Technical Question About The Power Circuit

[darionapole]

Well just curiosity, what is what actualy happens that i see so many gp2x F100 and F200 having problems running from battries and then from the power adaptor after 2 or 3 years of use? My computer has been running 24/7 since 2004 and it still works. Is it normal for those components to fail after that time of use (hence GPH knew that this would happen) or the gp2x is just plain "cheap" (bad quality components, bad desing,etc) ?

 

[Squidge]

If you turned your PC on/off several times a day every day, you'll find that it doesn't last as long as leaving it on 24/7 either Yes, these things have MTBF, but thermal cycles are bad too, as is the shock from power up (surges, etc, I've had many bulged capacitors on motherboards that simply don't exist on ones which are left on 24/7).

 

[darionapole]

so, GPH should have thought about that and do something to prevent or at least lessen it....(if posible)
btw, does the GBA or PSP suffer from the same problem?

i knew about the initial power surges, but didn't know that it afected so much things that worked on batteries, maybe that's why they invented the stand-by mode,

 

[senquack]

I dunno, in my experience good electrolytic capacitors can last a very very long time in harsh environments and many power cycles - just look at my 15-year-old car that has tremendous internal heat cycles (it is in effect a greenhouse) and went through 3 years of pizza delivery getting started/stopped many times a day. If your capacitors are bulging that's probably because of the infamous faulty electrolyte problem that allows internal hydrolysis.

I think GP2X's design (which I believe they adapted wholesale from another company's example schematics IIRC) is shit and that's why it has such poor reliability.

 

[darionapole]

I think GP2X's design (which I believe they adapted wholesale from another company's example schematics IIRC) is shit and that's why it has such poor reliability.

Talking about reliability, made me remember about how random the gp2x is at boot, some times faster, some times slower and some times the boot up sound will play at double speed and then continues reading trash from the next memory area. That can't be a sign of a good hardware design


The other day, i took it to school to play a video in the philosofy class, and first it froze in the middle of the video, and then after restarting, it wouldn't boot up with the sd card in, gmenu2x froze twice trying to read the emulators section. The batteries were fully charged with less than half an hour of use (music) and the bateries are new. just to be sure, i changed them to ones that were fully charged (no use at all) and then it worked. After that changed back and had no problems.... That hadn't happened to me, up to, and since then, with any of the pairs of bateries. That was one of those things that happen once in life and you don't know how.....T_T

 

[senquack]

Talking about reliability, made me remember about how random the gp2x is at boot, some times faster, some times slower and some times the boot up sound will play at double speed and then continues reading trash from the next memory area. That can't be a sign of a good hardware design

That's probably just their Uboot code forgetting to set a sound register (like 8-bit versus 16-bit samples) before outputting sound. The register will be uninitialized at startup but probably has a propensity towards one setting or the other. Their software is even worse than their hardware (they outsourced it to Dignsys, whose code is low-quality)

 

[darionapole]

It would have been cheaper and better to pay you to make the firmware XD
It was like only one person was working on the firmware, when he wanted and had time and didn't even care whatever it was.....

maybe most of the random bugs are because the Uboot, booting diferent each time (at least for me it would make sence)

 

[christo930]

It would have been cheaper and better to pay you to make the firmware XD
It was like only one person was working on the firmware, when he wanted and had time and didn't even care whatever it was.....

maybe most of the random bugs are because the Uboot, booting diferent each time (at least for me it would make sence)

The main problem I have with the gp2x is the battery terminal problem. When ever there is a large draw from the battery (like during the boot up) it can lock up. Fortunately, I haven't had the problem since switching to open2x (booting). A lot of times I have to take off the battery cover and spin the batteries or take them out and clean the terminals to keep the system running. I keep meaning to order a pen that writes in silver (conducting pen) so I can put it on the positive terminal. It's really stupid the way they designed the battery compartment. Sometimes I wonder about their design decisions. Are they trying to avoid paying patents or something? The gp32 was a good machine that I feel was designed well, but they really missed the mark with the gp2x and again with the wiz (at least compared to the gp2x). Why in the world would I want to spend $200 to get something that isn't really any better than what I already have? Most likely, if ny GP2X breaks, I would get another one used, or a dingoo. They could have scored well with the wiz but I think they missed the mark.

Chris

 

[darionapole]

i read the Uboot code a little and it think that LARGE DRAW problem you say is because the Uboot Initialices the GP2X at 120MHz (i can be totaly wrong but that what i think i read in the source code) and then switchs to 200Mhz to load the kernel. But i don't think that's what generates such a large draw.

That problem begins to apear when the batteries are a quite worn out.