[TheLinuxBug]

I have been running my ESPRESSOBin in production since the day after I got it, with no heatsink and without issue. That said, I haven’t run any super intense workloads on it, as it is being used for NAS mostly, not computation and I compiled my kernel on a different system.

Also, just to be fair here, I do have it mounted in a case where there is plenty of airflow so this may also be why I haven’t seen the overheating issue.

TL:DR:
I haven’t seen any overheating issues yet with my boards and I am not using any heat sink or fan. Haven’t tested under extreme workloads, but at the same time I do have it in a place where it is receiving passive cooling by fan.

Good luck to you guys figuring out something that works for you!

Cheers!

[TheLinuxBug]

Sounds to me (just guessing here) like you hosed u-boot on the SPI NOR chip. You should be able to place u-boot on an sd-card and boot from it. Once in u-boot on the SDcard you should also be able to re-load u-boot on the SPI NOR (assuming this is the issue). I am not sure if they have this process documented yet, but at least writing u-boot to an SDcard should allow you to boot into an operating system.

Hope this helps!

Cheers!

[TheLinuxBug]

@jenst

You should consider getting one of the following:

https://www.amazon.com/Power-Cable-6inch-Molex-Adapter/dp/B00MGJQCB4/ref=sr_1_75?ie=UTF8&qid=1494236931&sr=8-75&keywords=molex+female+to+sata+female

https://www.amazon.com/Rosewill-RA-MOLEX-SATA-female-Molex-adapter/dp/B00558ON64/ref=sr_1_81?ie=UTF8&qid=1494236962&sr=8-81&keywords=molex+female+to+sata+female

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GK8SYCW/ref=asc_df_B00GK8SYCW4974492/?tag=hyprod-20&creative=394997&creativeASIN=B00GK8SYCW&linkCode=df0&hvadid=167140037427&hvpos=1o2&hvnetw=g&hvrand=8110301766109365239&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9009439&hvtargid=pla-338127622764

This will adapt the Molex to SATA power that can be plugged into SATA your drive for power.

Hope this helps!

Cheers!

[TheLinuxBug]

You may wish to see this thread for how to boot from SATA: Armbian Forum

Also including some info below:

setenv bootcmd 'scsi scan; scsi dev 0; ext4load scsi 0:1 $kernel_addr $image_name;ext4load scsi 0:1 $fdt_addr $fdt_name;setenv bootargs $console root=/dev/sdb1 rw rootwait; booti $kernel_addr - $fdt_addr'
save
run bootcmd

In the post I include my u-boot config for booting from SATA. If it will be the only drive attached and you do NOT have USB drives connected it should be changed to reflect /dev/sda1 in your case.

I also used Boot from removable storage – Ubuntu as a reference, and if you type help while in u-boot its pretty easy to get help on the needed commands.

Hope this helps!

Cheers!

[Author]

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