22 ms·

The Raspberry Pi 4 needs a fan

566 points by geerlingguy 7y ago

reallydontask 7y ago
I'd guess that heatsink and a case with heatpipes would be sufficient for most, though perhaps not all, uses and silent, which for me is pretty important on a Raspberry Pi
- seanhandley 7y ago
  I tried a heatsink but it didn't really help unless I had a desk fan providing some air flow.
  - gadgetoid 7y ago
    This pretty much lines up with my findings. I popped the pre-installed heat-spreader off and applied a heatsink with noctua thermal paste... basically no difference- step-by-step chaos here: https://twitter.com/Gadgetoid/status/1151442153584910337 https://twitter.com/Gadgetoid/status/1151442153584910337 Just adding a small fan (trying to avoid blowing our own trumpet too much here) absolutely demolishes the cooling performance of any reasonably-sized heatsink. Presumably there's just not that much passive airflow over something an inch square, even with convection. I still wonder what would happen if a full desktop-sized heatsink was coupled to the Pi 4's SOC.
    - HeWhoLurksLate 7y ago
      I still wonder what would happen if a full desktop-sized heatsink was coupled to the Pi 4's SOC. In all likelihood, you'd see diminishing returns as you get bigger, but that would be quite the sight to see. I've been tempted for a while to build a big case with some sort of mounting standard (maybe a Peek array?) so that I can add whatever hardware I want to it (mostly electronics). This seems like a job for that.
    - kllrnohj 7y ago
      convection cooling needs a decent gap between the fins for it to really work. This is why something like Noctua's passive cooler ( https://www.anandtech.com/show/14486/noctua-shows-off-concept-fanless-cpu-cooler-up-to-120w-of-cooling-performance https://www.anandtech.com/show/14486/noctua-shows-off-concep... ) looks totally different from their tower coolers with a fan. Just slapping a normal CPU heatsink on the pi4 will probably work OK just do the thermal mass and exterior surface area of it, but you're probably not going to get much convection-cooling from it, either.
    - FullyFunctional 7y ago
      I appreciate you actually trying. A "negative" result is still valuable. What I don't like about the article is that small fan have to spin fast (= noise) to generate enough flow. I'd much rather use a 80 mm fan, slowed way down, but I suppose I'd had to roll my own case for that. Better still, wait for someone to start offering this (or maybe this: http://blog.flirc.tv/index.php/2019/06/24/new-pi-4-cases/ http://blog.flirc.tv/index.php/2019/06/24/new-pi-4-cases/)
      - gadgetoid 7y ago
        I'm not the best judge, but these are really quiet fans. I can hear the ones in my laptop, but don't notice Fan SHIM at all. We've had a couple of customers who have, but a replacement fan has been quiet- guessing it's a tolerance issue with the plastics.
  - bjoli 7y ago
    did you try a big enough heatsink? I put a northbridge heatsink on my odroid xu4, and it did even better than the stock cooler with a small fan.
- geerlingguy 7y ago
  The problem is there are now a number of chips on the board—many of which are too small to pop a heatsink on them—which get crazy hot. If you have the Pi inside any kind of enclosed case, that heat just bakes everything else, even if you have heat sinks.
  - 0815test 7y ago
    You could design a copper heat-spreader to pop over the heat-sensitive part(s) of the board, and then apply a heatsink to that. Maybe copper foil would do the job. Another approach is to just run the Pi submersed in mineral oil, with liquid convection then taking the heat away from the board and shedding it to the surrounding environment. We usually don't run our electronics like this (even though the general approach is widely used for cooling needs of all sorts) because mineral oil is gross and might even impact the endurance of our hardware - but the Pi is tiny and cheap enough to make this a non-issue.
    - rahimnathwani 7y ago
      The Pi has connectors on both the long and short edges, so you'll want to be sure everything is plugged in before you dunk it.
- Someone1234 7y ago
  That's what Apple used to do with their Macbooks. Heat pipes into the metal frame which conducts it over a larger surface area creating natural convections which carry the heat into the air. The real downside is that mass plays a substantial role. Meaning thicker metal, larger cases, are better than thinner/smaller. Whereas a fan can accomplish similar results for less cost and space (but not passively). If people don't think passive can work they need to check out Apple's recent Mac Pro that passively cools two Radeon Pro 580Xs. There's no limit, except cost. Personally I still feel a combination of heat pipe, into heat sink, with a small progressive fan is the ultimate. If it is large enough the fan should stay off except under heavy load.
  - vel0city 7y ago
    While there are not extra fans on the cards themselves, I'd hardly call anything in the Mac Pro "passively cooled" considering there are three giant fans on the chassis immediately in front of those heatsinks.
