It's a burning phone

[irvinewade]

@dos

merge requests can be created

Merge request has been created, I think.

I’m not at all familiar with “rST” markup, so nothing flashy (pun intended), I’m afraid. (Is it just me or are there too many markup languages in the world?)

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Oh crap, now I’m experiencing the “85°C problem”.

I did apply the latest updates this morning (in amber) as well as install Megapixels and related recommended packages. I’m suspecting the former, not Megapixels.

Assuming this is just a cosmetic problem, unfortunately it is going to undermine what I just wrote for troubleshooting a flashing red LED.

[irvinewade]

I don’t know whether there is something else that I need to do but the merge request is: https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/librem5-user-docs-common/-/merge_requests/39

[Quarnero]

@fiacco

Funny, I bet that the sides were warmer.

@fiacco, when you have time you can read output (compare it with Thermal Zones readings from Usage app) from $ sensors as well, after $ sudo apt install lm-sensors. Start readings with cold Librem 5 (make screenshot of current ambient temperatures), repeat those after some time (make another screenshot, etc.). Running $ sudo sensors-detect would be optional (not helpful here, I guess).

Also, please install Videos over PureOS Store, stream Euronews over Wi-Fi (while charging your phone) for 5 or 10 minutes (by selecting it under Channels), repeat $ sensors current reading.

[fiacco]

Room temperature dropped around 24° in the last days, therefore L5 values are less worrying. I did some measurement, however sensors readings match the usage values, even regarding the 85°C issue. Some examples:

[patch]

I think this issue is affecting me now, but I don’t think anyone has mentioned the issue with unplugging the charge cable that seems to coincide with it.

I had the phone plugged and idle and it notified me of an incoming SMS message. The red LED was flashing, which was perhaps not surprising as the room temperature was 27°C. I unplugged the charge cable in order to pick up the phone and read the SMS message, but as soon as I unplugged the cable, the phone instantly powered off.

I pressed the power button and the green LED lit. Once it was booted up again, the SMS message had been lost and I had to ask for it to be sent again.

I then plugged the phone back in, got the flashing red LED again and got an SMS notification (the reply to my request to re-send the message). I unplugged the phone to read the message and once again it instantly powered off.

After booting back up for the second time, the SMS message was, again, lost and I had to request it to be sent a third time! This time, lesson learnt, I did not plug the phone back in. At this point, Usage reported the charger was at 85°C. It then fell to a lower temperature, but has since returned to 85°C, with the battery temperature steadily increasing; 41.9, 42, 43…

I dampened a tissue with isopropyl alcohol and placed it over the screen, near the top, over the CPU. This quickly halted and then reversed the increase in the battery temperature. I waited for it to fall below 40°C, which required the assistance of an electric desk fan on low speed. I was hoping that the charger might fall below 85°C when the battery fell below 40°C, but this did not happen. The CPU, VPU and GPU remained at 45.00°C throughout. I then shut down the phone, and powered it back up again, removing the cooling solution only for as long as was necessary to avoid unwanted touch inputs during the process. After the reboot, the charger was still at 85°C, the battery was at 33°C and the CPU, VPU and GPU were all at 33°C. The battery temperature began to climb again. I have my doubts that the CPU, VPU and GPU temperatures are correctly updating. I terminated the experiment.

[carlosgonz]

This happen you with Amber or Byzantium?
The original L5 charger/cable is come with Power Delivery Technologies. This protocol PD helps preserve battery life by monitoring the temperature of the battery constantly by using a dynamic mode charge. Also track the overall temperature of the phone to prevent damage.
It is important to charge the Librem 5 with a charger and cable certified for Power delivery, to get all the benefits of PD.
Librem 5 still need some optimization to work like a charm, that is why there are still many things that do not work well such as the temperature, GPU, VPU, CPU or that the battery lasts for many hours with the phone on, but the Purism team is doing exellent work for constantly optimizing the device. I am using byzantium to get quick updates/optimization.

[patch]

I’m using Amber, with the original Purism-supplied cable and mains adapter. I just wanted to add my experience to the body of knowledge.

By the way, my work-around is to shut down the phone, remove the battery, then put the battery back in again and charge the phone while it is switched off. (Which may already have been mentioned.)

