[S905X3] X96Air_P3

CoreELEC:~ # ethtool eth0
Settings for eth0:
Supported ports: [ TP MII ]
Supported link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
1000baseT/Full
Supported pause frame use: No
Supports auto-negotiation: Yes
Supported FEC modes: Not reported
Advertised link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
1000baseT/Full
Advertised pause frame use: No
Advertised auto-negotiation: Yes
Advertised FEC modes: Not reported
Link partner advertised link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
Link partner advertised pause frame use: No
Link partner advertised auto-negotiation: Yes
Link partner advertised FEC modes: Not reported
Speed: 100Mb/s
Duplex: Full
Port: MII
PHYAD: 0
Transceiver: external
Auto-negotiation: on
Supports Wake-on: ug
Wake-on: d
Current message level: 0x0000003f (63)
drv probe link timer ifdown ifup
Link detected: yes

But after switching the Fritzbox settings to 100 Mbps and then to 1 Gbps
CoreELEC:~ # ethtool eth0
Settings for eth0:
Supported ports: [ TP MII ]
Supported link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
1000baseT/Full
Supported pause frame use: No
Supports auto-negotiation: Yes
Supported FEC modes: Not reported
Advertised link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
1000baseT/Full
Advertised pause frame use: No
Advertised auto-negotiation: Yes
Advertised FEC modes: Not reported
Link partner advertised link modes: 10baseT/Half 10baseT/Full
100baseT/Half 100baseT/Full
1000baseT/Half 1000baseT/Full
Link partner advertised pause frame use: No
Link partner advertised auto-negotiation: Yes
Link partner advertised FEC modes: Not reported
Speed: 1000Mb/s
Duplex: Full
Port: MII
PHYAD: 0
Transceiver: external
Auto-negotiation: on
Supports Wake-on: ug
Wake-on: d
Current message level: 0x0000003f (63)
drv probe link timer ifdown ifup
Link detected: yes

Something is just messed up with the Fritzbox. It seems to stop advertising 1000Mbps after some time and only does it again if you switch back and forth or reattach cable. Maybe some global power saving kicking in.

Again, I have seen dozens of similiar topics on google about the Fritzbox 7590. You could search for people having the same problem, maybe someone found a solution.

Anyway, I did look into your problem and those solutions came up that did help people:

  • Buy a very good Cat 6 cable

  • Force the router into gigabit by disabling auto negotiating in the end device, i.e. in /etc/rc.local

ethtool -s eth0 autoneg off
ethtool -s eth0 speed 1000 duplex full

  • Factory Reset Fritzbox 7590, which might be needed after doing an update

But regarding CE, there is nothing wrong and nothing you can do (except the force gigabit option mentioned above). The issue is either with the FB 7590 or with the FB 7590 “not liking” your X96 Air NIC during auto negotiation.

I have looked in the logs and noticed a lot of deregistrations and reregistrations for the WIFI connections. That is caused by a set up option.
Nothing about the wired connection in the logs.

I wonder if Feromon has anything concerning the ethernet connection in the logs?

But why if i boot to android i got gigabit network without changing anything

It could be that Android is enforcing the router to stay in 1000M. The equivelant in CE would be what has mentioned plenty of times: disabling the auto negotiation and manually set 1000M.

Look the thing is, I found plenty of issues with the FB 7590 (as well as earlier FB routers like the 7490) unable to constantly provide 1000M in the handshake with various devices, NICs and operation systems. I saw an increased number of people complaining about the 7590 especially with all kind of DIY Linux based projects. I understand why you might come to the conclusion that it is the end device fault but it isn‘t. The router has to be able to handle different OS and NIC and most routers do.

You can try all mentioned workarounds but nobody is going to hack something into CE just so that this specific router with this specific problem works.

Try mentioned manual setting. Either it works and everything is fine and dandy or you get no connection or an unstable connection, If it is the latter, then there is something really wrong with either the router or with the NIC of the box, meaning a hardware defect. But software wise a manual setting is all that you can do regarding CE. Everything else is CE unrelated.