  - HeWhoLurksLate 7y ago
    Apple has a pretty long history of passively cooled devices, including the G4 cube, which had a massive (for the time) CPU and GPU, if you wanted in it, was 8 inches cubed in volume, and cooled convectively.
seanhandley 7y ago
I can recommend Pimoroni's fan shim. They provide a python project that allows you to set temperature thresholds to kick the fan in so it's not on all the time. It's not silent but it's pretty quiet. https://github.com/pimoroni/fanshim-python https://github.com/pimoroni/fanshim-python
- geerlingguy 7y ago
  I thought about getting one of these, as they are a little more turnkey... however I couldn’t find an easy way to purchase and get quick shipping in the US. Is there any other way besides ordering through the UK?
  - whiskers 7y ago
    Ahoy! We ship (pretty fast!) to the US. :-) Failing that I'd hope Adafruit will have them in stock soon! I'm one of the co-founders of Pimoroni, drop me a line if you need any other help.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- rvz 7y ago
  Indeed, the fan shim is insanely cool and I just bought one of these the moment that it was back in stock together with my Raspberry Pi 4. It also works on the Pi 3 and 2. Here's the link if anyone's interested: https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/fan-shim https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/fan-shim
  - whiskers 7y ago
    Glad you like it! We think it's the best solution for cooling any model of Raspberry Pi that's available.
    - knd775 7y ago
      Does it have a standalone mode, where it doesn't need to be controlled by software? I'm interested in using it with prebuilt images that wouldn't be able to run the python to control the fan.
LeonM 7y ago
So does the pi 3 if you stick it in a case, even with a heatsink. I was using a pi 3 with a heatsink in the official case to play a h265 movie (which will be software decoded on a pi3). After about 10 minutes I noticed it started dropping frames and it displayed the thermometer symbol in the top-right of the display. When I removed the top lid from the case, the temperature dropped enough for the thermometer icon to disappear and playback to continue smoothly.
- teraflop 7y ago
  Yeah, thermal insulation behaves in much the same way as electrical insulation. If you put a conductor in series with a resistor, the conductor doesn't conduct all that well.
  - TylerE 7y ago
    Seems like the winning solution would be to do as Apple does and make the case the heatsink. Aluminum is a pretty good thermal conductor, and at the very least it'd get you lots of surface area.
    - thaumasiotes 7y ago
      Wouldn't that make it hard to touch?
      - amiga-workbench 7y ago
        It wouldn't be too bad, the heat would be spread out and the surface would be at a much lower temperature than whats actually measured on die.
      - iamnotacrook 7y ago
        So don't touch it then?
    - medmunds 7y ago
      Like this one? https://smile.amazon.com/Vilros-Raspberry-Model-Aluminum-Cooling/dp/B07MH39YNM/ https://smile.amazon.com/Vilros-Raspberry-Model-Aluminum-Coo... (I'm just running Hassio, so can't really speak to its thermal effectiveness myself. But it's got enough weight to keep cables from pulling it off my shelf.)
y04nn 7y ago
I installed libreelec on my Raspberry Pi 4 the first day I had it. The CPU immediately started (while playing 1080p video) to heat a lot to the point it stalled. Since I haded a motherboard chipset heatsink that I had laying around on the CPU it worked flowlessly. (I keep it without any case)
- the_angry_angel 7y ago
  This was exactly my intended use case - as a gift for relatives - the problem I've had is that I need it enclosed to prevent tiny little fingers from getting hurt/destroying the thing. Tried soak testing it one night and experienced the same thing :/ Currently I'm hoping that I can modify the case this weekend to fulfill my needs. As something intended to be used by kids to learn about computing I do wonder how many are going to get hurt fingers from the heat output by accidentally maxing the cpu and/or touching the USB ports, etc.
  - krisrm 7y ago
    > As something intended to be used by kids to learn about computing I do wonder how many are going to get hurt fingers from the heat output by accidentally maxing the cpu and/or touching the USB ports, etc. Sounds like one of the unexpected lessons will be heat dissipation :) Probably outside of the realm of weekend hacking, but I wonder if something like this would work for you: https://flirc.tv/more/raspberry-pi-4-case https://flirc.tv/more/raspberry-pi-4-case Best of luck!
    - the_angry_angel 7y ago
      Hadn't come across the case. I'll give it a go if my DIY attempts dont work (or are crap) :D
malensek 7y ago
Even the previous-gen Pis would easily throttle under load without a heat sink (although usually installing a decent heat sink was enough to resolve the problem, assuming decent airflow). As the article notes, the heat was mainly from the SoC in the past. The Pi 4 is on a whole different level indeed. I imagine the logic here is the same as with many other Pi accessories: if you need it, you'll buy it or get it as part of a bundle. In some cases throttling is not a huge issue. But we're a far cry from the simple plug-and-play Pis of the past... Another issue is power -- you can't simply run the newer Pis reliably off any old cell phone charger you have laying around.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
  Yeah, I'm kinda wondering just what the Pi is supposed to be at this point. Is it still an inexpensive low power device for teaching basic computer science? Because it seems like it's more for making Kodi boxes or the worlds most powerful LED blinkers.
