uConsole Power Issue

Due the current uConsole hardware power design, espeically it was designed for CM3 at the time. With the NVMe expansion board installed, the power consumption increases significantly, which may lead to instability issues such as random reboots or failure to boot.

There are a few potential workarounds to mitigate these issues.

1. Reduce the clock speed of the CM5 module to lower power consumption. This can be done by modifying the boot configuration files to set a lower CPU frequency. Edit the /boot/firmware/config.txt file and add the following line at the end:

   arm_freq=2000 
   gpu_freq=700
   

Note that default CM5 CPU frequency is 2200MHz, and CM5 GPU frequency is 750MHz. You can try lower values if stability issues persist. Try to find a balance between performance and stability, then experiment with these values to find the optimal settings for your use case.

1. Reduce the NVMe drive power consumption by change to gen 2 mode.

Edit the /boot/firmware/config.txt file and add the following line at the end:

dtparam=pciex1=on
dtparam=pciex1_gen=2

1. Allow NVMe enter into low power state. This can be done by adding the following kernel parameter to the boot configuration:

Edit the /boot/firmware/cmdline.txt file and append the following parameter to the end of the existing line (make sure it’s a single line):

nvme_core.default_ps_max_latency_us=2000

Finalize and reboot the uConsole to apply the changes.

sudo reboot