RB and OF.  I have tried "reset to factory" and other similar settings in the OF, reflashed the OF, reflashed RB, etc.  and all have had no effect.

When I first noticed this problem I was listening to the radio feature (though I think this is unrelated).  I was also going through the RB settings and playing with Backlight and Wheel Light options.  I do not recall which menu I was in or what the settings were -- all I know is that I was increasing a setting.  While performing this operation I noticed that the LCD started to flicker and the device started to become warm.  I reset.  The screen seems to go black at the times I would expect the backlight to be turning on and becomes visible when I would expect the backlight to be turning off.

As I mentioned before this behavior seems to persist.  The fuze can get very hot now, and the battery is nearly drained.  I'm somewhat reluctant to try and let it charge lest something decide to magic smoke release on me.

Let me know if anyone has any bright ideas, or if I can give any additional info that might help.

Thanks for your efforts.

--edit 1

After some quick charging it seems that changing the wheel light timer to anything but off in RB will cause the LCD to go black when the wheel turns on.

Adjusting the backlight intensity appears to have no effect and I'm beginning to suspect that this lack of control over the backlight intensity may be the best symptom to diagnose with.

--edit 2

As long as the backlight shuts off the device remains cool to the touch.  The fuze is able to charge in RB.  But when in OF the backlight does not turn off and the device becomes warm.


The best way to sum things up are that I no longer seem to have proper control of the backlight intensity, and that when the backlight is on the device appears to start getting hot.

HTH.

--
Kevin
Title: Re: Serious heat issue with Fuze V2
Post by: funman on June 10, 2010, 10:33:08 PM
Best thing you should do is replace the player, and try to get info on this problem from Sandisk if you can contact them
Title: Re: Serious heat issue with Fuze V2
Post by: heyster on September 24, 2010, 04:46:15 PM
I have also experienced an overheat issue similar to those described in this thread, but only with Rockbox.  I've been using the Fuze with the original firmware for about a year.  Been using RB for several weeks.  Never experienced an overheat with the OF.

build r28081-100914 on a Fuze v2

Here's the story as much as I can recall...

I was setting up different configs thru several .cfg files.  I already had one I called "default.cfg" with fairly middle-of-the-road settings and had added another with low backlight brightness and low audio volume called "night.cfg".  The wheel light setting was 2 seconds for all of my configs.

Here's where it got interesting...

I was setting up "daylight.cfg" with full backlight brightness for daytime use.  I had used this setting for maybe a minute, picked up the device and felt the intense heat from the back of the Fuze.  I noticed the backlight changing brightness (not what I would call flickering as it was changing every few 100 ms or so) as if could not decide which brightness setting to use.  I fumbled for a few seconds trying to get into the brightness settings, but felt the temperature rising quickly.  As far as I can remember, at no point did the display blank out.

Knowing the damage this could do to the battery (and other components) I immediately powered off the Fuze and let it cool down.  Later on I connected it to my laptop to charge the depleted battery and to restore a good config.

The point of high heat seemed to be in the center-left (looking at the front) of the player.  I can't be dogmatic about that as I was scrambling to get the thing powered off.

Since charging and going back to a less-than-full brightness setting, I've not noticed any fallout.  My intuition tells me that this high-drain and subsequent heat from the battery is related to the full backlight brightness setting.

Based on the talk here, I've set the wheel light to OFF.

I haven't had any issues since this, but I'm hesitant to use a high brightness setting.
Title: Re: Serious heat issue with Fuze V2
Post by: PockyMaster on October 07, 2010, 11:11:25 PM
Well, I can also testify towards this overheat problem.

I was actually curious one day and decided to ramp up my brightness and wheel light after reading this thread. The heat definitely started building up in the bottom left corner roughly 30 seconds in. I used my lips to check for any temperature differences because they were the most sensitive to temperature changes, and I kept my warm hands away from the back of the device and just used my fingers to scroll, so the lights would stay on, while the player sat on my bed. From there, I backed out as quickly as possible and returned it to regular settings. The screen didn't flicker as I tried this. It only does so while i'm an hour into rockboy, and, that's where crazy things happen.