  - giobox 7y ago
    I'd love to see some kind of reasonable data on the breakdown of how many Pis actually end up in education environments vs RetroPie/Kodi/PiHole/whatever else "service on an SD card image" turnkey solution type thing people use them for. At this point, my guess/gut feel is that education is an increasingly small part of the market for the Pi, yet appears to still be the main focus of the Pi Foundation. I've always felt the educational focus was much more about the rose-tinted memories of parents who grew up in the homebrew computing generation in the UK. It feels much more a product for me in that regard than it does my kids. Ebon Upton et al are of this generation as well. British computer people of a certain age love to remember their ZX Spectrums etc.
    - kingosticks 7y ago
      There is some data at https://static.raspberrypi.org/files/about/RaspberryPiFoundationReview2018.pdf https://static.raspberrypi.org/files/about/RaspberryPiFounda...
hajile 7y ago
Raspberry Pi tower cooler -- the cooler we deserve. https://www.seeedstudio.com/ICE-Tower-CPU-Cooling-Fan-for-Raspberry-pi-Support-Pi-4-p-4097.html https://www.seeedstudio.com/ICE-Tower-CPU-Cooling-Fan-for-Ra...
- thoughtpalette 7y ago
  That link 404s for me unfortunately.
  - tacotime 7y ago
    It's adorable! https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:k1aQeMacXpQJ:https://www.seeedstudio.com/ICE-Tower-CPU-Cooling-Fan-for-Raspberry-pi-Support-Pi-4-p-4097.html+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:k1aQeM...
    - thoughtpalette 7y ago
      oh wow! absolute unit of a PI heatsink.
  - gvb 7y ago
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5IFD2wq_gA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5IFD2wq_gA Heat pipe, heatsink, and fan that is as big as the Pi! :-O
beckler 7y ago
well yeah, this thing pulls 3 amps. even though it's mostly to push amperage down the USB 3.0 ports, those electrons going across the board are gonna generate some heat.
- geerlingguy 7y ago
  Worst case (headless, at least) with a USB SSD powered off the bus, I was pulling 1.8 amps. But I can imagine if you’re also driving some other USB devices, and one or two HDMI displays, 3A is not far off!
sneak 7y ago
Has anyone made an RPi4 lava lamp yet? Extra credit if there is a camera built in that feeds into the camera connector that supplements the RNG.
- vectorEQ 7y ago
  lava lamp / hw crypto module :'D match made in heaven
BaconJuice 7y ago
Just a bit off-topic but what are you guys doing that you need to do CPU throttling? I just got a Pi4 and wondering if I'm missing out on some cool projects I can do with it :)
- geerlingguy 7y ago
  The Pi 4 is the first generation that's actually not horrible at running Kubernetes, so I'm mostly having fun with that (ongoing saga at www.pidramble.com).
  - cwyers 7y ago
    Is this just about how fast the CPU is, or is there some other reason the k8s experience is better now?
    - seanhandley 7y ago
      I'm sure 4GB memory helps a lot.
      - geerlingguy 7y ago
        This. Even 2GB is a world of difference. One of the major issues I had was the master (control) node would start getting a little weird sometimes, and it was always due to memory pressure (even if not scheduling pods on the master Pi). Kubernetes docs _say_ 1 GB is the minimum memory requirement, but 2 or 4 GB is more realistic, because at 1 GB and no swap you have precious little overhead.
  - milofeynman 7y ago
    Are you planning on adding a fan to the cluster?
    - geerlingguy 7y ago
      I’m using an open case and PoE HATs which have built in fans powered by the HAT itself.
adrianmonk 7y ago
> If you run computing hardware at its thermal capacity for long periods of time, this will cause more wear on the parts than if they are run well inside their limits. So I have a moderately increased likelihood of, at some indefinite point in the future, having to spend a whole $35 to replace the Raspberry Pi. I can prevent this by spending extra money (and time) up front. In some cases, it might be worth it. Maybe I'm using this Pi to control something, so downtime is bad. (But even then, fans have moving parts and a high failure rate, so plan to monitor the fan's condition and be prepared to replace it.) In other cases, if the performance isn't important to you, it may make more sense to just accept a shorter lifespan. By the time it breaks, the next generation Pi may be out anyway. I don't love thinking of hardware as disposable, but at this price point, it may be smarter economically.
