[Bug]: Radxa A7A MainLine V0.1 First Start

[Difnes217]

What happened?

Armbian-xfce-a7a: When I first tried to boot the system, the fan spun normally but stopped before the screen loaded. Immediately after the screen loaded, it prompted for a login. However, I didn’t have the root password, and the root password in the image wasn’t a common one. I inserted the SD card into my computer and modified /etc/shadow to successfully log in. But as soon as I logged in, it asked me to configure the root password again.

How to reproduce?

just start mainline-xfce for radxa a7a

Branch

main (main development branch)

On which host OS are you running the build script and observing this problem?

Debian 13 Trixie

Are you building on Windows WSL2?

• Yes, my Ubuntu/Debian/OtherOS is running on WSL2

Relevant log URL

No response

Code of Conduct

• I agree to follow this project's Code of Conduct

[github-actions]

Hey @Difnes217 !

Looks like it's your first time interacting with Armbian here on GitHub.

Welcome and thank you for taking the time to report an issue ❤️.

Don't forget to star ⭐ the repo.

[Difnes217]

The main problem is that under user-space PWM configuration, after running echo 255 | sudo tee ... and then cat, the value goes through 255 → 102 → 0. However, if you write 255 frequently, it stabilizes.

[NickAlilovic]

I have no issues with the login. If this happens again the default Armbian login and password is root 1234.

The thermal governor is set to step_wise by default, with the fan activating at 70°C. These settings are ideal for Desktop or Media Center use cases, as they keep the fan off during low-intensity tasks like web browsing or video playback, while providing active cooling during heavy workloads.These are the default settings from Allwinner's sun60iw2p1.dtsi. Users can further modify these values using a Device Tree Overlay. If you can make one I'll add it to my build. Right now I'm busy with other issues.

thermal_zones: thermal-zones {
		cpul_thermal_zone: cpul_thermal_zone {
			polling-delay-passive = <100>;
			polling-delay = <1000>;
			thermal-sensors = <&ths 3>;
			sustainable-power = <756>;

			cpul_trips: trips {
				cpul_threshold: trip-point@0 {
					temperature = <70000>;
					type = "passive";
					hysteresis = <2000>;
				};
				cpul_target: trip-point@1 {
					temperature = <90000>;
					type = "passive";
					hysteresis = <2000>;
				};
				cpul_crit: cpu_crit@0 {
					temperature = <110000>;
					type = "critical";
					hysteresis = <0>;
				};
			};

			cooling-maps {
				map0 {
					trip = <&cpul_target>;
					cooling-device = <&cpu0 THERMAL_NO_LIMIT THERMAL_NO_LIMIT>;
					contribution = <1024>;
				};
			};
		};

		cpub_thermal_zone: cpub_thermal_zone {
			polling-delay-passive = <100>;
			polling-delay = <1000>;
			thermal-sensors = <&ths 0>;
			sustainable-power = <914>;

			cpub_trips: trips {
				cpub_threshold: trip-point@0 {
					temperature = <70000>;
					type = "passive";
					hysteresis = <2000>;
				};
				cpub_target: trip-point@1 {
					temperature = <90000>;
					type = "passive";
					hysteresis = <2000>;
				};
				cpub_crit: cpu_crit@0 {
					temperature = <110000>;
					type = "critical";
					hysteresis = <0>;
				};
			};

			cooling-maps {
				map0 {
					trip = <&cpub_target>;
					cooling-device = <&cpu6 THERMAL_NO_LIMIT THERMAL_NO_LIMIT>;
					contribution = <1024>;
				};
			};
		};

		cpul_idle_zone: cpul_idle_zone {
			polling-delay-passive = <100>;
			polling-delay = <1000>;
			thermal-sensors = <&ths 5>;

			cpul_idle_trips: trips {
				cpul_thres: trip-point@0 {
					temperature = <90000>;
					type = "passive";
					hysteresis = <2000>;
				};
				cpul_overshot: trip-point@1{
					temperature = <100000>;
					type = "passive";
					hysteresis = <2000>;
				};
			};

			cooling-maps {
				map0 {
					trip = <&cpul_overshot>;
					cooling-device = <&cpu2_idle 0 50>,
							 <&cpu3_idle 0 50>,
							 <&cpu4_idle 0 50>,
							 <&cpu5_idle 0 50>;
					contribution = <1024>;
				};
			};
		};

		cpub_idle_zone: cpub_idle_zone {
			polling-delay-passive = <100>;
			polling-delay = <1000>;
			thermal-sensors = <&ths 6>;

			cpub_idle_trips: trips {
				cpub_thres: trip-point@0 {
					temperature = <90000>;
					type = "passive";
					hysteresis = <2000>;
				};
				cpub_overshot: trip-point@1{
					temperature = <100000>;
					type = "passive";
					hysteresis = <2000>;
				};
			};