It not only flickers, but blanks out and sometimes mirrors the visual output from the lcd (Like, b's look like d's). That's when I start freaking out and start wondering if my device is covered by demonic possession in the warranty and frantically restart it in both the OF and rockbox with the same residual effects for roughly 5 minutes.



I guess it's safe to say that I should not be playing games on rockbox for more than an hour just yet.

I know this may sound like a joke with the whole lip temperature check and crazy screen flipping, but I'm dead serious.




Normal Setting for brightness for music, listing, games etc: 3
Scrollwheel light: off
Volume Setting: 6dB (no headphones connected)

FunFact: That's how i found out the fuze's back was made of a coated metal material.
FunFact2: I'm in school for materials engineering.
Title: Re: Serious heat issue with Fuze V2
Post by: fuzerotr on October 25, 2010, 05:30:43 PM
I too have a heat issue with my Fuze v2 (bought refurbished from Newegg on 02/06/10.)

Installed Rockbox in Sep.  Reinstalled 10/10 or thereabouts, using RockboxUtil (on Ubuntu 10.04LTS.)  While exploring some of the plugin apps (clock then lamp) my screen went black. I rebooted into rockbox and the screen came on momentarily.  Rebooted into Sansa firmware (v2.03.33), same problem.

Screen would go black whenever wheel light was on.  I then:
   1. Drained the battery (OF, started music playing by patiently waiting for wheel light to go off, then using the wheel in small increments.)
   2. Manually reinstalled OF.
   3. Charged  via wallplug adapter.
   4. Rebooted to OF. Problem persisted.
   5. Installed latest Fuze v2 Rockbox as of 10/25 (r28360-101025).
   6. Booted into Rockbox.  Same problem.

Researched Fuze v2 Rockbox manual, found that wheel light could be turned off.  Did so.  I can now navigate as usual (I have display turn off after 10 secs).  However, Fuze gets hot when charging and when backlight or wheel light stays on.  Also, max charge now seems to be around 70%.

I will try charging while rockbox running to see if it still gets hot (while backlight and wheel light are off?)

Just playing music (256kbit mp3) does not cause fuze to get hot, or even warm.

Will post update as I find out more.


Title: Re: Serious heat issue with Fuze V2
Post by: saratoga on October 25, 2010, 06:00:20 PM
I too have a heat issue with my Fuze v2 (bought refurbished from Newegg on 02/06/10.)

Can you compile?  Trying out some other values for the second argument to ascodec_write_pmu on line 74 of backlight-fuzev2.c might fix your problem.  The last bit must stay 1, but after that increasing number in the first 7 bit should reduce power to the wheel light.  0xF0 for instance should reduce it by a factor of 2 or so.  Not sure if thats the problem, and I don't have a V2 fuze so I have no idea if it'll even do anything :)
Title: Re: Serious heat issue with Fuze V2
Post by: fuzerotr on October 25, 2010, 09:37:06 PM
Quote
I will try charging while rockbox running to see if it still gets hot (while backlight and wheel light are off?)

Charging with Rockbox running, which keeps backlight and wheel light off, does not heat up the fuze v2.  Last charge percent reached 93%.

I believe that the "lamp" plugin overloaded the LED drivers and damaged them somehow, so that the screen and/or wheel light draw excessive current (?) and cause the fuze to heatup.

However, I can live with this.

WARNING! Trying the "lamp" plugin may have damaged my Fuze v2
Title: Re: Serious heat issue with Fuze V2
Post by: saratoga on October 25, 2010, 09:58:38 PM
I believe that the "lamp" plugin overloaded the LED drivers and damaged them somehow, so that the screen and/or wheel light draw excessive current (?) and cause the fuze to heatup.

The lamp plugin on the Fuze can't change the LED brightness so that seems unlikely. 
Title: Re: Serious heat issue with Fuze V2
Post by: noco on March 22, 2011, 12:26:31 PM
Hi,

I have the same issue with my just bought refurbished V2. I set the brightness to 3 and turned the lights round the clickwheel off, but it still heats and the battery drops very fast. With this the Fuze player isn't usable.

Are there any news or fixes for this problem?

