ALL-H3-CC Single Board Computer by Libre Computer

Got this to make a simple arcade machine to run old classic games like galaga Pacman ect... did get multiple hiccups getting batocera to work but in the end it worked perfectly. Great little find.

I can't recommend this board to anyone. Without a heat sink the board is useless and only works when idle. With anything running the CPU hits the max 105 deg C in minutes and powers off (if an emergency shutdown is supported, worked with Linux 5.8.6, your mileage may vary, my board didn't fry). With heat sinks on both CPU and RAM the temperature still goes up to around 95 deg C when under load. Other similar boards from the same manufacturer but with different chips hit maybe 70-80 deg C under load and without heat sinks. Won't be buying products powered by Allwinner chips in the future if I can avoid it. Documentation is pretty much non existent for this board, a few slides on Google Docs, broken link to forums and that's it. The board has a u-boot button, I have no idea what that button does and I couldn't find any info on what that button is for. OS images: - Provided images are all outdated, built in 2019, uploaded and never updated. - Armbian has support for this board and images work in a headless setup but the GPU is extremely slow. It does work OK with the newer Lima drivers but those are only packaged for Debian 11. At the time of writing Debian 11 is the testing version, not released yet, and to get Armbian based on Debian 11 you either have to build your own image or install an older image and go through an upgrade process. For a board that released in 2018 I'd say it's still not well supported upstream in late 2020. - Other distros have instructions for this board but none of them seemed to have working images. All instructions mention rebuilding u-boot from scratch and manually installing it. Since u-boot doesn't seem to provide any pre-built binaries I didn't bother testing. I did try to rip out a working u-boot from an Armbian image but failed. Armbian was the only distro I was able to successfully boot on this board.

I bought my H3 -512 MB for 15 dollars. It has to be the best basic value board out there for the price. The Pi zero is cheaper, but doesn't have much on the board. The GPIO connector alone for the Pi Zero costs more than this board with the connector and a lot more already on it. No soldering. 512 Ram is where you have to be careful. It will do a lot with say a basic Armbian Configuration. The H5 which I also have runs anything I ask that normally runs on a SBC with 2GB of Ram. The thing is with these boards you have to have a properly functioning SD card. I ordered the Samsung Evo Select 64 GB for around 10ish dollars. Also these boards should be powered by the appropriate power supply and cable. Expect to use the standard 5volt by 2 amp power supply. The same ones that come with a lot of phones. Now the product never uses all that power unless it is under a severe load. Also you do want to use some sort of heatsink if you use these under moderate load. There is a 6 or 7 dollar option they offer that far exceeds the more common Pi heatsinks, but just about anything would do an adequate job. The Renegade model is also decent and has one USB 3.0 port.

I intend to use this as a CLI backup for a Pi. It is different, but so far is working for my purposes. It seems less supported than the AML version, which seems less supported than the ROC one, but all are still supported. Heatsink recommend (but currently sold out) if you run a GUI or very active process, though I hear the AML needs it more. Update: The heatsink is available, again, and the AML with GUI does need it. This one with a GUI would need it as well, but I haven't tried it for comparison. I am using Armbian, and this is the only configuration that handles a strange disk drive adapter that no other board consistently can. Even the AML can't use it. I use this board to tinker and design circuits more than a Pi backup, now, (still using CLI, meaning text mode, no desktop installed.)

The docs are fairly clear for how to dload images. make boot media, and boot the thing with local terminal or, eventually, headless. This particular unit is a bit different from some other Libre Computer SBCs, but I am very satisfied with the processing power and the I/O hardware provided. BE SURE that your power supply output is sufficient for this device. I am building custom process servers for industry and consumers. I added a $6 9 layer case. Great enclosure.