The tale of the cases

[jorlinn]

Ok, that does make a difference. Good to hear. Actions speak louder than words.

Except for Form Actions apparently.

 

[133794m3r]

Let me say this much about thermals(not posting there since thread is too old and dealt with family issues for the past 6weeks). It better have dual heatsinks as the new socs are even more insane with thermal runaway when used at the "default" maximum clock speed. Look at the hard kernel devices they all have large heatsinks and still do to be able to run at a decent temperature with the top speed and have continued to do so. So any new SOC will require that extra heat dissapation. If it's truly going to be an upgradeable device wherein the cpu board is only replaced insteda of the whole thing. Also you should keep that little space for the itty bitty fan in the case design just in case.

 

[Djhg2000]

A modular computer with an icecream cone case is no good. (good, but not thaaat good)

Great, now you got me trying to figure out how to put working edible hinges on a pair of ice cream sandwiches in the shape of a Pyra. I have a neopolitan mechanics exam tomorrow afternoon so I have better more important things to do.

I'm thinking waffle tubes with marshmallow sticks attached to chocholate panels, any other ideas?

 

[Grench]

If we're going to turn this case thread into another SoC dream thread, may as well throw this in.

I have no idea if this would fit the thermal envelope of the Pyra or if the 21mm X 21mm physical size is too large.
https://www.renesas.com/en-us/solutions/automotive/products/rcar-h3.html
But - it has a fun specsheet and there is a dev board for it.
https://www.renesas.com/en-us/solutions/automotive/adas/solution-kits/r-car-starter-kit.html
Note the big heatsink & fan. If used in a handheld fashion, this monster would have to be seriously throttled back.
Automotive grade so it should have availability for an extended time.
Linux is listed first in Supported OSs.

Probably too expensive, not available to the project, too power hungry, etc... But - it has a fun spec sheet.

 

[133794m3r]

If we're going to turn this case thread into another SoC dream thread, may as well throw this in.

I have no idea if this would fit the thermal envelope of the Pyra or if the 21mm X 21mm physical size is too large.
https://www.renesas.com/en-us/solutions/automotive/products/rcar-h3.html
But - it has a fun specsheet and there is a dev board for it.
https://www.renesas.com/en-us/solutions/automotive/adas/solution-kits/r-car-starter-kit.html
Note the big heatsink & fan. If used in a handheld fashion, this monster would have to be seriously throttled back.
Automotive grade so it should have availability for an extended time.
Linux is listed first in Supported OSs.

Probably too expensive, not available to the project, too power hungry, etc... But - it has a fun spec sheet.

it's not a soc dream post. It's a planning for the future by preparing it right now post. That's it. That's what it was about because since the thing is doing extreme thermal throttling right now and since it's made to go to 1.5ghz it should be able to do 1.5ghz at less than 90*C. So there's little to no reason to not do the dual heatsinks. It'll reduce the overall temp of the soc and will also thus make even the socs that would normally have to be junked due to running too hot be useable.

 

[Grench]

it's not a soc dream post. It's a planning for the future by preparing it right now post. That's it. That's what it was about because since the thing is doing extreme thermal throttling right now and since it's made to go to 1.5ghz it should be able to do 1.5ghz at less than 90*C. So there's little to no reason to not do the dual heatsinks. It'll reduce the overall temp of the soc and will also thus make even the socs that would normally have to be junked due to running too hot be useable.

You seem to be under the impression that CPU & SoC should be able to run balls out continuously. Good luck with that. Everything post the Intel Pentium Pro throttles.

Today's thermal solutions are about letting the SoC throttle less OR finding an acceptable clock rate for continuous.

I'm good with it if it can run 2 cores @250 MHz continuous no throttle inside a handheld computer with passive cooling.

 

[Djoga'Ro]

... letting the SoC throttle less OR finding an acceptable clock rate for continuous.

That's what @133794m3r 's talking about, isn't it.

 

[rygD]

I guess I don't understand what is going on in here. Why do we need a better cooling than we need now to prepare for a future CPU board? Wouldn't it make more sense to deal with that when we get there since a heatsink or other cooling solution isn't something permanent?

 

[daveshah]

Yes, I don't know if this is still current but ED suggested adding a small fan might be possible in the future if needed.

https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/threads/its-all-white.80935/

 

[bzar]

You seem to be under the impression that CPU & SoC should be able to run balls out continuously. Good luck with that. Everything post the Intel Pentium Pro throttles.

Yup, my new work laptop logs stuff like "CPU0: Package temperature above threshold, cpu clock throttled" whenever I compile things or do other really resource intensive stuff. The CPU is Intel Core i7-7500U for reference. I think two metrics should be provided: peak performance and continuous performance. Currently it's typical to only provide the former.

 

[WizardStan]

since it's made to go to 1.5ghz it should be able to do 1.5ghz at less than 90*C.

Sadly that seems to be a thing that will never happen, you'd best temper your expectations.
And I'm not saying in just this product, I'm saying that that's the direction the market has gone, seems like this is how CPUs are being made and marketed: built for bursts but normal operation throttled to maintain heat control, but marketing will always list the highest number. It's unfortunately confusing for someone who grew up as processors got more and more powerful, especially if you lived through Intel's near-sighted "more Mhz is literally all that matters!" phase, but I've come to realize it's actually quite the reasonable tradeoff.
If you don't like it then you should be complaining to Intel and ARM, ED has no control over what they say a CPU is "made to go to".

 

[FBnil]

Maybe Mario Odyssee runs on Pyra

Mario O.D.C. ?

 

[levi]

Everything post the Intel Pentium Pro throttles.