EDIT: I now removed rockbox and realized that the player gets also warm when scrolling in the original menu. Is this normal?
What annoyed me most was that the battery drops so fast when scrolling. Needs the battery gauge of a new/refurbished player some time to calibrate?

EDIT2: I just reinstalled rockbox and found out that it heats the player even listening to music with turned off display. And in compared to the OF it's much warmer.. I don't know what's wrong here..


Nico.
Title: Re: Serious heat issue with Fuze V2
Post by: Zander on March 22, 2011, 08:07:10 PM
Unless you get a smell of electronics overheating from the MircoSD slot I'd say your safe.


By the way this is where I feel the heat on mine, pay no attention to that tiny red circle over those two pins I'm using the recovery picture to describe this.

(http://i53.tinypic.com/2gyd0js.jpg)

I'm thinking it's that little CMOS next to the audio jack but I have no way of finding out what it is using the numbers on it.
Title: Re: Serious heat issue with Fuze V2
Post by: noco on March 27, 2011, 03:04:55 PM
Hi,

sorry for my late answer, I was skiing the last few days.

The problem is that the battery wents empty within 1 hour with rockbox even with the display beeing off and just listening to music. There are now a few options for me:

- buy another refurbished Fuze from itsor (http://myworld.ebay.de/itstor/?_trksid=p4340.l2559)

- buy an used Fuze and hope that it works better with Rockbox (question: V1 or V2?)

- buy a new Clip and hope that the battery is tolerable with a plugged in sd-card


Thanks for your help.
Title: Re: Serious heat issue with Fuze V2
Post by: Zander on March 28, 2011, 04:36:06 PM
Does the gauge say the
Title: Re: Serious heat issue with Fuze V2
Post by: noco on March 28, 2011, 04:39:35 PM
Hm?
Title: Re: Serious heat issue with Fuze V2
Post by: Zander on March 28, 2011, 10:14:17 PM
Oh man,

Does the bat. gauge stay in the red?


I've noticed on mine it stays in the red, but never actually dies.

 It jumps up to half, then down to red, then quarter the way full then red, etc.

I think the algorithm for the battery gauge gets screwed up.

I have a question for anyone reading this, how do I turn on the deep charge ?
Title: Re: Serious heat issue with Fuze V2
Post by: noco on March 29, 2011, 01:54:49 AM
Does the bat. gauge stay in the red?

I've noticed on mine it stays in the red, but never actually dies.

It jumps up to half, then down to red, then quarter the way full then red, etc.

I noticed that with the original firmware AND rockbox but i thought with rockbox it drops faster. I think i'll give the Fuze with rockbox a last try in every day use and hope that the battery will last long enough.

Post Merge: March 29, 2011, 03:27:39 PM
Unfortnunately the battery drops really fast with rockbox. It was almost full and didn't last over 2 hours. Looking at the heat the player produces all the time in my opinion this is really understandable. Now I ordered a Clip+. If you see any chance that another Fuze will work better, is maybe I'll buy another Fuze but at the moment I don't want to risk buying another player not working with rockbox.
Title: Re: Serious heat issue with Fuze V2
Post by: noco on March 31, 2011, 01:39:25 PM
I believe I found out what the heat was creating. It was the sdhc card ich had put in. Without this card the player gets cooler if the display is off.

Any ideas what I can do about this? I need the 16GB card. Might there be any rockbox version which works with sdhc cards properly?
Title: Re: Serious heat issue with Fuze V2
Post by: Chronon on March 31, 2011, 09:28:57 PM
What revision are you using?  There was a recent commit having to do with SD handling for AMSv2 players (including the Fuze v2).
Title: Re: Serious heat issue with Fuze V2
Post by: noco on April 01, 2011, 01:54:55 AM
I'm using a refurbished V2 with the newest firmware.

What do you mean with AMSv2? I now bought a new Clip+ and everythink seems to work fine so far :)
Title: Re: Serious heat issue with Fuze V2
Post by: yapper on April 01, 2011, 07:19:26 AM
A V2 is an AMSv2.