I have already posted dmesg.log

http://ix.io/2AlI

as I already wrote, only in this way I get 1 Gbit

Great, if you get 1 Gbit with the manual setting than we know the problem and solved the problem. The 7590 does have problems auto negotiating with the box running the CE linux distro and needs to be forced to 1000M. Again, nothing you can blame the box or CE for, the router is supposed to be capable of negotiating the correct speed… which all other routers do.

I was referring to the Fritz!Box logs, not the OS logs.

I have not had a problem here with the connection speed.

So after reading through this whole discussion it is still unclear to me what exactly the differences are between the interactive and ondemand govenors.

Why are there even two govenors that seem to be pretty much similar?

And which of the two is now really the better choice?

Interactive has better performance, it is snappier (with greater battery drain :wink: than Ondemand.

@Sholander, greater battery drain in that context :grin:

But does using the interactive govenor really result in higher temperatures?

From what it looked like it’s the ondemand govenor that’s generally preferred over the interactive govenor.

BTW I have just received my X96 Air P3 4/64GB and I am using it without any drilled holes or additional heatsink.

Just test. It won‘t make a difference during video playback but only browsing the gui.

And a thermal mod is probably only needed if go crazy on the gui and also have a big library which you browse like a monkey on steroids.

Why are people not discussing the real performance boosting governor ?

Performance

Shoog

Latest CE stable version didn’t show the interactive govenor for selection in the GUI, only performance and ondemand when I had my first look yesterday evening.

I have tried both and could not see any difference for my usage case. I also really don’t have any interest in a thermal mod, which is why I thought it’s better not to stick to the performance govenor.

I’m not playing any games, have a crazy large library or do anything unusual with my CE box, so I could not see any difference, which is why I left it on ondemand for now.

So yesterday I have successfully installed the current stable version of CE on my new X96 Air P3 4/64GB. My first test were all fine except a 4K@60Hz video that is stuttering badly.

I wasn’t sure which of the S905X3 X96 Air threads is more appropriate for this, so I have posted the details in the other thread.

I don‘t think 60hz@4K is supported. To be honest, it isn‘t really a real life application, at least for now.

1 Like

Hi, I am hoping somebody might have some insight into a problem I have run into. I just picked up an X96Air_P3 4GB/32GB to replace an old Orange Pi PC running LibreELEC. I have a mix of 720p H264 recordings from an HD PVR 2, and 1080i/720p MPEG4 recordings from an HD Homerun that I stream from Tvheadend running on an x86 box.

In another room I have been running CoreElec on a S912 based TX9s for some time. The TX9s plays back my recordings perfectly so I was not expecting any trouble with the X96Air. But after setting up the new box with latest stable version of CoreElec, I was disappointed to find that my HD PVR recordings will not play back correctly with hardware decoding. Here’s what happens: the recordings start playing normally and may play for 5 or 10 minutes but then playback freezes. Sometimes playback will resume after I skip forward multiple times and sometimes not. CPU load is low and there is no overheating when this happens. Kodi logs show some ffmpeg errors like this:

“MPEG-TS - SPS unavailable in decode_picture_timing non-existing PPS 0 referenced”

but no crashes or anything suspicious.

I also tried playing back these recordings using Kodi on Android and had the same problem (didn’t check logs there).

I do want to mention that software decoding works with CoreElec but it slows down the box and makes it run hot and that defeats the purpose of “upgrading” to the X96Air. No, I am not interested in modding this box to improve airflow :smirk:

Shouldn’t the S905X3 be able to hardware decode these files? If so what could be causing the problem?

Are your recordings on a Windows based file system. This can sometimes cause problems like you describe due to the way Linux SAMBA handles these streams. If you have the facility can you put these files onto a local storage formatted to ext4 and see if the problem persists.
Whatever you do you need to eliminate your network as a potential source of your problems.
I had to migrate all my HDD from FAT32 to ext4 for similar reasons.

Shoog

@Shoog, thanks for replying but I threw in the towel, returned the X96Air and bought another TX9s. It was a battle I didn’t want to fight just to play back some recorded TV shows. For the record, my recordings are on an x86 Linux box (filesystem is xfs) and it streams fine to CoreELEC on the TX9s, so who knows…maybe it was a hardware issue with the X96Air.