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Raspberry Pi Model A+ Board

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Re: Raspberry Pi Model A+ Board

#31

Post by teekert »

custardcream wrote: post #8
maguirre wrote: post #2

I love the RPi and what it has done to introduce computing/programming/linux to more people. However I can't get past how unreliable booting from an SD card has been for me. I know reliability depends heavily on the SD card used and on the quality of board socket but I am disappointed that Rev 2 of the board did not come with the option of on-board flash.

Been lurking for a bit. Was hoping to say hello with a constructive comment but I have to jump in here. I bought a Pi model B for my daughter. Nothing but terrible unreliability. Booting problems as you state, power problems with the USB ports, random hangs and crashes and problems getting half of the devices recommended to work. I kind of expected that for the money but the thing that really pissed me off was when I…

I currently have 2 model B's and one A. I had an unsupported SD card in the beginning, which annoyed me (it wasn't mentioned anywhere that this could happen). But you can check here if a card will cause problems: http://elinux.org/RPi_VerifiedPeripherals. After finding a good one: no more problems.

I also blew up a cheap chinese power supply 1A/5V but since I have been using a 2.5A/5V power supply I have had no problems (I back feed it via the "front" usb port, the hub has power on the input line, although that is not recommended.)

After that I never had any problems, 1 has been running OpenElec (XBMC) for more than a year now. Another one switches my lighting, also never any problems (running 24/7 for over a year), it is fed via the USB in my router. One of them also spent half a year in a data-center (http://raspberrycolocation.com/), it never failed.

There is no excuse for being treated so poorly on the forums but I have the feeling like you just had bad luck so far. It happens, My Moto G had yellow pixels and a failing audio system. Still a good phone judging from the experience of others.

If you really just want it to work out of the box, buy the recommended power supply (2A/5V I think), a good SD card or a preinstalled one with NOOBS (http://www.raspberrypi.org/help/noobs-setup/).

Re: Raspberry Pi Model A+ Board

#32

Post by custardcream »

tdicola wrote: post #24
custardcream wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Been lurking for a bit. Was hoping to say hello with a constructive comment but I have to jump in here. I bought a Pi model B for my daughter. Nothing but terrible unreliability. Booting problems as you state, power problems with the USB ports, random hangs and crashes and problems getting half of the devices recommended to work. I kind of expected that for the money but the thing that really pissed me off was when I…

Maybe you should look at exchanging your Pi for another one. Manufacturing defects are rare but can happen. I've used dozens of Pi's and never had bad reliability problems. Always use a quality 1 amp or more power supply, good name brand SD card, never remove power without running shutdown command to halt card writes, and never plug or unplug USB devices while powered up (older model boards don't handle the voltage d…

I probably should have but I am disinclined to bother with it or promote it after getting a face full.

If you can't hot plug a USB device, forget it.

Power supply was a Thurlby PL330 linear bench PSU (£350 worth) so I'm sure that bit was fine.

I'd rather pay £10 more for something that works. To be honest a lot of no brand Chinese Ali Express dev kit I've bought is more reliable so I'm not sure what they're doing wrong.

Re: Raspberry Pi Model A+ Board

#33

Post by custardcream »

teekert wrote: post #31
custardcream wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Been lurking for a bit. Was hoping to say hello with a constructive comment but I have to jump in here. I bought a Pi model B for my daughter. Nothing but terrible unreliability. Booting problems as you state, power problems with the USB ports, random hangs and crashes and problems getting half of the devices recommended to work. I kind of expected that for the money but the thing that really pissed me off was when I…

I currently have 2 model B's and one A. I had an unsupported SD card in the beginning, which annoyed me (it wasn't mentioned anywhere that this could happen). But you can check here if a card will cause problems: http://elinux.org/RPi_VerifiedPeripherals . After finding a good one: no more problems. I also blew up a cheap chinese power supply 1A/5V but since I have been using a 2.5A/5V power supply I have had no prob…

My wife is on her 3rd Moto G due to charging problems so there are at least two anecdotes there.

As said elsewhere (see entire thread) it was most likely a duff one.

My problem is with the community and the support and the quality, none of which are suitable for the target market.

Re: Raspberry Pi Model A+ Board

#34

Post by ZenoArrow »

maguirre wrote: post #16
ZenoArrow wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where are you obtaining your SD cards from?