Chronon was referring to the revision of Rockbox - are you running release 3.8, or a current build? If you were running 3.8, try a current build instead.
Title: Re: Serious heat issue with Fuze V2
Post by: noco on April 01, 2011, 12:11:09 PM
I was running the stable 3.8 and now tried the latest build, but it did heat up as the 3.8. It looks like I have to go with the Clip+ which seems to work properly. Thanks for your help however!
Title: Re: Serious heat issue with Fuze V2
Post by: riseup on May 13, 2011, 01:03:44 PM
Hello there,

I want to confirm on the heat issue.
I bought a refurbished Fuze (v2) and was very happy to see that I could use it also as a flashlight.
Until then I didn't experience any heat problems although I used it a lot, played games on it while listening to music (over quite a time) etc.

I didn't turn off the flashlight though and left it lying around for maybe 20 minutes.
After I touched it I realized that it got really hot and turned it off imediately.

Same story after it had cooled down, whenever the light of the scroll wheel was turned on, the backlight turned off.
Thanks to this thread I found out that with a permanently turned of light of the scroll wheel, the backlight works properly again.

I can live with a turned off ring light (although I liked it), but there are still some issues:

a) In my opinion, the battery has taken permanent damage, when charging the scale jumps around and even goes backwards, the capacity seems to be a lot lower (I am going to do a battery bench test and post the results later)

b) From time to time, the screen flickers.
Regarding the brightness: If I try to adjust it, I can only choose between 1 and 2 - all the other numbers don't change anything. I don't know though, whether this "bug" was induced by the heat or not because I did not try before.

Are there any new thoughts about that?
Has anyone actually tried to replace the battery?
Does anyone know whether I could get a new refurbished one based on guarantee issues? (I bought it via ebay from another country, so this option is quite a hassle for me, that's why I hesitate to do that)

As this is my first post in this forum, I also want to thank the whole team for the great work they have done. I really appreciate it!

For the manual, however, I think this issue should be covered to prevent further damage.

Greetings,
riseup

e: I am running the current build of RB.
Title: Re: Serious heat issue with Fuze V2
Post by: Chronon on May 13, 2011, 01:33:14 PM
Regarding (a),  the battery meter does this anyway.  Take a look at any of the posted battery benchmarks.  Under varying load the voltage delivered by a battery will fluctuate.  So, observing this sort of behavior doesn't automatically indicate any problem.  battery_bench results will give a more objective indication of a problem, though it would be better if you had results from before you noticed any problems.

I'm not opposed to adding a cautionary note to the Fuze v2 manual.  It should probably mention that a small number of users have reported problems and briefly describe them.  You can always post an entry to the patch tracker if you want to hasten this.  The manual is written in LaTeX and a diff against the current manual code would be ideal, but you can also just post plain text that clearly indicates the desired change.

If you want to try replacing the battery there are some disassembly/tear-down pics linked in the wiki. 
Title: Re: Serious heat issue with Fuze V2
Post by: Zander on May 18, 2011, 02:03:05 PM
Hello there,

I want to confirm on the heat issue.
I bought a refurbished Fuze (v2) and was very happy to see that I could use it also as a flashlight.
Until then I didn't experience any heat problems although I used it a lot, played games on it while listening to music (over quite a time) etc.

I didn't turn off the flashlight though and left it lying around for maybe 20 minutes.
After I touched it I realized that it got really hot and turned it off imediately.

Same story after it had cooled down, whenever the light of the scroll wheel was turned on, the backlight turned off.
Thanks to this thread I found out that with a permanently turned of light of the scroll wheel, the backlight works properly again.

I can live with a turned off ring light (although I liked it), but there are still some issues:

a) In my opinion, the battery has taken permanent damage, when charging the scale jumps around and even goes backwards, the capacity seems to be a lot lower (I am going to do a battery bench test and post the results later)

b) From time to time, the screen flickers.
Regarding the brightness: If I try to adjust it, I can only choose between 1 and 2 - all the other numbers don't change anything. I don't know though, whether this "bug" was induced by the heat or not because I did not try before.

