NB : I am basing the following on logic and general experience rather than any expertise or knowledge when it comes to getting an OS to play nicely with hardware. Forgive me if any of the below is obviously wrong / ridiculous to anyone who does know what they are talking about
Yep, tests are running, but the 4GB RAM units are still freezing for unknown reason, yet they survived a memtest by both notaz and tmlind for a couple of hours without any crash... so what's the difference here?
Also what is the difference with the above findings and the findings
here where the following was noted : "4GB RAM CPU Boards are working! Finally, after a long, long search for the reason, Tony Lindgren found the real issue for 4GB RAM crashes." .... "Nikolaus ran a 4GB Board without heatsink and 1,5GHz and did an apt-get upgrade which installed 400 new packages... without any issues. After a few hours, he shut it down again. Without any crash or overheating!"
Have there been any hardware / OS revisions between the units tested in the 'Light at the end' news post and those tested recently? Seems to me that they key may lie in this area.
Does the fact the latest boards survived the MEM test mean that the timings are OK, i.e. does the mem test use the same Ram timings as the OS?
Were any 2GB units produced using the latest board revision? If yes then do they work OK?
If only 4GB units were produced with the latest board revision is it possible to disable / remove 2GB of Ram from a small sample so tests can be done on a 2GB version? Would it be possible to disable 1GB and check a 3GB version?
Are there any current devices / dev boards that use the Pyra SOC and run with 4GB of Ram?
How easy would it be to get Android or another OS running on a Pyra prototype? If this could be done then would this be useful for stability testing of the RAM or would the expectation be for similar lock ups / crashes?
Worst case would be to switch to 2GB RAM, but that would be a loss of around 80k EUR... I really hope that's not necessary, as I don't have unlimited funds. But it would be an option for the first CPU board
Can you tell us a bit more about this, i.e. would the switch to 2GB mean that the boards would have to be revised to use 4 X 512MB or would they use 2 X 1GB (or 4 X 512MB) with the current hardware revision?
I'm sorry that this is not what you would've liked to hear here (believe me, I'm feeling worse than you), but I'm sticking to my promise that you the journey will be an honest one - no lies, no hidings.
Here's hoping you feel with me and continue to support me instead of getting angry.
100% understood, the honesty and open nature of what would normally be way behind the scenes is hugely appreciated.
It seems to me that you should set a time limit to solve the 4GB issue and if that limit is exceeded then you should reach out to the pre orderers and enquire whether they will be happy with a 2GB version. I bet most would.
There was also another encampment with louder drums, a mob, and pitchforks claiming that anything less than 4GB was a fail
That's not how I remember things (perhaps I missed it elsewhere on the boards), in
this thread from 2015 (before pre orders were taken) there was a request that tests were done to illustrate the actual benefits (if any) comparing 4GB with 2GB + Swap. With the benefit of hindsight it would have been massively helpful to the project if said tests were performed in 2015 and the result was 'sorry the 4GB version is unstable so that's not an option in the foreseeable future'. I fully understand that, hindsight is 20/20, ED does not have a magic money tree and such tests would have been expensive and perhaps seen as unnecessary as there is no logical reason for 4GB to cause any problems.
I don't want to rehash old arguments and now is the time for the community to pull together, if you think the above linked thread represented a pitchfork wielding mob then so be it, I'll agree to differ. What would be good for morale and community cohesion (I hope) would be for pre orderers to let ED know if they would be happy with a 2GB unit if the time limit for fixing the 4GB version was exceeded and the choice was 2GB Pyra or no Pyra. My suspicion is the vast majority would be happy with the 2GB version
I don't know the "official" specs of the OMAP5 and it's limitations or "safe-to-work-within" conditions. But as long as 2GB work, well fine. And as long as ED don't buy 4GB single modules it may be possible to just use one 2GB Module or 2 1GB or 4x 512MB or whatever.
