Guruplug overheating?

[trampjuice]

In this case its not 30 days - Under EU law you have a 2 year 'warranty' on goods with design flaws - and its the seller Newit who are liable, (as long as they are solvent!)

The seller is liable to the consumer for any lack of conformity which exists when the goods are delivered to the consumer and which becomes apparent within a period of two years unless, at the moment of conclusion of the contract of sale, the consumer knew or could not reasonably be unaware of the lack of conformity.
http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/consumers/protection_of_consumers/l32022_en.htm

In the UK the law is even stronger - upto 5/6 years for many items.

The Sale and Supply of Goods to Consumers Regulations 2002, which came into force in March 2003 provide consumers with a range of remedies in the case of goods which are sold with existing defects. These remedies include repair or replacement, and/or partial or full refund.

These regulations implemented the requirements of European Directive 1999/44/EC, which set out to provide what EC legislators called a 'baseline' protection for all consumers in Europe. In fact, UK consumers already enjoyed protection at a level well above the baseline.

The Directive did not seek to provide a two year minimum guarantee period. It introduced a requirement for a two year limitation period, which is a different thing. During a limitation period consumers can report and seek redress for a fault that was there at the time of delivery. Some EU countries already had limitation periods of less than this but the equivalent limitation period in the UK was (and is) 6 years in England and Wales and five years in Scotland.

Under the 2002 regulations If goods develop a fault within the first six months and a consumer claims against the retailer, the retailer will have to prove that the fault was not present when the goods were sold.
So in the first 6 months the onus of proof is on the retailer, after that the buyer has to prove the goods were faulty as-sold. And there is no blanket 2-year warranty. 



 

[peter a]

Thanks for that trampjuice.

Form what’s still happening with the overheating problem, it looks like NewIt are going to get a lot of Guruplug back in the coming months.
I`m very happy with my Sheevaplug and thought the extra gigabyte Ethernet port would be very useful, that was a big mistake for it sound like the Guruplug is a pile of %$£@.

[briaeros007]

personally i don't find my guruplug "extremly hot".
One of the hotspot is the ethernet socket.
All other part are "hot", but not "so hot".
And remember that a stranger odor for the first power on isn't so abnormal, since components heat, any dust, or other things which was new tend to produce a small "perfume" for the first time.
But after the first two/three hour, if you stop the guruplug, let him rest, and relaunch it, you mustn't have so much odor.

You say yourselves that your "guru plug hasn't explode".
I've use a stress test, and see no noticeable temp difference, with only my finger.
What we must to see
-> what is the real temperature theses things attains, with thermo imaging if possible. (idle and under stress)
-> Is this "hottness" will destroy some components ? (if they're not used within the specs for example).

My (old) pc has his cpu which attains 70°c continuously, and this was within the specs.
This pc works for more than 6 years, and still works.

Actually, I use another pc and its  chipset is continuously above 40°c.

Remember one thing : it's not since that something seems  hot, that it is really hot. The human perception is pretty "strict". Something at 25°c but with a good thermal conductivity will seems "cold" (typically, a ladder in aluminium). Something which attains 40°c will seems "very hot" for your finger.

[briaeros007]

I forgot,
and what will be very useful, is to have "sensors" working with guruplug.

[trampjuice]

Its the CASE which is getting to 60C this means the Guruplug the small components inside are far hotter. I can't even imagine the failure rate as the ambient temperature gets much hotter in Europe as we move towards August.

My plan is to do my best to cool the Guruplug without breaking the warranty by opening the unit. If after a prolonged time period there are no components that fail, I will then be happy that its been 'soak tested' and I can open the unit and put proper heatsinks and a cooling system in there.

BTW : Can you tell us what voltage you are running the cooler Guruplug at? Its curioius how some people say they have no problems while others can barely touch the thing.