			cooling-maps {
				map0 {
					trip = <&cpub_overshot>;
					cooling-device = <&cpu6_idle 0 100>,
							 <&cpu7_idle 0 100>;
					contribution = <1024>;
				};
			};
		};

		gpu_thermal_zone: gpu_thermal_zone {
			polling-delay-passive = <100>;
			polling-delay = <1000>;
			thermal-sensors = <&ths 4>;
			sustainable-power = <2400>;

			gpu_trips: trips {
				gpu_threshold: trip-point@0 {
					temperature = <60000>;
					type = "passive";
					hysteresis = <0>;
				};
				gpu_target: trip-point@1 {
					temperature = <90000>;
					type = "passive";
					hysteresis = <0>;
				};
				gpu_crit: gpu_crit@0 {
					temperature = <110000>;
					type = "critical";
					hysteresis = <0>;
				};
			};

			cooling-maps {
				map0 {
					trip = <&gpu_threshold>;
					cooling-device = <&gpu
					0
					0>;
					contribution = <1024>;
				};
				map1 {
					trip = <&gpu_target>;
					cooling-device = <&gpu
					0
					3>;
					contribution = <1024>;
				};
				map2 {
					trip = <&gpu_crit>;
					cooling-device = <&gpu
					3
					3>;
					contribution = <1024>;
				};

			};
		};

		npu_thermal_zone: npu_thermal_zone {
			polling-delay-passive = <100>;
			polling-delay = <1000>;
			thermal-sensors = <&ths 2>;

			npu_trips: trips {
				npu_crit: npu_crit@0 {
					temperature = <110000>;
					type = "critical";
					hysteresis = <0>;
				};
			};
		};

		ddr_thermal_zone: ddr_thermal_zone {
			polling-delay-passive = <0>;
			polling-delay = <0>;
			thermal-sensors = <&ths 1>;

			ddr_trips: trips {
				ddr_crit: ddr_crit@0 {
					temperature = <110000>;
					type = "critical";
					hysteresis = <0>;
				};
			};
		};

		skin_zone {
			polling-delay-passive = <0>;
			polling-delay = <0>;
			thermal-sensors = <&ths 7>;

			skin_trips: trips {
				skin_crit: skin_crit@0 {
					temperature = <50000>;
					type = "critical";
					hysteresis = <0>;
				};
			};
		};
	};

sun60i-a733-cubie-a7a.dts

	fan0: pwm-fan {
		compatible = "pwm-fan";
		#cooling-cells = <2>;
		cooling-levels = <0 18 102 170 255>;
		pwms = <&s_pwm0 7 25000 0>;
	};

&cpul_thermal_zone {
	cooling-maps {
		map0 {
			trip = <&cpul_target>;
			cooling-device = <&cpu0 THERMAL_NO_LIMIT THERMAL_NO_LIMIT>;
			contribution = <1024>;
		};

		map1 {
			trip = <&cpul_threshold>;
			cooling-device = <&fan0 2 THERMAL_NO_LIMIT>;
			contribution = <1024>;
		};
	};
};

&cpub_thermal_zone {
	cooling-maps {
		map0 {
			trip = <&cpub_target>;
			cooling-device = <&cpu6 THERMAL_NO_LIMIT THERMAL_NO_LIMIT>;
			contribution = <1024>;
		};

		map1 {
			trip = <&cpub_threshold>;
			cooling-device = <&fan0 2 THERMAL_NO_LIMIT>;
			contribution = <1024>;
		};
	};
};

[NickAlilovic]

I got this from AI. If you can test it and let me know the results.

name it thermal-custom.dts

sudo armbian-add-overlay thermal-custom.dts

/dts-v1/;
/plugin/;

&{/thermal-zones/cpul_thermal_zone} {
	polling-delay-passive = <100>; /* Check every 100ms when hot */
	
	trips {
		/* Stage 1: Whisper mode at 55°C */
		cpul_fan_low: trip-point@2 {
			temperature = <55000>;
			hysteresis = <5000>;
			type = "active";
		};
		
		/* Stage 2: Performance mode at 75°C */
		cpul_fan_perf: trip-point@3 {
			temperature = <75000>;
			hysteresis = <5000>;
			type = "active";
		};
	};

	cooling-maps {
		/* Gentle spin at 55°C (State 1) */
		map1 {
			trip = <&cpul_fan_low>;
			cooling-device = <&fan0 1 1>;
		};

		/* Medium speed at 70°C (State 2) */
		map2 {
			trip = <&cpul_threshold>;
			cooling-device = <&fan0 2 2>;
		};

		/* FULL BLAST at 75°C (State 4) */
		map3 {
			trip = <&cpul_fan_perf>;
			cooling-device = <&fan0 4 4>;
		};
	};
};

&cpul_threshold {
	temperature = <70000>;
	hysteresis = <5000>;
};

[NickAlilovic]

After playing around with the overlay I found that the fan never hits the maximum speed. It could be pwm driver issue. I’ll look into it when I have more free time.