[danny_ice]

hi all,

I'm getting a yellow square fading in and out at the corner of my screen, does anyone know what this means? i've only ever seen the rainbow icon before.

Cheers
Dan

[nooryani84]

https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewt...3&t=137932

Why is there an orange/yellow square in the top right of the display?

This indicates that the Pi 3 is throttling CPU speed due to thermal limitations. There is a graceful reduction in ARM clockspeeds if the SoC exceeds 80°C and during this time a yellow square icon is rendered on-screen. Idle clockspeeds (600MHz) are forced if the SoC hits 85°C. If this is an issue for your application, buy a heatsink - even a small one will likely prevent throttling

I ordered this one myself http://thepihut.com/products/raspberry-pi-heatsink

[danny_ice]

thanks for the quick reply, that makes sense, i will get a heatsink

Cheers
Dan

[nooryani84]

I would also recommend not keeping the Pi inside a TV cabinet that's closed for example... There are certain cases that are better than others. What kind of case are you using and where is the Pi placed?

[danny_ice]

i'm using one of these:-

http://thepihut.com/collections/raspberr...5389116932

i've popped the top off of it at the moment and it seems to be okay, i'm still gonna get a heatsink for it though. its not in a cabinet.

[nooryani84]

Ah. What kind of media were you playing? h.264/h.265? resolution?

I wouldn't think that you would have any issue running Kodi in that case. Yes, I would say it's worth getting a heat sink either way.

[nooryani84]

Have you checked the temperature from Kodi? I believe you can see it in system information or one of the sub-menus under settings.

[danny_ice]

it was 1080p hevc that i was testing, the cpu was maxed out. I probably should have said that in my original post, sorry

[nooryani84]

Oh, well that does explain a lot. The Pi3 doesn't hardware decode HEVC. The RPi Foundation have basically said you should avoid maxing out the CPU for sustained periods. I don't really know if a heat sink will completely solve this issue if you're watching 1080P HEVC. It can't hurt to try though.

[danny_ice]

Yeah i was just testing to see how well it could cope, just done it again and waited to the square to appear. By the time i got into the menu the temperature was at 75 degrees.

[danny_ice]

for what its worth, 720p hevc plays fine and doesn't cause it to overheat

[nooryani84]

Well, I've read various users who say the temps are lowered by about 10 degrees after adding a heat sink. I will be sticking with h.264 for now, though maybe 720p hevc will be fine.

[popcornmix]

The RPi Foundation have basically said you should avoid maxing out the CPU for sustained periods.

No, I don't believe they have.
They have said that cpu throttling may occur when CPU is maxed out for sustained periods.
If that is a problem then a heat sink is recommended.

For some use cases like compiling a large program, the cpu throttling is perfectly acceptable (your laptop almost certainly does the same thing),
but for something like HEVC playback, where the throttling may cause dropped frames, then a heat sink is a sensible option.

[DarrenHill]

Some here may be interested in last week's episode of Pimoroni's Bilge Tank blog as they did some thermal testing on a Pi3 and compared some heat sinks too. Not with Kodi, but the information may still be useful.

[danny_ice]

i've just attached an old heatsink from my original rpi model b and it seems to have done the trick, I've put the top back on the case at that aswell. I'm still gonna get a more beefier one though.