[trampjuice]

All that stuff about 2 years warranty is theoretical only - if the failure rate is as high as it seems NewIt, who have only traded since 8/2009 and haven't even filed accounts, would likely be bankrupt well before. So the bottomline -  it all depends on their contractual relationship with Globalscale when supplied with defective products.   

[myShiva]

Hey guys,

I don't really know what's going to happen with all of us disappointed customers, but the following experiences are quite nasty:

I got my guru plug from the post office today, because of the weekend.

If it's to much text just read the bold and the colored parts.

Now, how far did all of my plans work out (high speed router, home server and automation with storage drives, and so on) ?

1. First impression: damn this is booting up fast. The first half hour nothing bad happend, the GuruPlug was hand warm, later that hour little bit more than hand warm. CPU Usage Idle time 2,5-4% using htop (not top).
2. A few minutes later I had configured everything and used this lovely plug as a router. Speedtest was awesome, 1GB file with more than 9mbytes/s from some random ftp server in cologne (far away from my home). CPU Usage during this was 5-8% using htop (not top).
3. I started installing some applications and configured the rest like samba. During this I recognized the only thing which stressed the guru until this time is the python-mini-server from webmin. CPU Usage during this was 70-100% using htop (not top).

Until then I thought: awesome. BUT, because of the webmin mini server I stressed the plug for some time (with no intention) and then all began:
1. GuruPlug became freakishly hot, especially the metal around the usb and ethernet ports.
2. After 4hours the GuruPlug made this really frightening move. Do you guys know the Ring of Death from the XBOX360? When the Power Button begins to blink red and you've to pray it's still alive?
Exactly the same thing happend with my guru plug. All 4 LEDS turned red and the ethernet ports didn't have any power anymore, nothing worked. The Guru was frozen/grilled.
After I pulled the guru out for just 5 minutes it cooled down and was less than hand warm.
Then I plugged it in again and everything ran perfectly.
3. After 30 minutes I added my laptop to the gigabit switch to test the samba speed with windows 7. This worked for exactly 0 minutes. The Guru Plug just turned off! No warning, it just turned off!
4. Now the last shocker. After some time I noticed that my external hard drives aren't accesible from samba anymore. I didn't really think it's something about the hardware, I just tested the linux configurations for 20 minutes and realized it's nothing wrong there. Then I saw the blue light from my usb hub was off. Now it comes as the big final: both usb ports don't work anymore. I tested them with different devices, they are dead.
But from what? Was I downloading to much, so that the ethernet ports just grilled the usb ones?

No seriously I was really crazy about those awesome functions of the guruplug and waited 2 months instead of just getting the regular sheeva plug and not spending >120€ additionally for a high speed router, but know I'm wondering if I ever get that money back.

@NewIT
With all respect, I know it's a bloody situation for you guys as well, but I really don't like what I've seen the last 2 hours! And this is definetly not what I've signed up for.
So please give us a statement.
It's not like we blame you guys for this (as I can see), me for example will need a regular sheeva plug in exchange, so it wouldn't be a total loss for you, but you have to do something.
Maybe you could post what Globalscale is saying to all those negative reactions.


Good luck.

[jogi]

My LEDs did not turn red, but the USBs are also dead now. The Ethernet ports also fail after some time, but do work after a reboot (some minutes). It looks like the USBs do not have power any more. All I did by now is to copy over some files to a usb drive (3.5 inch with own PSU) WiFi and Ethernet was used. lsusb shows the internal hub still, but no connected devices...
I have noticed that the case is cooler now after the USB ports are broken. Something is very wrong with this hardware design or assembly.

[Huaaah]

Hi

Just my experiences

This while running idle for 9 hours with the WiFi and Bluetooth on, but no USB-devices connected.

The body it self is about 35 C hot and the USB/Connectors around 60 C hot, but I did not dare to connect or load anything at this moment.


New-IT you simply have to come with a statement/workaround/solution to this issue ASAP, if you want to keep up the good reputation - even though you did not fabricate this device, you are still the ones that we need answers from.