- junaru 7y ago
  > If you run computing hardware at its thermal capacity for long periods of time, this will cause more wear on the parts than if they are run well inside their limits. How true is this actually? Personal anecdote is an I5-2500K overclocked to 4.6ghz with budget aftermarket cooler (its at 4.6ghz constantly regardless of load). It's been running 24/7 in my desktop since 2011. When will it fail? I see these disclaimers all the time and they sound logical, but does anyone have some numbers on these fail rates under these 'prolonged extreme loads'?
  - HeWhoLurksLate 7y ago
    I've been running a I7-6700K on a 120mm AIO radiator for three years. It gets loud, but it also smashes my OC results. Personally, my biggest worry is the pump failing, and not the fans.
    - jrockway 7y ago
      I used AIO for many computers, but every single system failed. It was the pump every time. I switched to a Noctua passive cooler that I've used throughout motherboard generations (Noctua always releases a cheap kit to attach it to the latest socket type) and it has never been a problem. Thermals aren't a lot worse; I used it on 200W TDP 10 core SKUs, and on normal consumer chips. It has never let me down. AIO seems like a total waste to me; lots of moving parts to die on Saturday morning and make your computer unusable all weekend.
vectorEQ 7y ago
most components should do fine under these temperatures no? on PC usually VRM's are heat sensitive, but the CPU can take pretty crazy temperatures itself. is the issue similar on PI? What component is at risk at these temperatures? 60-70 seems a little hot for a small device , but is it really TOO hot?
- Bootwizard 7y ago
  Damaging temperatures are generally between 90-100°C. Throttling can happen at lower temps and those are usually CPU dependent (and cooler dependent). Also CPUs with less cores handle thermal throttling worse as they have less cores to fallback on if one overheats.
  - kingosticks 7y ago
    It's very dependent on the device. Enterprise/networking-class chips I work with are usually rated for long-term reliability up to 125C, more recently that's come down a little bit (particularly regarding memories) but still significantly over 100C.
  - dboreham 7y ago
    As a sometime hardware engineer, my rule of...er...thumb was that if it was difficult to keep your finger on the device for 5 seconds then it was overheating. Damage to devices certainly doesn't happen at 100C but you might be talking about case temp under some assumptions about how that relates to junction temp for some specific setup. In general its junction temp that decides if the device suffers permanent damage.
    - Bootwizard 7y ago
      Well I guess not damage, but most mobos have an overheat prevention mechanism that will shut the system down at those temps. Can't really use your CPU over 100°C if your motherboard shuts the system off. Sure you can override these in the BIOS but then you're risking damaging the VRMs which might be rated at lower temps.
husam212 7y ago
What about a bigger heatsink?
- bjoli 7y ago
  That has been tried to great success with the rpi3, so I suspect it will at least make it less prone to throttling. Edit: I just stacked a bunch of 10sec coins on the processor (without any thermal compound) brought the idle temperature down by 3 degrees C. Edit2: Put an carbon tablet pipe on it, filled with coins. It is not up to heat yet, but right now it is idling at about 45C. It would probably be better with some fluid in it. I will probably keep this as my cooler. Edit3: Seriously: I have wonderful thermal numbers. sysbench for 240 seconds, temperature 62C. This is a rpi4 with a poe hat, so my passive cooling options are limited.
  - kekepepe 7y ago
    What is 'carbon tablet pipe'? I tried to google it, but nothing useful turns up.
    - bjoli 7y ago
      Sorry, English is not my first language. There are these painkillers called "treo" in Swedish. They dissolve in water, producing CO2 in the process. I don't know if they are available in other markets, but in Sweden you can buy them everywhere. https://www.apotea.se/treo-brustablett-500-mg-50-mg-20-st https://www.apotea.se/treo-brustablett-500-mg-50-mg-20-st
kees99 7y ago
Quote: the metal casing helps spread that heat around It does, to a degree. But that is absolutely not what we are seeing in that IR picture. Shiny bare metal is a mirror at the wavelengths that thermal camera uses. So what you see on thermal image where wifi-module shield and CPU are is reflection of ambient (room) where this picture was taken. Try waving your hand around, you'll see it reflecting there too. To measure real metal surface temperature by IR, you have to paint that metal (ideally, with black matte paint), or apply similarly-textured sticker.
- gadgetoid 7y ago
  There's a better image here- https://medium.com/@ghalfacree/benchmarking-the-raspberry-pi-4-73e5afbcd54b https://medium.com/@ghalfacree/benchmarking-the-raspberry-pi...
  - nixgeek 7y ago
    How was that accomplished? Extremely nice image!
    - JorgeGT 7y ago
      Many IR cameras have actually two cameras, a normal optical one with high resolution (~10^3 x 10^3), and the IR one (microbolometer) which is low resolution (~10^2 x 10^2). They ensemble the two pictures later and produce these results.
