If it isn't broke don't fix it??!!


H

hakmanplayer

Guest
I finally am in a confident , pleasant state of mind with my Pandora. I must say it is one interesting machine.


I realize there will be other minor bumps in the road. However, right now, it is pretty much smooth sailing. I have accomplished more with this device than i ever thought i was capable of.


But i ramble on.........


With that said, my question is : Should I go to Hf 5?


Currently i am running HF 4 and everything works very well. Only gripe is the battery light situation but i watch it like a hawk ; just when it hit's 100 it's off!!.. I know a hotfix would not remedy this.


Actually i am kind of apprehensive about going to HF5 since as far as i am concerned [ignorance is bliss] whatever i need the Pandy for, it is doing a fine job.


I have read in the forums that some people have gone from HF4>>HF5 and have encountered some software glitches affecting various things.


Given the fact i have finally have some POM [piece of mind] with this machine, i am hesitant to go up one....or would i be going down???


As my father used to say [may he r.i.p.]...' if it ain't broke don't fix it'.


Opinions please but do not chastize :rolleyes: :angry:
 
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just go for it :) (hf4 --> hf5 made mine just a tiny bit more stable I guess its mainly a feeling, and the fact that xcfe mouse is gone and replaced with a splash and it now shows the hf version when you boot)
 
I've personally stuck with HF4 but purely because I should have RMA'd my unit along time ago, so the LCD cable is failing, the left nub is bust and the case base has a crack near the USB ports. The failing LCD cable means the touchscreen isnt correctly calibrated but is still tolerable but I know from prior experience, that if I re-calibrate it, I will lose that function entirely.


As a result I was reluctant to beta test the full flashing versions of the HF5 betas, as re-setting up the machine as I like it, requires various tweaks which would be awkward if HF5 upsets the balance of things. As HF5 is now a PND and given that it is possible to reflash to HF4 fairly simply, or to run from SD card with either HF5 or HF4, using Dave1234's excellent PND installer, I would suggest you give HF5 a go by booting it from a spare SD card, or better still (though I am about to test this (so dont dive in) it is possible to copy your current nicely set up system from the NAND to an SD card and boot from that, THEN apply the HF5 PND installer and see how you get on.


This way your original HF4 tweaked to peace of mind status set up is still sat on the NAND whilst you see if HF5 screws things up for you. Isn't this machine a versatile little beauty. I will be doing this prior to RMA, so that the freshly recieved unit can be booted from SD with my old HF4 set up exactly as it was and then I will apply HF5.


Instructions for copying your current set-up to an SD card can be found here (2nd link) :


http://pandorawiki.o...ion_to_firmware


http://pandorawiki.o...from_an_SD_card


(relevant section)


OR copy your firmware from the NAND to the SD card


The following will ask for your password. All the operations need root permissions so I thought it would be wasteful to sprinkle sudo to everything. We will bind mount the root fs to an alternative location ("/mp"), under which other filesystems mounted under root (like the kernel virtual filesystems /proc and /sys, and your SD card.) wont be visible. This allows us to take a live copy of the NAND contents to the SD filesystem.


sudo su


mkdir /mp



mount --bind / /mp



cp -va /mp/* /media/<SD card>



umount /mp



rmdir /mp



exit



Which should in theory acomplish copying your set up to an SD. The rest details how to get it to boot with the inclusion of boot/autoboot.txt and then you can apply HF5 PND to that.


Untested by me until in a few minutes, so best of luck if you consider it a viable option at the same time.


If anyone can correct if my understanding of this process is correct or not (and thus my advice) please state now or forever hold your peace lol :)


Good luck


MP :)
 
I upgraded to Hotfix 5, and I will say that I've run into only one problem, but it is one that would probably impact usability for you, whereas I'm happy to live with it until the fix for it is available, because some of the added features (specifically, finer control over the overclocking options, and the ability to set whether the default full-screen filter is blurry or sharp) make it worthwhile for me.


Basically, sometimes when my Pandora is booted up it can't run PNDs, and will throw errors when I try to, and it also suffers from instability and lock-ups when this happens, until I reboot, which usually fixes it. I seem to recall that I'm not the only one experiencing this.


If you're happy enough on Hotfix 4, I would stay there for now until this is resolved.
 
Yes, absolutely. You can download the PND, which merely applies the changes made and saves your settings, or you can download the full files. The full files are guaranteed to provide a smoother reflashing, but at the cost of everything saved in the NAND.
 
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