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Asus Chromebox announcement
As others said, I get 100% of cpu one, idle or active. It drops sometimes, but not often. I only run openelec. Skin doesnt matter. Amber or Nox are the same. I don't quite see the need for more RAM. Mine hits about 15% used.

I still get a like lockup. Mostly if I play movies and navigate at the same time. Even if a movie JUST ended and I navigate a lot of menus quickly, it freezes. It's like it needs recover time.

Almost all movies play. A few froze up. Maybe the file.... Who knows. So far I like it, but....
upgrading to 4GB of RAM mitigates the CPU usage issue in OpenELEC, but not in Ubuntu it seems. I'd expect the fix will be in a kernel update at some point. I have't have any lockups at all with OE, but haven't tried to generate them either.
I could be misinformed but it is my understanding that to get the full benefit of 64 bit architecture a minimum of 4GB of ram is necessary. Due to higher throughput demands or some such thing? I don't know this to be a fact but I read it somewhere a while back and have been under that assumption since.
(2014-05-12, 01:12)jsp1 Wrote: I could be misinformed but it is my understanding that to get the full benefit of 64 bit architecture a minimum of 4GB of ram is necessary. Due to higher throughput demands or some such thing? I don't know this to be a fact but I read it somewhere a while back and have been under that assumption since.

The way I see it is:

RAM >= 2GiB and hardware supports x64? Use 64bit OS.
RAM >= 2GiB and hardware supports x64, but need to run 32bit applications? Use 64bit OS, install 32bit libraries.

Though I have to say I don't think it matters which you run, as long as your happy with what your using.

After 03:14:07 UTC on Tuesday, 19 January 2038, we won't have to worry about which to use.

That said I still plan on at least buying a 2GB stick for the chromebox.

Edit: I've now tested two more distros and have the following results.

Code:
Fedora-Live-Xfce-x86_64-20-1.iso                                             CPU:  0-2%          Kernel:  3.11.10
debian-live-7.5.0-amd64-xfce-desktop.iso           2014-05-05 05:05          CPU:  0-2%          Kernel:  3.2.?

OpenELEC is using 3.14.?
Manjaro-openbox is using 3.12.18

The high CPU usage looks to be *buntu related only. Kernels 3.2.? - 3.14.? on other systems have low idle CPU useage.
The debian live xfce was using an old non haswell kernel (probably not backported) and still had better CPU usage than
*buntu with a 3.14.* kernel. Using htop showed no process high CPU usage, it only showed that CPU usage was high.
Updating with obiaf and x-swat ppa had worse performance and would freeze my chromebox after one or two minutes.
If your planning on using your chromebox as more than an HTPC, you should use a distro other than *buntu, or report
the problems and wait for it to be fixed. All distros other than *buntu have required the mem=1536M boot option to be
added to test and install.
I tried kernel 3.15 - rc2 last night (xbuntu 14.04) but high cpu usage on idle stays the same.

@tetsuya
With arch linux are you using/compiling fernetmenta repo or standard arch xbmc packages?
I have not used arch yet. I am definitely looking forward to it if only time permits Smile
(2014-05-12, 14:30)uomiarz Wrote: I tried kernel 3.15 - rc2 last night (xbuntu 14.04) but high cpu usage on idle stays the same.

@tetsuya
With arch linux are you using/compiling fernetmenta repo or standard arch xbmc packages?
I have not used arch yet. I am definitely looking forward to it if only time permits Smile

I was testing arch linux with the manjaro live image and I just used the standard arch xbmc packages that are in the repo.
I usually use the stable branch, but I had wanted to test out an HEVC encode I had with fernementa in ubuntu. There are
some older xbmc packages in AUR using the fernementa git and their PKGBUILD would need to be updated (they are pulling
in code from thre frodo branch, etc).
I'm going to try and pull a couple logs through ssh to submit to Openelec folks during this video freeze/lockup problem. Anyone else having the problem might want to try and do the same...the more info we can submit the better chance of getting a fix.

Edit: Since it doesn't appear to be linked to any particular file type and isn't easily replicated it would be good to have ssh enabled at all times and have your tools set up and ready to log in and submit commands to generate a log (if it is even possible). If you run windows Putty should be sufficient and the default login and password are root/openelec respectively.
(2014-05-13, 19:06)jsp1 Wrote: I'm going to try and pull a couple logs through ssh to submit to Openelec folks during this video freeze/lockup problem. Anyone else having the problem might want to try and do the same...the more info we can submit the better chance of getting a fix.