I have tried different brands for what I'd consider reputable vendors. I do photography as a hobby which has educated me on quality (lack there of) of some SD cards

Brands are certainly important, as are the vendors. Basically anything from eBay is a no go, regardless of brand, but I'm sure you knew that already.

Re: Raspberry Pi Model A+ Board

#35

Post by ZenoArrow »

custardcream wrote: post #8
maguirre wrote: post #2

I love the RPi and what it has done to introduce computing/programming/linux to more people. However I can't get past how unreliable booting from an SD card has been for me. I know reliability depends heavily on the SD card used and on the quality of board socket but I am disappointed that Rev 2 of the board did not come with the option of on-board flash.

Been lurking for a bit. Was hoping to say hello with a constructive comment but I have to jump in here. I bought a Pi model B for my daughter. Nothing but terrible unreliability. Booting problems as you state, power problems with the USB ports, random hangs and crashes and problems getting half of the devices recommended to work. I kind of expected that for the money but the thing that really pissed me off was when I…

I've only had good experiences with RasPis, but I do find the community management troubling (I've heard others also mention perfectly reasonable posts that were deleted). It's a shame, really, they're shooting themselves in the foot.

Re: Raspberry Pi Model A+ Board

#36

Post by KaiserPro »

rebootthesystem wrote: post #27

Does anyone know of a Raspberry Pi type board (low cost, Linux capable, good hardware graphics) with HDMI input and output suitable for image processing?

Something like the intel NUC is possibly your only real choice, unless you want to work really hard porting libraries.

It reasonably cheap, 10watts at full tilt, and has 2 real core (plus 2HT)

I use one for my openCV things, that need real time(ish) performance.

Re: Raspberry Pi Model A+ Board

#37

Post by jbuzbee »

narrowrail wrote: post #11
techrat wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

brand of flash matters. before the raspi came along and popularized arm computing, there was a very lively scene around arm hacking out of existing devices. sheevaplug started the trend and people found that things like the seagate dockstar (a nas based hard drive dock) could be easily modified to boot a linux distro from usb and run as a low power headless server. we kept a list of results from our experiences of wh…

>sheevaplug started the trend Not to be pedantic, but before the Sheevaplug, there was the Linksys NSLU2, which came out in 2004: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSLU2 http://www.nslu2-linux.org/wiki/FAQ/FirmwareMatrix

Those were the days! I was the first to hack in to get root on that little box but others took it much further than me!

http://batbox.org/nslu2-linux.html

I still have a couple around, but rarely turn them on.

Re: Raspberry Pi Model A+ Board

#38

Post by dnr »

rebootthesystem wrote: post #27

Does anyone know of a Raspberry Pi type board (low cost, Linux capable, good hardware graphics) with HDMI input and output suitable for image processing?

Maybe look at a Cubox-i4 Pro? (Or the equivalent Hummingboard.) Depends what you mean by image processing.

Re: Raspberry Pi Model A+ Board

#39

Post by rlpb »

maguirre wrote: post #2

I love the RPi and what it has done to introduce computing/programming/linux to more people. However I can't get past how unreliable booting from an SD card has been for me. I know reliability depends heavily on the SD card used and on the quality of board socket but I am disappointed that Rev 2 of the board did not come with the option of on-board flash.

There's one big advantage of using an SD card only, and this turns into a really massive advantage when you consider the target market.

There is no state persisted on the board apart from on the SD card.

I have a set of SD cards, and can switch between them at will. My Pi completely switches personality, with no internal state to confuse things.

Kids can play and risk breaking things as much as they want. The restore process is simple: take the SD card to a (normal) computer, rewrite the image, and you're set to go again.

On-board flash completely ruins the guarantee that replacing the SD card is all that is necessary (unless there is a hardware fault).

Re: Raspberry Pi Model A+ Board

#40

Post by bduerst »

KaiserPro wrote: post #36
rebootthesystem wrote: post #27

Does anyone know of a Raspberry Pi type board (low cost, Linux capable, good hardware graphics) with HDMI input and output suitable for image processing?

Something like the intel NUC is possibly your only real choice, unless you want to work really hard porting libraries. It reasonably cheap, 10watts at full tilt, and has 2 real core (plus 2HT) I use one for my openCV things, that need real time(ish) performance.

Just looked it up - i5 cpu, DDR3, gigabit ethernet, USB 3.0, all in a small form factor (very nice). $300 price tag is major killer though.

What type of OpenCV do you use it for?

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