      - geerlingguy 7y ago
        I have the cheaper Seek imager, which just has a low res IR camera. Can’t afford the fancy tools where not needed! I mostly use it to check the house for air leaks and thermal issues.
  - book-mind 7y ago
    That image is still highly misleading, you can see from the overlayed optical image that the CPU is not coated. Ideally you'd want to coat any metal surface with black epoxy, and set the IR camera Emissivity Coefficient to 0.9 (the coefficient for black epoxy).
novaRom 7y ago
I cannot find a data sheet for its CPU (BCM2711B0). Is Pi4 actually an open hardware system?
- tssva 7y ago
  None of the Pi's have been open hardware systems.
strainer 7y ago
The Pi4 does not need a fan. There is a grand total of 10 watts of heat to dissipate, 15 watts max supply but that includes power sent to peripherals and wifi. A matchbox sized heatspreader which just touches each of the warm components will work assuming a bit of ventilation is arranged to let 40-50C air float away. The heatspreader shouldn't even benefit significantly from being a top conductive alloy - a bit of tin lid will do the job. Experiences with shifting 200 watts for cpu cooling has people thinking dedicated alloy sinks and fins and fans are appropriate, but this is just 10 watts - it's child's play ;/
kemayo 7y ago
On a related note, there's a pending raspberry pi 4 firmware update which apparently makes a _big_ difference to how much heat it's generating: https://www.pcgamer.com/amp/if-you-bought-a-raspberry-pi-4-grab-this-firmware-update-to-improve-performance/ https://www.pcgamer.com/amp/if-you-bought-a-raspberry-pi-4-g... Last I saw, it's still causing some issues with performance of USB devices, which is why it's not in general release yet.
arendtio 7y ago
I think 'need' is a pretty strong word in this context. 'Could use' would be a better term, as the Pi 4 clearly works without a fan, just not at peak performance for more than a few minutes. For many use-cases, I would prefer some performance reduction over the noise generated by a fan.
- Marsymars 7y ago
  Yes, if you're committed to a silent use-case, your options are essentially between a processor that doesn't throttle, or a processor that starts faster, and then eventually throttles to a steady-state matching the non-throttling processor in performance.
  - geerlingguy 7y ago
    Apparently a massive heat sink like the ICE tower (https://www.seeedstudio.com/ICE-Tower-CPU-Cooling-Fan-for-Raspberry-pi-Support-Pi-4-p-4097.html https://www.seeedstudio.com/ICE-Tower-CPU-Cooling-Fan-for-Ra...) can maintain a safe temp even without the fan running... but that also makes the Pi turn into a massive device with no chance of working in a standard case!
kingosticks 7y ago
There's further information about the thermal control at https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/raspberrypi/frequency-management.md https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/raspberry... which mentions that config option 'temp_soft_limit' can also be used. Interestingly it is not used by default on the Pi 4, but is set to 60C for the 3B+.
georgeecollins 7y ago
My problem is I use a shield on top of the PI for servo connections. I have found that a PI 3 can get hot without a case but with a board on top of it. I am glad they are improving the PI but I need to think about side mounted cooling.
ausjke 7y ago
I'm happy I have not bought the Pi4 yet, fanless for this kind of boards is the bottom line for me, if Pi4 needs a fan, then it crosses the line at least for me.
jsharf 7y ago
You needed to make that heatmap translucent and overlay it on top of the rpi with a diagram pointing to each chip and what it does. That would have been a super cool graphic.
- pas 7y ago
  https://miro.medium.com/max/1838/1*KedwLPE9eXoeuwdciZpE0Q.png https://miro.medium.com/max/1838/1*KedwLPE9eXoeuwdciZpE0Q.pn...
MayeulC 7y ago
Reading all those IR images popping about the raspberry made me wonder why we're still using a "rainbow" (HSV) colormap. I think there are better alternatives, that have both a linear luminance variation, and are colorblind-friendly: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17723041 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17723041
stcredzero 7y ago
Raspberry Pi is becoming like a NUC. Meanwhile, there are people using Intel NUCs as fanless Hackintoshes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUUP8K3RqAo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUUP8K3RqAo
- Fnoord 7y ago
  Except the Raspberry Pi is an ARM SOC (ARM64 in this case), while Intel NUCs are x86-64. macOS requires x86-64 for now. If Apple ports it to ARM, I really doubt they'll make it easy to run on other ARM hardware.
opmac 7y ago
They sell cases with heatsinks and fans for $10-$20. I would just recommend buying one of those versus modding one like the guy in the article did.
- devinjflick 7y ago
  I feel like if I buy official parts, they shouldn't require modding to get the max performance out of the product. They should work without issue together. Currently you can barely get moderate performance with the official case. This article and mod are helpful, even if obvious, for people like me who bought an official case with my RPi4 expecting them to work well together.