Edit: Since it doesn't appear to be linked to any particular file type and isn't easily replicated it would be good to have ssh enabled at all times and have your tools set up and ready to log in and submit commands to generate a log (if it is even possible). If you run windows Putty should be sufficient and the default login and password are root/openelec respectively.

I changed rendering method from hardware to software... and watched two tv episodes and 90 minutes of football without a single issue.
all, please update to OpenELEC 4.0.1 and see if the issues persist. thx
(2014-05-09, 19:51)zerobabble Wrote: I am having the same issue with kswapd taking a CPU 100% with 2G of RAM, I have been able to mititgate the issue a little bit by creating a file in /etc/sysctl.d/

/etc/sysctl.d/swappiness.conf

vm.swappiness = 0

but it comes back every once in a while...

i would really like to be able to add a swapfile in /storage/.cache but openelec does not have swapon included... why have mkswap if i can not turn on swap.... swapy swap swap Tongue

is there anyway to make a swap partition?

your fix is working for me. CPU now at 3%-5% on each cpu and temp dropped 20 degress on the CPU!

Sean
(2014-05-12, 01:12)jsp1 Wrote: I could be misinformed but it is my understanding that to get the full benefit of 64 bit architecture a minimum of 4GB of ram is necessary. Due to higher throughput demands or some such thing? I don't know this to be a fact but I read it somewhere a while back and have been under that assumption since.

Hey Jsp1,

that's close but not exactly true. I'll do my best to explain. A 64 bit CPU can compute twice as much information per instruction than a 32 bit CPU. Additionally a 32 bit CPU with a 32bit address bus can only access 2^32 locations (~4GB). A 64 bit CPU can support more than 4GB and that is an advantage but its far from the only advantage. Power and performance are other factors.


Addittionally, on many PC's the DDR controller needs two populated banks to achieve optimal performance.It appears the 2955u is a dual channel memory controller according to intels specs it would benefit from a 2nd stick of memory but its not because of the total memory but more because you now have 2 lane road between CPU and memory instead of a 1 lane road.

This extra memory shouldn't really make much difference to XBMC except under heavy CPU loads which is unlikely. Those using the Chromebox for more general purpose computing applications would certainly benefit from populating 2 dimms.


BTW: a little update.

my ancient HP MCE/Keyboard IR eye works fine with my harmony. I tested 5.1 and 7.1 TrueHD and DTS-MA bitstreaming and all was good. I am seeing a pause or two and some minor tearing ( I need to play with settings some more). 24fps playback is working.

I managed to score a Intel NUC DN2820FYKH from ProVantage for $131 delivered. These things have been out of stock for ever and thats why I bought the chromebox since I couldn't get a NUC. o its comparo time. Waiting on the DDR to arrive. going use 16gb USB3 stick for openelec on the NUC for now. I dont expect the 7.5W CPU in the NUC to compete with the 15W CPU in the Chromebox but if it decodes and bit streams my BD rips and the built in IR works then thats all I need.

Cheers,
Sean
I'm on the fence about getting the Celeron Chromebox and I have a few questions.

1. How is the skin performance on the Chromebox? How does it handle a large skin like Aeon MQ 5?
2. How does it compare to a raspberry pi?
3. How quickly do internet video streams load? I'm used having them load in 10-60 seconds on the pi.

Thanks,
Matt
(2014-05-15, 09:29)mdumont1 Wrote: I'm on the fence about getting the Celeron Chromebox and I have a few questions.

1. How is the skin performance on the Chromebox? How does it handle a large skin like Aeon MQ 5?
2. How does it compare to a raspberry pi?
3. How quickly do internet video streams load? I'm used having them load in 10-60 seconds on the pi.

Thanks,
Matt

1) no issues whatsoever that I've encountered
2) completely different league, this is a full x86 system
3) as fast as the source allows? streaming bluray isos from my NAS is pretty much instant
I just noticed that the Celeron version is on sale at newegg.com for $169 and free shipping using promo code EMCPEWE85.
(2014-05-15, 16:15)LazerBlue Wrote: I just noticed that the Celeron version is on sale at newegg.com for $169 and free shipping using promo code EMCPEWE85.

FYI.... Here a the link:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.as...6883220572

code works for me. good deal. mine was $189 plus tax at Frys.
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