4 ms·

While I don't know about the Pi4, I've found that heatsinks are absolutely required for my uses of the Pi3s. In every situation where I've used a 3 I've had pro

While I don't know about the Pi4, I've found that heatsinks are absolutely required for my uses of the Pi3s. In every situation where I've used a 3 I've had problems with them thermal-throttling down to a basically useless clock speed or just straight-up overheating and blowing. And I'm not overclocking. I don't feel safe using them in embedded applications without _at least_ a heatsink on the main CPU. My workbench Pi also has a small 5V fan on it. Are the 4s different somehow? Or has every 3 I've purchased (somewhere around a dozen) been defective? (I don't have this issue with the Zeros.)

iamnotacrook 7y ago
You forgot to mention what you use them for. My pi3 is inside a Lego case with no fan. I watch videos with it, use it as a git repo host and share files from it and have never had a problem. I never turn it off. But perhaps if it was compiling or something I'd need to worry.
- dspillett 7y ago
  It depends on the video. The pair of Pi units I currently have active (something from the v2 line and a 3B+) are being video players via LibreELEC (the third was a small server for DHCP, NTP, ad filtering DNS, etc, though those jobs are now done elsewhere as it kept eating SD cards). For almost everything I've thrown at the 3 all has been well. The thermal throttle kicks in after a while playing 1080p HEVC clips and occasionally on 720p ones, and makes them skip badly until it has chance to cool down, but that is not unexpected (I'm surprised 720p works as well as it usually does) as those are fairly processing intensive formats and being decoded in software. h264 and other encodings play back for hours on end (1080p or less, the limit of my current TVs) without it getting too warm for comfort. This is in a bog-standard case, with vents but no extra heatsinks or fans. When I have time to faf around (this is a busy month) I'll probably grab a 4 for the HEVC-in-hardware (though support for that in LibreELEC is only in Alpha versions ATM), and hand down the 3 (or put it away for some future project).
artemiszenk 7y ago
The Raspberry Pi 4 no longer has incremental thermal throttling and was capable of running under "normal" desktop usage loads without active cooling. Under benchmarking cooling was required to stay under the 80deg C throttle limit. Article referenced: https://blog.hackster.io/meet-the-new-raspberry-pi-4-model-b-9b4698c284 https://blog.hackster.io/meet-the-new-raspberry-pi-4-model-b...
jrockway 7y ago
My experience is that the Pi 4 gets very hot. You touch it anywhere (USB port, Ethernet port) and it hurts. I got a 40mm 5V Noctua fan for it and 3D printed a case that takes it. The thing now runs very cold. Idle CPU temperatures were about 60 degrees before, now loaded temperatures are around 40. Airflow is a big deal. (I am not using any heat sinks.)
- nsriv 7y ago
  Any chance you'd be willing to put up the files for the case somewhere? I have a 40mm fan and a Pi on the way that I'd like to put together.
  - jrockway 7y ago
    It's this one: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3723481 https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3723481 I printed it honeycomb infill and no top/bottom layers (and also rotated it so it printed with the top and bottom on the bed, instead of upright; having to change that might be an artifact of the slicer I used, though; Simplify3D)
    - munmaek 7y ago
      Is it possible to order without a facebook account? I'd like one but I don't use facebook.
  - geerlingguy 7y ago
    I actually bought the official case and drilled out a hole for a Pi-Fan (you can get them on Amazon or most places that have Pi's and accessories), 1 1/8". I mounted the fan on the top case and plugged it into the 5V and GND GPIO pins, and it keeps the Pi nice and cool. I'm working on a blog post and YouTube video with the full details, but it's not that difficult an operation, and I liked the look/size of the official Pi case more than a printed case or one of the thousands of knockoffs. I do agree with the parent that a fan (active cooling) is absolutely necessary on the Pi 4, more so than any before, as the CPU is not the only part on the board putting out a lot more heat than previous generations—that heat needs to move somewhere.
monocasa 7y ago
Which pi3? The ones with the metal heatspreader?
- cydonian_monk 7y ago
  This is a good question, because I'm not sure offhand if any of the ones which failed were the 3B+ with the new heat spreader on the CPU. I suspect they weren't, as that model only came out a bit of a year ago. I _have_ had overheat issues with the updated 3B+, though it usually involves 720P video and/or an active RTL-SDR dongle. That's somewhat to be expected given the power draw and processor demands of such.

