Improving speed of CM4 uConsole - tips

uConsole
1

Here is my collection of things I made to improve performance of my uConsole:

  1. Use chromium.
  2. In Firefox, disable hardware acceleration.
  3. Overclock. I use over_voltage=6, arm_freq=2140, gpu_freq=750 in my config.txt
  4. CPU governor set to performance with echo performance | sudo tee /sys/devices/system/cpu/cpu*/cpufreq/scaling_governor (not sure how to make it permanent)
  5. I had to ‘bypass’ the fuses on battery PCB by soldering a short wire around them, and press harder in the battery PCB connector, or it would shutoff under heavy load with overclock

Following these now makes my uConsole comparable with smartphone snappiness, and is still a full pocket PC!

Please share your tips on improving the performance

4 Likes
2

TIL: By default, Raspberry Pi OS sets wi-fi to power-saving mode switching it off when it’s not transmitting data. The idea is to save the battery power, but unfortunately means that it can disconnect and fail to reconnect to the network afterwards which could result in failed updates. The solution? Turn power-saving of Wi-Fi off!
It’s as simple as adding:
/sbin/iwconfig wlan0 power off to the /etc/rc.local file.
Now do keep in mind that I have done that on my regular Raspberry Pi, I am not exactly sure whether or not it is also the case on the uConsole’s OS’s available for it.

1 Like
3

Bypassing safeties on the batteries is a very good way to start a fire. Either buy higher output batteries or build a better battery system.

4

The fuses are for polarity protection, not a fire prevention mechanism. Most of fires are result of battery defect, and sometimes charging circuitry failure and subsequent overcharge. There isn’t anything outside of super exotic cases that I can think of where fuses can prevent fire. For example, a train locomotive running over specifically the screen part of uConsole, leaving batteries intact and the metal case comes in contact with bruised PCB and triggers a mass short circuit and fuses disengage the batteries.

5

(post deleted by author)

6

If I remember correctly, there are fuses and diodes. The diodes are for reverse polarity and the fuses are for protection. I personally wouldn’t circumvent either. All kinds of things can happen to internal circuitry that might cause a high load or short. I had an incident with my first uConsole board where the board was faulty and when I inserted the batteries there was a pop and smoke. I’m sure those fuses protected the batteries in that circumstance. I have not had any issues with my replacement board shutting off due to overclocking but I use good Samsung 35E batteries.