Are there any new thoughts about that?
Has anyone actually tried to replace the battery?
Does anyone know whether I could get a new refurbished one based on guarantee issues? (I bought it via ebay from another country, so this option is quite a hassle for me, that's why I hesitate to do that)

As this is my first post in this forum, I also want to thank the whole team for the great work they have done. I really appreciate it!

For the manual, however, I think this issue should be covered to prevent further damage.

Greetings,
riseup

e: I am running the current build of RB.

I can confirm this too, but I didn't use the flash light I just maxed the brightness.

I recently brought another 8GB sansa fuze v2 (marked down from 89.99 to 25.99). I will install rock box on it, but I'm thinking that I will try to change the source code for the brightness so I can only go as high as 8 as opposed to the 25 levels normally you get in rock box.

I just need to know, what language is rock box coded in?
Title: Re: Serious heat issue with Fuze V2
Post by: Chronon on May 18, 2011, 03:25:56 PM
It's written in C (with bits of assembly in certain places).
Title: Re: Serious heat issue with Fuze V2
Post by: saratoga on May 18, 2011, 03:48:22 PM
Would capping it at 20 be enough?  Or should it be less?
Title: Re: Serious heat issue with Fuze V2
Post by: nexekho on July 30, 2011, 06:11:50 PM
I'm very sorry for the bump, but this is important.

I managed to get my Fuze replaced not long after my previous posts, and I was wondering if the issue had been diagnosed and fixed so I looked and saw the V2 was considered "stable".  I look through this thread and notice nobody knows what's actually causing it or has fixed the issue.  If a basic power management problem exists under this firmware and not the stock firmware, then the problem is quite obviously with this firmware.  Perhaps some devices are "lucky" or exist in a colder climate so the problem is less apparent.  It doesn't matter.  And even though several people have had their devices ruined by Rockbox, you've pushed it up to stable.  Now I appreciate all the work you put in.  Rockbox is fantastic.  But it's irresponsible to have a fairly lengthy discussion from which I can draw the conclusion "It'll quite possibly kill your Fuze V2 through normal use" ignored.  Most of the posts of which are less than a few months old.

You cannot be serious about marking it stable if this isn't fixed.
Title: Re: Serious heat issue with Fuze V2
Post by: yapper on July 30, 2011, 07:15:38 PM
I've been using a 4GB v2 Fuze for some months with no problems. I have the wheel light timeout set to 2 seconds, backlight set On and brightness set to 14. I've used it for extended periods outdoors in 90 degrees F plus temperatures and haven't observed any unusual heating issues.

There was a change made in May that reduced the maximum brightness setting to 20.

EDIT: OF V02.03.33A allows the brightness to be adjusted over 12 steps. I have no way of knowing if their steps correspond to Rockbox's 1-12 or maybe 5-16 ...
Title: Re: Serious heat issue with Fuze V2
Post by: nexekho on July 30, 2011, 07:22:41 PM
I can't see anything in the change logs?  I'd consider "brightness capped to prevent permanent damage" more important than say "Remove track-number generation heuristic from database".  And just choosing a seemingly arbitrary number to cap the brightness at doesn't sound like a solution.  If I can have my brightness on full on original firmware, but we can't have it on Rockbox without blowing your device's power supply, it smells as if there's another more serious bug lurking and capping the brightness is just a sticking plaster.
Title: Re: Serious heat issue with Fuze V2
Post by: [Saint] on July 30, 2011, 11:48:39 PM
I don't happen to consider having the screen brightness maxed out for extended periods "normal use", also, it was not promoted to stable *after* this was discovered either. It was marked as stable well before then if I remember correctly.

This is also not something that is happening with all of these devices, mine for instance are fine and I see no overheating.

The developers cannot be help responsible for testing every single circumstance that may arise in the usage of the device, as what is "normal" usage to you may not be to them.
To many people these are audio players, not flashlights or ways to play Doom etc. etc. ;)

The developers also can't (nor should they) drop a port from stable to unstable based on problems that only a few devices are seeing. If that was the case then there would be very few ports (if any) that were "stable".

There have been limits set to (hopefully) prevent this overheating issue, but that's not to say that there are not as yet unknown variants of the hardware that will still be damaged by these new "safe" settings.