  - opmac 7y ago
    But they do work without issue, until you start stressing the CPU. In the majority of normal workloads, you don't run into thermal throttling, especially if not using the official case. Also, if you have the official case and want to do this mod - for a few bucks more than the cost of two "pi fans" (which run $8 on Amazon), you can get a well designed case with heat sinks and a fan. I see very little reason to actually do this mod versus buying a properly designed case besides the urge to tinker.
bjoli 7y ago
So, I just stumbled upon an amazing heatsink while replying to a comment below. I use a painkiller carbon tablet pipe [0] that fits (barely) in my poe hat fan hole. It brings the idle temperatures down to 42 degrees C, and sysbench never goes above 61 degrees. Image here: https://imgur.com/a/Cr38Abz https://imgur.com/a/Cr38Abz [0]: https://www.apotea.se/treo-brustablett-500-mg-50-mg-20-st https://www.apotea.se/treo-brustablett-500-mg-50-mg-20-st
TazeTSchnitzel 7y ago
If the Nintendo 64 was entirely passively cooled, surely the Pi can be? Mind Nintendo/SGI had much more surface area to work with so this is probably an unfair comparison.
- bantunes 7y ago
  The Pi 4 is much more powerful than an N64. So much so, it can emulate it in software.
  - seanhandley 7y ago
    Way to put it into perspective!
  - TazeTSchnitzel 7y ago
    Not in terms of heat output surely?
    - darkpuma 7y ago
      According to random unsourced claims I just found on an internet forum, which I've decided to trust: NES: 9 watts Super NES: 10 watts Nintendo 64: 19 watts GameCube: 39 watts Wii: 45 watts PlayStation: 17 watts Game Boy: 0.7 watts Game Boy Advance SP: 1.6 watts The rasppi 4 is supposedly 4 watts when idle, and under 8 watts when loaded. (So there is really no question that a machine like this can run with passive cooling, but obviously it's going to be a function of case size and design, as well as heatsink size and design.)
- ChickeNES 7y ago
  The Nintendo 64 has a U shaped piece of aluminum spanning the width of the console that screws through the RF shielding and into heatspreaders on the RDRAM, CPU, and RCP. It's about 2 RasPi's long by itself :P
RoutinePlayer 7y ago
Raspberry Pi 4 most definitely do need fan. I'm not sure why this is not being made more clear. The default case for it also doesn't help dissipate the extra heat either :-( I've ordered mine fans from pimoroni.com. I hope it addresses the issue.
Borlands 7y ago
pick me! pick me!
TaylorAlexander 7y ago
The article references something called the “Flir” heatsink as a case, but maybe they meant this one by a company called “Flirc”? https://flirc.tv/more/raspberry-pi-4-case https://flirc.tv/more/raspberry-pi-4-case I didn’t find a raspberry pi case made by Flir, the thermal imager company.
pslam 7y ago
This article is actually describing how the Raspberry Pi 4 does NOT need a fan. This is not the 1990s. It is perfectly acceptable and even advantageous to design for a high peak:normal load ratio, with thermal throttling. In this case, it allows for a compact, cheap, fanless design for the vast majority of users. There is no evidence the heat dissipated will impact lifespan. It is common for the components picked out in particular (power supply, USB-C controllers) to be deliberately designed to run hot. They aren't made on the same process as the SoC. I feel like there is a missing piece of the software/hardware design art here. There are many takes like this on the Raspberry Pi 4 design. Why only one ethernet? Why no fan? Why not more USB-C? Because it's $35 and because, perhaps, you aren't the target majority market. It's going to satisfy the vast majority of people, and those it doesn't have very simple and cheap ways to mod it so it does.
- ryanmercer 7y ago
  To add to this, I wonder if a properly designed case could create a chimney effect (not unlike the crossdraft kiln Primitive Tech made in his most recent video) where escape heat is drawing in cooler air in such a fashion as to be adequate enough fo the vast majority of applications. Not that fans need to be very loud, or even spin very fast for something of this size, I imagine relatively low RPMs (probably sub 100 RPM) could still achieve considerable cooling, especially with a crossdraft optimized case.
  - guelo 7y ago
    But then you would need a "This Side Up ↑" label and you would only be able to orient the case in one way.
