Common Problems & Solutions - Raspberry Pi PiCoolFAN4 User Manual

PiCoolFAN4 Firmware Code 0x14 Print Date 10.11.2019
Common Problems & Solutions
The temperature show on the PiCoolFAN4 is much different than the Raspberry Pi core
The Internal Temperature sensor is a very simple and not very accurate sensor however enough for such
application. It measures temperature of the environment around of the Raspberry Pi ® CPU so it cannot
be the same.
The Temperature of the Raspberry Pi is going high without fan activation, what should I do?
The threshold temperature has been set 55 °C (changed in the new firmware V1.3 and up to 50°C), the
temperature threshold is fine if the Raspberry Pi is closed in a case (especially in the official one), however
it could be too high (so fan not activate) for Raspberry Pi running alone outside of case. Then user need
to decrease this threshold to 50 °C or even 45 °C, to have a proper cooling process. Such post installation
process is needed in order to set the best threshold temperature for your exact system. Alternatively you
can use the daemon then fan will be activated on very accurate CPU temperature.
sudo i2cset -y 1 0x60 0x0f 0xaa && sudo i2cset -y 1 0x60 0x01 45
Why does the PiCoolFAN4 internal temperature sensor have a big difference?
The PiCoolFAN4 temperature sensor is not accurate, it is internal micro controller temperature sensor,
and it can be used on as an indicator and not as an exact measure tool. However it is very good for such
simple application as triggering of fan. User need to adjust little bit the threshold if like to have more exact
indications. The reason we selected this sensor is the price. It is not possible to have low price and very
exact external temperature measurements. If user still required to have very exact temperature
activation, then the simplest way is to use daemon and Raspberry Pi temperature sensor. This approach
is also low cost however, need to have installation the daemon.
What is better to use as a temperature sensor: the Internal PiCoolFAN4 or Raspberry Pi?
On our opinion such simple application is not needed to have an accurate temperature measurements.
Maybe user will need to make some threshold adjustment according to environment where his system is
placed, but still it is. If really the user like to have very accurate temperature activation of fan, then the
penalty is to install the Daemon that will push the CPU actual temperature to the PiCoolFAN4 and adjust
it exactly to be very near to the real conditions. We are offering both solution at the same very low cost,
so it is up to user to decide what better fits-in to his needs.
The system is not entering the boot loading process
The boot loading process is a very easy task. However many people report on our support, problems. This
is because most of them is not following exact our recommendations, so not all required steps are fulfilled.
If your bootloader is not entering (you have a message from bootloader script) the most possible reason
is that you typed something wrong is bootloader command or the Serial Port of the Raspberry Pi has been
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