Also, you must consider that this is *free* software, and under no guarantee whatsoever, it is a conscious decision you are making to install it and if your device is damaged or left in a completely bricked state after installation or usage normal or otherwise then that falls on you and not the Rockbox team.


[St.]
Title: Re: Serious heat issue with Fuze V2
Post by: yapper on July 31, 2011, 12:38:45 AM
I can't see anything in the change logs?

Look here: http://svn.rockbox.org/viewvc.cgi?view=rev;revision=29896
Title: Re: Serious heat issue with Fuze V2
Post by: nexekho on July 31, 2011, 04:17:10 AM
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I don't happen to consider having the screen brightness maxed out for extended periods "normal use", also, it was not promoted to stable *after* this was discovered either. It was marked as stable well before then if I remember correctly.

When I installed it, it was an unstable build.  Within an hour, the problem surfaced and after a few more hours I posted here.  Since then it's been moved to "stable".  See my first post, I acknowledge that it was marked unstable.

Look here: http://svn.rockbox.org/viewvc.cgi?view=rev;revision=29896

Ah, thanks.  I'd expect changes to be listed, well, frankly, in the change log rather than having to pick through SVN.  Which I can't even find from the homepage.

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Also, you must consider that this is *free* software

I know and I have.  I think Rockbox is amazing.  So much functionality, on hardware the developers likely don't have official documentation for is astounding.  I've even donated previously because I think the project is an accomplishment and deserves all the support it can get.
Title: Re: Serious heat issue with Fuze V2
Post by: gevaerts on July 31, 2011, 07:59:25 AM
And just choosing a seemingly arbitrary number to cap the brightness at doesn't sound like a solution.  If I can have my brightness on full on original firmware, but we can't have it on Rockbox without blowing your device's power supply, it smells as if there's another more serious bug lurking and capping the brightness is just a sticking plaster.

How do you know capping isn't exactly what the OF is doing?
Title: Re: Serious heat issue with Fuze V2
Post by: nexekho on July 31, 2011, 08:44:40 AM
I didn't notice any brightness difference between OF and Rockbox pre-cap, but that doesn't say much as it's hard to compare.  Maybe it might be worth someone with a device on which it works and a camera with custom exposure settings load a blank photo in OF at full brightness in a dark room and then find the equivalent in Rockbox to be sure.
Title: Re: Serious heat issue with Fuze V2
Post by: yapper on July 31, 2011, 09:24:59 AM
Look here: http://svn.rockbox.org/viewvc.cgi?view=rev;revision=29896

Ah, thanks.  I'd expect changes to be listed, well, frankly, in the change log rather than having to pick through SVN.  Which I can't even find from the homepage.
It was listed on the front page (http://www.rockbox.org/) when it was first added. As the change was made months ago, you now need to scroll down to the SVN section (http://www.rockbox.org/recent.shtml#svn) and click the link for "all commits since last release" (http://www.rockbox.org/since-release.html).
Title: Re: Serious heat issue with Fuze V2
Post by: nexekho on July 31, 2011, 09:39:26 AM
I've just installed RB, added a blank white image, maxed the brightness in OF, taken a photo with fixed WB/shutter speed/apeture/ISO settings on my S1500, and then played with the brightness in RB until the photos came out pretty much identical.  9 looks about right.  As a side note, it still produces a lot of heat although not as much as when my previous Fuze died.
Title: Re: Serious heat issue with Fuze V2
Post by: gevaerts on July 31, 2011, 10:04:20 AM
I've just installed RB, added a blank white image, maxed the brightness in OF, taken a photo with fixed WB/shutter speed/apeture/ISO settings on my S1500, and then played with the brightness in RB until the photos came out pretty much identical.  9 looks about right.  As a side note, it still produces a lot of heat although not as much as when my previous Fuze died.