I'm quite impressed that the Conroe era 2,4GHz Pentium Dual Core chip in my inherited desktop build machine hasn't been seen to throttle yet under load. It'll drop the CPU freq as soon as you take the load off, presumably to bring the core temp down quicker, but I've never seen it do that while stuff is still running. I think it's running the stock CPU fan and one case fan, and I think I'm using the stock linux sheduler cpu governor.

It's completely irrelevant to this thread of course, since that box could easily hold around 100 pyra in I reckon, but as an aside desktop CPUs can get quite a lot faster than the Pentium Pro and not throttle.

 

[Grench]

I'm quite impressed that the Conroe era 2,4GHz Pentium Dual Core chip in my inherited desktop build machine hasn't been seen to throttle yet under load. It'll drop the CPU freq as soon as you take the load off, presumably to bring the core temp down quicker, but I've never seen it do that while stuff is still running. I think it's running the stock CPU fan and one case fan, and I think I'm using the stock linux sheduler cpu governor.

It's completely irrelevant to this thread of course, since that box could easily hold around 100 pyra in I reckon, but as an aside desktop CPUs can get quite a lot faster than the Pentium Pro and not throttle.

With an appropriately sized active cooling solution with variable ramping fans and no overclocking, nearly any SoC can be prevented from throttling.

In theory, you could stop or remove the fan to test the CPU's throttling capabilities, but I don't suggest this for any computer you actually want to use ever again. If it fails to throttle, it could very well melt the system board.

 

[Dark Pulse]

Well of course if there's infinite space for a cooler, eventually you can make any CPU not throttle, with the main limits being current draw (because the faster you overclock, the higher voltage must be upped for stability).

Kind of like how if we returned to hard drives platters the size of these, using modern technological methods...

...we'd have no problem being in the petabytes of storage on a home PC in all likelihood.

(For the curious: That stored 3.75 MB, spinning at 1200 RPM, and is 50 platters with 100 writing surfaces overall.)

 

[levi]

If they still cost the same as the 350RAMAC did then not many houses would actually have one. I'm personally content that I can get a hard disc these days in the same form factor as I did in 1994 with 25000 times the capacity and it cost me about a tenth of the cost.

With an appropriately sized active cooling solution with variable ramping fans and no overclocking, nearly any SoC can be prevented from throttling.

In theory, you could stop or remove the fan to test the CPU's throttling capabilities, but I don't suggest this for any computer you actually want to use ever again. If it fails to throttle, it could very well melt the system board.

I did that briefly while monitoring the temperature one time. It did ramp up from there quite quickly enough for me to quickly get the fan going again.

I guess with your comment about the Pentium Pro you mean that was the last time that x86 CPUs IIRC were not shipped with active cooling. It did have a big metal heatsink (as did devices dating back to late 386s at least). I'm not sure whether the early Pentium2 chips that came in those weird vertical plastic cases had active cooling inside those boxes or not. Traditionally ARM chips up until about 2010 came bare, but these days more and more of them are needing cooling solutions to run fast for any appreciable length of time, from passive radiating heatsinks to active cooling. I agree that moving from passive to active cooling is a significant change in the technlogy, but from another perspective is all part of the same journey, and the distinction didn't occur to me when I read your post. Personally I consider the move from bare chips to all that involving paste, clamps and relatively big chunks of metal a bigger step in the evolution of chip cooling, but maybe that's just me.

 

[Grench]

If they still cost the same as the 350RAMAC did then not many houses would actually have one. I'm personally content that I can get a hard disc these days in the same form factor as I did in 1994 with 25000 times the capacity and it cost me about a tenth of the cost.



I did that briefly while monitoring the temperature one time. It did ramp up from there quite quickly enough for me to quickly get the fan going again.

I guess with your comment about the Pentium Pro you mean that was the last time that x86 CPUs IIRC were not shipped with active cooling. It did have a big metal heatsink (as did devices dating back to late 386s at least). I'm not sure whether the early Pentium2 chips that came in those weird vertical plastic cases had active cooling inside those boxes or not. Traditionally ARM chips up until about 2010 came bare, but these days more and more of them are needing cooling solutions to run fast for any appreciable length of time, from passive radiating heatsinks to active cooling. I agree that moving from passive to active cooling is a significant change in the technlogy, but from another perspective is all part of the same journey, and the distinction didn't occur to me when I read your post. Personally I consider the move from bare chips to all that involving paste, clamps and relatively big chunks of metal a bigger step in the evolution of chip cooling, but maybe that's just me.

No - the Pentium Pro was generally expected to be under a heat sink with a fan. That is not the same thing as throttling. Keep in mind, we're talking about 20 years ago, which is a lifetime in CPU advancement.

http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2841505/intel-cpu-thermal-protect.html

I used the Pentium Pro as an example of CPUs that did not have the ability to 'throttle down' when under load to prevent overheating. I don't think they even had temperature sensors in the CPU back then. I/we used to just strap a heatsink & fan to it and hope that the solution supplied enough cooling to keep the thing running - no real way to even measure how hot the thing ran. They didn't even report temperatures back to the BIOS.

 

[levi]

Yes, that's true. I've only learned how to monitor temperatures in my OSes in the past year or two. Before that I'd have to guess by the temperature of the air coming out of the vents, and the fact the machine had or hadn't crashed yet. Provided you yank the power after the first crash the silicon's usually intact once it's cooled down enough to be usable again.

 

[Wrath Of Khan]

Eds next news post: 2 Gigabyte- Mass production.

 

[levi]

Eds next news post: 2 Gigabyte- Mass production.

For reference, his next news post is already up: https://pyra-handheld.com/boards/threads/lets-move-the-moulds.81903/