    - darkpuma 7y ago
      It would work for most people, wouldn't it? And the people putting their raspis into unusual scenarios for which the case was poorly suited could simply choose to not use that particular case. Encouraging thermal convection (ideally flowing over a proper finned passive heatsink) with a chimney design seems like a pretty good idea to me.
pankajdoharey 7y ago
I would prefer a noiseless option perhaps a good heatsink?
darkpuma 7y ago
I'm sure this is a dumb question on account of how obvious it seems to me, but has anybody tried simply putting real heatsinks on this thing? Not putting it in an Al case or something milquetoast like that, but actually putting a proper finned heatsink/radiator directly on the SoC with a bit of thermal grease between them. Like you would do for a real PC, except without the fan. AFAIK, the peak power draw of these boards is substantially less than 10 watts, so regardless of how high the temperature of one small part of it becomes, we're still talking about a rather small amount of heat energy that needs to be pulled off the board. My gut says that a passive heatsink with a relatively large surface area to facilitate radiation and convection currents should be able to do the trick.
ars 7y ago
The POE hat comes with a built in fan, so might be a nice option. https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/poe-hat/ https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/poe-hat/
prashnts 7y ago
I’ve been using old ssd cases (aluminium ones), which would otherwise end up in trash. Drill four holes, use a screw to create threads in those holes. Lay some thermal tape, and mount the pi. I haven’t seen it rise above 60degs — plus it looks alright in my opinion. Few pictures here [1]. I got rid of the ports because I don’t need them (headless) and so they mostly fit entirely. I’ll make some sorta cover though. Edit: Forgot to mention that these cases are strong. It fell a few times and nothing visibly bad. I added Pimoroni shim in second iteration because I did want to keep hdmi there. Also left the Ethernet leds for indicator lights. https://imgur.com/a/5DdWQ68 https://imgur.com/a/5DdWQ68
- penagwin 7y ago
  I have over 4 RPi's and many SSDs and I've never thought of that, nice!
- pwg 7y ago
  > use a screw to create threads in those holes You'll get better quality threads, and it will likely be easier, if you use a proper tap to create the threads: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tap_and_die https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tap_and_die
  - prashnts 7y ago
    Thanks for the pointer. I was mostly using discard material and accidentally discovered that screws can make threads (yeah, not a machinist) — otherwise I’d planned to use nuts on the other side. I might be able to find a tap at maker space nearby — I didn’t know what a “thread making tool” was called.
- prashnts 7y ago
  Adding to that, these cases are an exact fit for three raspberry pi zeros, laid flat. I made a pHAT display board with it. Pictures: https://imgur.com/a/bhnESTS https://imgur.com/a/bhnESTS
superkuh 7y ago
This is also true for any real computer which isn't a desktop or server. Smart phones, SBC, whatever, they all have form factors which mean they can't disipate heat easily. They all thermally throttle quickly.
Causality1 7y ago
FYI, you'll get much better definition from your Seek camera if you use orange-on-purple mode and adjust the focus. Here's a comparison picture I made of my ceiling fan: https://i.imgur.com/CjCFdlX.jpg https://i.imgur.com/CjCFdlX.jpg
sm4rk0 7y ago
No mentions of PWM to regulate the fan speed according to the temp?
Duladian 7y ago
I picked up a 2G Pi 4 yesterday and did some basic thermal testing using the onboard thermal readouts. None modified Pi 4 running the latest Raspbian will idle at 67C in a room that is 22C. Pointing a small 30cm 5V fan powered off the GPIO header will reduce this to ~50C. Placing a heatsink on both the CPU and RAM reduces the temp to 50C. Modifying a Pi 3 heatsink + fan combo to fit the Pi 4 results in a 42C idle temp. The life expectancy of the board may be decreased due to the higher idle temp. IMO I would say a heatsink is the bare minimum for running a Pi 4 and a heatsink fan combo is required for anything process intensive such as 4k video.
newsreview1 7y ago
The new Pi 4 looks amazing! It’s crazy to think the original only had a single-core processor, 256MB of RAM, and one USB slot.
ChuckMcM 7y ago
Apropos of the thread: https://www.seeedstudio.com/ICE-Tower-CPU-Cooling-Fan-for-Raspberry-pi-Support-Pi-4-p-4097.html https://www.seeedstudio.com/ICE-Tower-CPU-Cooling-Fan-for-Ra... (a fan for the CPU that is reminiscent of the first "big" Pentium fans). I asked on twitter if the RasPi had "jumped the shark" here, being sucked into territory it wasn't really designed for. As someone who has lived through the microcomputer revolution it is amazing to see the "$100 desktop" at this point of history. If we arbitrarily pick 30 years as a delta (so 1989 vs 2019) and use BYTE[1] as a reference a 20MHz 80386 desktop with a 40MB hard drive was $2500 (as a clone, name brands were more). An actually comparable computer (32 bit processor at 20MHz, 1MB RAM, 640x480 graphics, 40MB+ of storage (ignoring for the moment "protected mode") today can be built for less than $10. That is a huge step function to try to absorb. [1] https://archive.org/details/byte-magazine-1989-10/page/n347 https://archive.org/details/byte-magazine-1989-10/page/n347
- omni 7y ago
  The giant heatsink seems like plain overkill, given the author of the article was able to stop it from throttling under stress tests with a much smaller and simpler fan install
- akira2501 7y ago
  > That is a huge step function to try to absorb. It is a bit on the Heaviside, isn't it? I'll show myself out.