So (assuming this can be repeated on some more fuzes), the max. setting should be 9, and we'd be behaving the same as the OF?
Title: Re: Serious heat issue with Fuze V2
Post by: yapper on July 31, 2011, 10:10:11 AM
I've just done some testing and my results indicate that the maximum OF brightness setting corresponds with 12 on Rockbox, and that brightness 20 in Rockbox exceeds the maximum brightness produced by the OF

I used F3.5, ISO64 and and monitored the resultant shutter speed:
Fuze Firmware on max brightness = 1/74 sec
Rockbox brightness 12 = 1/74 sec
Rockbox brightness 13 = 1/74 sec
Rockbox brightness 20 = 1/111 sec

Title: Re: Serious heat issue with Fuze V2
Post by: nexekho on July 31, 2011, 10:12:55 AM
That's a very smart way to do it, I was just comparing the brightness by eye flicking between the two photos.  The viewing angle is probably quite important too as I was slightly off and my tripod isn't very accomodating of the angle I used.  I imagine it is a bit hard to notice as the default theme is considerably darker than OF's.

EDIT:
I just tried the shutter speed method, and found that on my camera (not a DSLR, just a high-end compact) with ISO 400 and F2.8, I get 1/640 for both 100% OF and 12 Rockbox.  So I can confirm the 12 value.  The heat seems to have stopped.
Title: Re: Serious heat issue with Fuze V2
Post by: yapper on July 31, 2011, 10:19:55 AM
Maybe Gevaerts or another dev can shed some light on it, but if the Rockbox LCD code is simply writing the brightness value directly to a register, it would be logical that 1-12 on Rockbox would correspond directly with the 12 brightness steps on the OF.
Title: Re: Serious heat issue with Fuze V2
Post by: soap on July 31, 2011, 10:25:17 AM
I don't happen to consider having the screen brightness maxed out for extended periods "normal use",
Really?  We ship with no warning/caution/advisory on the brightness setting, encourage extended use of the backlight through the inclusion of games, video playback and a bloody flashlight plugin, and you don't consider the situation "normal use"?  
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also, it was not promoted to stable *after* this was discovered either. It was marked as stable well before then if I remember correctly.
Timing doesn't matter.  "Stable" as a label either means something or it doesn't.  If there is a known issue it should at least be published.

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This is also not something that is happening with all of these devices, mine for instance are fine and I see no overheating.
Nobody is suggesting all have this issue.  This is clearly documented as not being an isolated incident.  Personal anecdotes notwithstanding.

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The developers cannot be help responsible for testing every single circumstance that may arise in the usage of the device, as what is "normal" usage to you may not be to them.
Nobody is asking them to.  What is being asked is for a repeatedly reported issue to be shown due consideration.

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To many people these are audio players, not flashlights or ways to play Doom etc. etc. ;)
If Rockbox isn't a flashlight or Doom player then why do we ship that?

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The developers also can't (nor should they) drop a port from stable to unstable based on problems that only a few devices are seeing. If that was the case then there would be very few ports (if any) that were "stable".
Citation needed.  Seriously.  Name another device with such serious hardware issues reported.

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There have been limits set to (hopefully) prevent this overheating issue, but that's not to say that there are not as yet unknown variants of the hardware that will still be damaged by these new "safe" settings.
Are you seriously arguing that since we can't predict unknown variant's behavior we should ignore known variant's behavior?

Quote
Also, you must consider that this is *free* software, and under no guarantee whatsoever, it is a conscious decision you are making to install it and if your device is damaged or left in a completely bricked state after installation or usage normal or otherwise then that falls on you and not the Rockbox team.
Again, all reasonable people already know this and it is not the point in contention.  What is in contention is the reasonable response to these reports.

Title: Re: Serious heat issue with Fuze V2
Post by: gevaerts on July 31, 2011, 11:33:38 AM
OK, I've now committed the necessary change. New svn builds will have 12 as the maximum (as of r30227).

I've also committed the change to the 3.9 branch, so if we release a 3.9.1, the change will be there as well.
Title: Re: Serious heat issue with Fuze V2
Post by: nexekho on July 31, 2011, 12:10:14 PM
Thank you!  I'm sorry if I came across as a bit snarky and disrespectful, but I'm glad to have this resolved.  I wonder if the limit also applies to the V1.
Title: Re: Serious heat issue with Fuze V2
Post by: Chronon on July 31, 2011, 06:23:24 PM
The v1 has different hardware, so I wouldn't expect so.