iamnotacrook 7y ago

You forgot to mention what you use them for. My pi3 is inside a Lego case with no fan. I watch videos with it, use it as a git repo host and share files from it and have never had a problem. I never turn it off. But perhaps if it was compiling or something I'd need to worry.

dspillett 7y ago
It depends on the video. The pair of Pi units I currently have active (something from the v2 line and a 3B+) are being video players via LibreELEC (the third was a small server for DHCP, NTP, ad filtering DNS, etc, though those jobs are now done elsewhere as it kept eating SD cards). For almost everything I've thrown at the 3 all has been well. The thermal throttle kicks in after a while playing 1080p HEVC clips and occasionally on 720p ones, and makes them skip badly until it has chance to cool down, but that is not unexpected (I'm surprised 720p works as well as it usually does) as those are fairly processing intensive formats and being decoded in software. h264 and other encodings play back for hours on end (1080p or less, the limit of my current TVs) without it getting too warm for comfort. This is in a bog-standard case, with vents but no extra heatsinks or fans. When I have time to faf around (this is a busy month) I'll probably grab a 4 for the HEVC-in-hardware (though support for that in LibreELEC is only in Alpha versions ATM), and hand down the 3 (or put it away for some future project).

artemiszenk 7y ago

The Raspberry Pi 4 no longer has incremental thermal throttling and was capable of running under "normal" desktop usage loads without active cooling. Under benchmarking cooling was required to stay under the 80deg C throttle limit. Article referenced: https://blog.hackster.io/meet-the-new-raspberry-pi-4-model-b-9b4698c284 https://blog.hackster.io/meet-the-new-raspberry-pi-4-model-b...

jrockway 7y ago

My experience is that the Pi 4 gets very hot. You touch it anywhere (USB port, Ethernet port) and it hurts. I got a 40mm 5V Noctua fan for it and 3D printed a case that takes it. The thing now runs very cold. Idle CPU temperatures were about 60 degrees before, now loaded temperatures are around 40. Airflow is a big deal. (I am not using any heat sinks.)

nsriv 7y ago
Any chance you'd be willing to put up the files for the case somewhere? I have a 40mm fan and a Pi on the way that I'd like to put together.
- jrockway 7y ago
  It's this one: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3723481 https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3723481 I printed it honeycomb infill and no top/bottom layers (and also rotated it so it printed with the top and bottom on the bed, instead of upright; having to change that might be an artifact of the slicer I used, though; Simplify3D)
  - munmaek 7y ago
    Is it possible to order without a facebook account? I'd like one but I don't use facebook.
- geerlingguy 7y ago
  I actually bought the official case and drilled out a hole for a Pi-Fan (you can get them on Amazon or most places that have Pi's and accessories), 1 1/8". I mounted the fan on the top case and plugged it into the 5V and GND GPIO pins, and it keeps the Pi nice and cool. I'm working on a blog post and YouTube video with the full details, but it's not that difficult an operation, and I liked the look/size of the official Pi case more than a printed case or one of the thousands of knockoffs. I do agree with the parent that a fan (active cooling) is absolutely necessary on the Pi 4, more so than any before, as the CPU is not the only part on the board putting out a lot more heat than previous generations—that heat needs to move somewhere.

monocasa 7y ago

Which pi3? The ones with the metal heatspreader?

cydonian_monk 7y ago
This is a good question, because I'm not sure offhand if any of the ones which failed were the 3B+ with the new heat spreader on the CPU. I suspect they weren't, as that model only came out a bit of a year ago. I _have_ had overheat issues with the updated 3B+, though it usually involves 720P video and/or an active RTL-SDR dongle. That's somewhat to be expected given the power draw and processor demands of such.