Third Party > Repairing and Upgrading Rockbox Capable Players
iPod Mini 2G Dramatic difference in battery life
denkly:
Hello! I've successfully upgraded my Mini 2G with iFlash CF-SD + new 600mAh battery. Installed Rockbox Daily, no problems. Did some tests and figured that on Rockbox playtime is about 6 hours, while on original OS it's over 20 hours. Is there some patch i need to apply? I don't want to stick with original OS on Mini, cause it's sounds so nice on Rockbox.
speachy:
Rockbox writes to the disk far, far more often than the Apple firmware.
The fundamental problem is that the CF->SD chipset the iFlash adapters are built on don't properly support standard ATA power management commands (including "run in the lowest power mode possible without automatically going to sleep" and "flush everything to disk so it is safe to sleep" and even "flush everything and go to sleep now") so we have no way of reliably knowing when it is actually safe to kill power. Even the "just flush everything" command falsely claims success!) Killing power when it's not safe is near-guaranteed to cause data corruption. So we are forced to leave power on, which can severely hurt battery life depending on the specific SD card.
That said there is a flaw in the current code that results in power being left on even when it's safe to turn off -- I have a patch in gerrit that needs some wider testing:
https://gerrit.rockbox.org/r/c/rockbox/+/5647
Meanwhile, SATA SSDs are are a different kettle of fish, and there are supposedly issues there too, but since these are native ATA devices, more research is needed to determine the root cause of reported issues with those. For example, many problems have been traced to loose/flaky cables, which obviously that has nothing to do with Rockbox. Similarly, the SATA SSDs usually have _worse_ power characteristics than the original hard drives, which again is not uinque to Rockbox.
denkly:
--- Quote from: speachy on April 15, 2024, 08:18:38 AM ---Rockbox writes to the disk far, far more often than the Apple firmware.
The fundamental problem is that the CF->SD chipset the iFlash adapters are built on don't properly support standard ATA power management commands (including "run in the lowest power mode possible without automatically going to sleep" and "flush everything to disk so it is safe to sleep" and even "flush everything and go to sleep now") so we have no way of reliably knowing when it is actually safe to kill power. Even the "just flush everything" command falsely claims success!) Killing power when it's not safe is near-guaranteed to cause data corruption. So we are forced to leave power on, which can severely hurt battery life depending on the specific SD card.
That said there is a flaw in the current code that results in power being left on even when it's safe to turn off -- I have a patch in gerrit that needs some wider testing:
https://gerrit.rockbox.org/r/c/rockbox/+/5647
Meanwhile, SATA SSDs are are a different kettle of fish, and there are supposedly issues there too, but since these are native ATA devices, more research is needed to determine the root cause of reported issues with those. For example, many problems have been traced to loose/flaky cables, which obviously that has nothing to do with Rockbox. Similarly, the SATA SSDs usually have _worse_ power characteristics than the original hard drives, which again is not uinque to Rockbox.
--- End quote ---
Thanks! Hope it will be resolved, as Mini is one the greatest :)
iPodVT:
--- Quote from: speachy on April 15, 2024, 08:18:38 AM ---Rockbox writes to the disk far, far more often than the Apple firmware.
The fundamental problem is that the CF->SD chipset the iFlash adapters are built on don't properly support standard ATA power management commands (including "run in the lowest power mode possible without automatically going to sleep" and "flush everything to disk so it is safe to sleep" and even "flush everything and go to sleep now") so we have no way of reliably knowing when it is actually safe to kill power. Even the "just flush everything" command falsely claims success!) Killing power when it's not safe is near-guaranteed to cause data corruption. So we are forced to leave power on, which can severely hurt battery life depending on the specific SD card.
--- End quote ---
Does this mean that a Rockbox user would see a notable power consumption improvement when using a true CF card rather than a CF->SD adapter? (Meaning that a true CF card would be better than both the original HD and a CF->SD adapter?)
Is the power consumption even more degraded if the CF->SD adapter contains a microSD in an SD->microSD adapter?
Are you able to specify/recommend which SD (and/or microSD) cards do better than others re Rockbox power consumption with a CF->SD adapter?
[Edit - adding the following question]
Does Rockbox do better re power consumption when the mini contains one of the cheapo CF->SD adapters rather than the iFlash version?
Thanks very much.
denkly:
--- Quote from: iPodVT on April 15, 2024, 05:43:17 PM ---Is the power consumption even more degraded if the CF->SD adapter contains a microSD in an SD->microSD adapter?
Does Rockbox do better re power consumption when the mini contains one of the cheapo CF->SD adapters rather than the iFlash version?
--- End quote ---
I've done tests on both: Red CF-microSD Adapter + 128Gb Samsung EVO microSD — 6:10 hours of continuous FLAC playtime, iFlash CF-SD + Original SD Adapter + 512GB Samsung EVO microSD — 6:45 hours of continuous FLAC playtime. So about the same.
I have a question — this flaw is on ALL iPods with ATA (iPod Gen 3 A1040, iPod Gen 4 A1059/1099)? As i have iPod Gen 5 A1136, and it's playtime on Rockbox is very good. I'm getting 70 hours with 3000mah battery, thought i did not tested on original firmware. But, also, i have A1040 with CF-SD adapter, and Rockbox playtime is about the same 5-6 hours. Will do tests on A1040 on original firmware to confirm.
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