[Quarnero]

@patch

This time, lesson learnt, I did not plug the phone back in. At this point, Usage reported the charger was at 85°C.

@carlosgonz, do you also see that bq25890-charger showing 85°C with Usage app in correlation to Linux kernel 5.12.0-1-librem5 (on Byzantium)? Asking while think that on screen number/error of 85°C (that doesn’t have anything to do with real temperature) might already be past issue, hopefully already corrected.

[carlosgonz]

Yes i have same issues random without charging the batt, i think there is a bug of 85C temp .
Byzantium.

[irvinewade]

@dos It seems my merge request is unloved. I don’t know whether that’s because I needed to do something else or you are too busy or someone else was supposed to do it. The merge request says: Ask someone with write access to this repository to merge this request. But I don’t know who has write access or how I am supposed to “ask”.

[dos]

I’d rather say that the whole docs repo is rather unloved at the moment, since we lack a dedicated person that would take care of it. I’ll try to take care of your MR in a spare moment.

[Whe3zy]

The temps on my device are similar

Type		Temp
bq25890-Charger		85.00 C
gpu		56.00 C
vpu		56.00 C
cpu		55.00 C
max170xx_battery		50.50 C

[tomoqv]

For the second day in a row, I have woken up to a very hot phone with a blinking red light while it was charging. The blinking red light continues for some 5 or 10 mins after unplugged and the phone is really warm on the outside. The battery charge was at 90-95% yesterday and around 80% this morning. I have used the purism original charger.

The same kind of heat is also generated if I leave my apartment (and thereby wifi) and move around with the phone in my pocket. It feels like 50+ Celsius and is very uncomfortable.

Does anybody know what is happening when the phone gets this warm? Needless to say, the battery drain is also considerable when this happens.

[guru]

I’d think in some run away proc (for example the browser) which consumes a lot of CPU; use SSH or the terminal app and check with top.

[tomoqv]

You might be right. I use Firefox pretty much, usually a couple of windows open. Just now, my phone was very unresponsive so I ssh:ed into it and launched htop to see what was happening. Firefox was at the top of the list, so I killed it and the phone went back to more normal response. After relaunching firefox, phone remainded normal though.

[prolog]

My experience of FF since some years is: don’t leave to much tabs open for a longer time (e.g. over night). Even a modern desktop can get unresponsive or freeze completely. I think that it’s busy with swapping.

[guru]

My experience with the L5 after some weeks is: shutdown all unused apps when you put the L5 away for longer time (over night or so), esp. browsers and the gnome-gsettings app.

[lo0]

This is almost certainly it. iOS and Android basically turn apps “off” when they are not in active use… especially iOS - so they don’t use power/battery while you are not using. As far as I’m aware there is no mechanism for this on the L5 currently. You will need to adjust your habits to close everything that you don’t need to be running before putting it back in your pocket. Especially something like a browser running some crappy JS code.

[Quarnero]

@Whe3zy

The temps on my device are similar

Type		Temp
bq25890-Charger		85.00 C
gpu		56.00 C
vpu		56.00 C
cpu		55.00 C
max170xx_battery		50.50 C

@prolog

I think that it’s busy with swapping.

So we might rewrite this fact: “Maximum temperature raise at different discharge currents: 1A:+1,2°C, 2A:+3,3°C, 3A:+5,8°C, 5A:+11,3°C, 7A:+16,6°C, 10A:+22,1°C,” based on testing upon Eneloop NiMH AA HR-3UTGB in order to pretend that we are focused onto 1.0A range only (up to 4.0A range?), on what is actual BPP-L503 temperature raise (with/without WiFi on, particular apps open/closed, etc.),

to something like: with 10 FFox open Tabs (because of swapping) might raise your L5 battery (when battery inside of the phone and with display on) temperature to about “+22,1°C”, might (occasionally) add significant temperature to your L5 battery itself and the rest of the phone will be used to cool it down, please reduce number of open FFox Tabs. Just asking, don’t get me wrong (if you can).

[guru]

In the Ubuntu mobile (BQ E4.5, M10, …) any app which is not on the screen receives the SIGSTOP signal and when it returns to the screen a SIGCONT. You can define exceptions for this, for example for the browser to be able to listen some stream from Internet while reading other stuff in another app.