Best regards.

[briaeros007]

Its the CASE which is getting to 60C this means the Guruplug the small components inside are far hotter. I can't even imagine the failure rate as the ambient temperature gets much hotter in Europe as we move towards August.

My plan is to do my best to cool the Guruplug without breaking the warranty by opening the unit. If after a prolonged time period there are no components that fail, I will then be happy that its been 'soak tested' and I can open the unit and put proper heatsinks and a cooling system in there.

BTW : Can you tell us what voltage you are running the cooler Guruplug at? Its curioius how some people say they have no problems while others can barely touch the thing.

230V/50 Hz (France).

[alessio]

As promised I made some shots of my GP with thermovision camera (Fluke Ti55).
Please find them attached to this post.

These are the conditions at which the shots were taken:
- GP was plugged in 230V @ 50 Hz for 15 minutes
- CPU was left idling !!
- Ethernet cable was plugged in eth0, but GP was not associated to the network
- 1 USB key was plugged in

As can be seen from the shots, the outside temperature of GP
was well above 60° C, exceeding 70° C on USNAP side.
That means that the inside temperature rises well above the reliable
operating point. (Commercial grade components, as used in GP,
are specified for 0-70° C range). I guess that the temperature of
the components inside GP could be in the range of 80-90° C. !!?!!

Unfortunatelly, I couldn't stress the CPU, because I forgot my JTAG
board at home. I also couldn't log in via SSH over Wifi, because I disabled
it previously. So, the situation has to be much worse with Wifi and BT enabled
and CPU doing some number crunching.

Those who have the problem with high temperatures of GP should really
consider adding additional fans or at least heat sinks. Otherwise, the GP
will be fried very soon... But, just to calm everybody down, GP will not catch
on fire. It will just stop working with some melted components.

As an electronics engineer, I seriously wonder how could GlobalScale Tech. pass QA tests...

[trampjuice]

Very VERY interesting pictures - especially for people who want to add heat sinks. Its clearly the bottom board which is super hot. Even though its only been on for 15 mins. This gets close to ruling out the PSU being a problem.

[alessio]

Very VERY interesting pictures - especially for people who want to add heat sinks. Its clearly the bottom board which is super hot. Even though its only been on for 15 mins. This gets close to ruling out the PSU being a problem.

I am glad that you found the pictures interesting.

If GST via NewIT don't offer me an exchange for a new SheevaPlug, I will definitely have to devise a cooling system.
When I disassemble the GP, I can make some additional shots with thermovision camera to pinpoint the main heat source.
I'll post the results here.

GP is certainly not ready for prime time. Currently, it can be used just as a toy for developers, who are willing to invest
a lot of their time for HW & SW modifications.

[henk55]

Thanks for the pictures, its confirms my doubts!

I suspect also that ventilation thrue the ventilation-slots is at minimal, confirmed by the pictures.
they forgotten really whats going on with the heat building up inside, I'll think a 360 degrees ventilation-slots helps a little more,
but the fault by design is, the cooling-strip is facing down so the heat can't escape, not in the up direction or sideways.
How could they make such a mistake.
As I said, but the picture's proof it, finaly!  

Added:
At the end of the week I'll try to mount a micro fan 30x30x3mm just above the mains-inlet side, to see if the temperature drops a quit of bit,
I order it at the Conrad site, until they arive, wait for the next follow up.....

[Huaaah]

I suspect also that ventilation thrue the ventilation-slots is at minimal, confirmed by the pictures.

You are completely right - lovely pictures, One thing that surprises me with these pictures is that the Vent-slots actually appears to work (!) If you look at the pictures, the area by the slots are quite cool, hence a solution might be to just make vent-slots all around the Plug-casing.
Sorry if I am stating the obvious, it just surprises me that such a small correction might have such an impact.

Correct me if I am wrong - I am not an hardware engineer :-)