My first impressions of the Pyra


EvilDragon said:
Maybe. Make sure it's not the speakers though - if it's gone when you play audio, it's not a whining coil but the speakers.
Click to expand...
Had it now again, this time whining at around 0.5hz and constantainly.
Almost not hearable as i had Straßenbahn and normal urban noise.
AND the whining from my HP elitebook is way more disturbing, when its plugged in (that sound was next to me as well)

So now to what I faced:
Pyra was charging (1.7A port) and turned off.
I booted and had it running for ~3 min opening an browser with wifi on, so no reason to get higher temperature.
Bat level were at 93%
Squishy sound came out of the device.

As you meantioned i tried to "play music".
Quickest idea to generate sound was to set speakers at 100% and try to add more to generate that systemsound "ping".
I was able to hear the "ping" sound and that the speakers had power for additional ~5sec to make a static noise.
During the static noise I could clearly hear a shifted sound of my 0,5hz whining. More deeper. After these 5sec it returned to normal.

As I still had it wired I removed the cable and sound was immidiatly gone.

Was able to replicate this twice.


Next time (10min later, when i plugged power in again) it was a different sound, more constant and now I started a webstream to generate continuues sound and play around with powerlevel.
Outcome, it's not affected by music. If you have it loud or not, it's still there until you pull the wire.

Then I tried the USB 3 port and I got a different noise here. More a fast ticking but different here.

And on both ports sound appear when its charging or not (just what MATE is showing me)

Hope this helps :)
 
AAhh, well, power supplies can indeed cause such effects.

What actually causes such "whining" is usually vibrating capacitors. If they hit the resonance frequency of the PCB, the PCB starts to vibrate which turns into the noise you can hear.

Power Supplies (especially cheaper ones) can cause different vibrations - which lead to that issue. It can basically happen with any device.
The first power supplies Craig sourced from China for the Pandora actually caused the touchscreen to stop working, as the power signal was VERY unclean.

Please try a different power supply and cable to see if that changes something!
 
Yeah I've been charging via a USB 3 port on my desktop and don't notice such noises, but that said I have some poor hearing, too much Metal music.
 
EvilDragon said:
AAhh, well, power supplies can indeed cause such effects.

What actually causes such "whining" is usually vibrating capacitors. If they hit the resonance frequency of the PCB, the PCB starts to vibrate which turns into the noise you can hear.

Power Supplies (especially cheaper ones) can cause different vibrations - which lead to that issue. It can basically happen with any device.
The first power supplies Craig sourced from China for the Pandora actually caused the touchscreen to stop working, as the power signal was VERY unclean.

Please try a different power supply and cable to see if that changes something!
Click to expand...
Tried it now with complete different setup, still the same.
It's not loud enough to anoy me, so please see this as a single information.

Wouldnt it make sense to get a bugtracker ?
Maybe a section in forum, so that we dont spam normal threads with this.

Titel:
#0005-Issue:0001 (resolved) whining coils while charging

Or something else I faced (I hope its just my micro usb adapter. So would be nice to chat with something who is interested in this issue and maybe can check it there device.
#0005-Issue:0002 (open) micro-usb kills Pyra, till Bat is removed

;-)

Edit: charger are Sony 2,7A and Anker 2x2,5A and two different trustworthy cable.
 
Last edited:
Do you have other ways to get a whine?
Mine does a rather loud one when the keyboard brightness is set to max.
Also a less loud when the modem is powered.
 
Hmmmm, keyboard is turned off the whole time. I'll try later
 
I've been getting audio volume fluctuations (usually quieter), presumably under load but not always. In those situations, holding any keyboard key would increase the volume a bit until letting it go as well.
Is that behavior known? I know software state for audio is pretty basic, but this isn't a hardware issue, is it?
 
elvissteinjr said:
I've been getting audio volume fluctuations (usually quieter), presumably under load but not always. In those situations, holding any keyboard key would increase the volume a bit until letting it go as well.
Is that behavior known? I know software state for audio is pretty basic, but this isn't a hardware issue, is it?
Click to expand...
Hm, interesting. Please check the following:

1. Test if volume changes if you press on the case (not a key). The speakers use spring contacts - maybe they don't have a proper contact on your unit (which changes if you press on the case).

2. Open Alsamixer to see if the volume actually changes.
 
Oh. And I remember there's some low-power mode for the audio stream.
It can be enabled / disabled in Alsamixer as well (it's that hpll or similar controller, forgot the name).
Maybe that can cause such issues.

I'll also try on the units I have here.
 
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Far fetched, but can it be the volume wheel? Even when untouched it sometimes flickers and changes on its own.
What are the mapping steps? If they are like 5% or something, and the wheel flickers around a border that sounds plausible.
 
elw3 said:
Far fetched, but can it be the volume wheel? Even when untouched it sometimes flickers and changes on its own.
What are the mapping steps? If they are like 5% or something, and the wheel flickers around a border that sounds plausible.
Click to expand...

Yes, that can be the issue. The volume daemon is very simple at the moment and needs optimization (deadzone, polling, handling ALSA / PulseAudio, etc.... I'll post more about that.
That's why I mentioned to open AlsaMixer. If the volume wheel is the issue, you will see the AlsaMixer slider moving :)
 
I may have missed this - there are so many posts on the Pyra now! I'm wondering what the responsiveness is for drawing using the stylus?

I'd like to think it would be handy for drawing quick ideas / sketches on the Pyra, but wonder how practical that might be in reality.
 
EvilDragon said:
Hm, interesting. Please check the following:

1. Test if volume changes if you press on the case (not a key). The speakers use spring contacts - maybe they don't have a proper contact on your unit (which changes if you press on the case).

2. Open Alsamixer to see if the volume actually changes.
Click to expand...

I've not been able to reproduce it the same way as yesterday yet, but there has been similar behavior under load at least. Nothing keyboard related, moving windows around made it quieter (extra load from compositor if I had to guess). After a bit of messing around, the volume isn't really coming back either. Sometimes the right speaker is a good bit quieter than the left one for short bursts during this as well.
No visible changes in AlsaMixer, nothing for the balance either.
No changes from pressing around the case, though right now keyboard input doesn't affect anything either.

This is kinda weird and inconsistent, but doesn't look like it's hardware at least.
While this does appear to happen under load, it's not like the audio itself ever cuts off or stutters when it happens. Yeah, this is probably not that helpful after all, but something is up.
 
I thought i imagined that the speakers have volume differences...
Guess not.
 
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