Havoc 7y ago
My thinking has been more towards running with an oversized cooler. e.g. I've got a tinkerboard which also tends to run hot & there simply adding a solid pound of copper did the trick. Really not keen on having moving parts on my SBCs
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
sbhn 7y ago
The odroid xu3 had a fan. It was innoying i could here it at night.
PunksATawnyFill 7y ago
I will worry about this when they come out with the fixed USB-C port.
megous 7y ago
I'd worry more about placement of the uSD card under the hottest parts of the board, where there's 0 air circulation in the original rpi case. "The higher the temperature that the NAND flash experiences, the greater the acceleration of charge de-trapping mechanisms that could lead to random data bit failures. NAND endurance is also impacted since endurance has an inverse relationship to data retention, and the rate of wear-out of NAND cells is affected by temperature at the time of programming and erasing NAND." https://www.eeweb.com/profile/eli-tiomkin/articles/industrial-temperature-and-nand-flash-in-ssd-products https://www.eeweb.com/profile/eli-tiomkin/articles/industria... This effect is very significant. It's like the acceleration being 250x higher between 25°C and 70°C.
galkk 7y ago
Might be anecdotal, but some cases with fan on Amazon went to "will be delivered after some date" in timeframe between morning and $CURRENT_TIME
mastazi 7y ago
In the pictures I can see only one hole immediately above the fan, but I assume you would need at least an intake and an exhaust? Where is the other one?
stevefan1999 7y ago
I'm always a fan for RPi4
bayesian_horse 7y ago
It already has plenty of fans, me being one of them.
paule89 7y ago
I would love to have a case for the Pi which can utilise a normal Desktop Tower Cooler. Be it 80, 120mm size coolers. The larger the cooler the quieter it can be. (Looking at some nice Noctua fans) Alternatively the seedstudio one looks good but how loud is it really? https://www.seeedstudio.com/ICE-Tower-CPU-Cooling-Fan-for-Raspberry-pi-Support-Pi-4-p-4097.html https://www.seeedstudio.com/ICE-Tower-CPU-Cooling-Fan-for-Ra...
travolter 7y ago
I was setting up some software on my pi4, just installing some packages with apt. Most of the time it was idling because I was away and not paying attention... and it indeed got very hot. Not uncomfortable to touch just yet, but this was really minimal load... Sounds like I'm getting a fan.
squarefoot 7y ago
Moving the CPU on the other side of the PCB would allow the use of a larger and more efficient heatsink, with no need for noisy fans, save maybe for heavy overclocking. Not to mention metal enclosures or panels which would easily become themselves heatsinks once the board is screwed on them using the right spacers and decent thermal paste. Noise aside, fans have moving parts which can break, especially cheap ones (just about all those used in consumer IT), and that makes them a weak spot; that's why I would avoid them whenever possible until really necessary.
w0mbat 7y ago
It would also be prudent to drill some air inlet holes in the case as far from the fan as possible to facilitate airflow. Otherwise you Have the fan sucking on a mostly closed box, which strains the fan and makes it hard to move much air through. The existing holes for ports seem inadequate for this as they look largely blocked.
g00s3_caLL_x2 7y ago
Well...I'm a fan! Knyuck Knyuck

566 points by geerlingguy 7y ago

I'd guess that heatsink and a case with heatpipes would be sufficient for most, though perhaps not all, uses and silent, which for me is pretty important on a Raspberry Pi

seanhandley 7y ago
I tried a heatsink but it didn't really help unless I had a desk fan providing some air flow.
- gadgetoid 7y ago
  This pretty much lines up with my findings. I popped the pre-installed heat-spreader off and applied a heatsink with noctua thermal paste... basically no difference- step-by-step chaos here: https://twitter.com/Gadgetoid/status/1151442153584910337 https://twitter.com/Gadgetoid/status/1151442153584910337 Just adding a small fan (trying to avoid blowing our own trumpet too much here) absolutely demolishes the cooling performance of any reasonably-sized heatsink. Presumably there's just not that much passive airflow over something an inch square, even with convection. I still wonder what would happen if a full desktop-sized heatsink was coupled to the Pi 4's SOC.
  - HeWhoLurksLate 7y ago
    I still wonder what would happen if a full desktop-sized heatsink was coupled to the Pi 4's SOC. In all likelihood, you'd see diminishing returns as you get bigger, but that would be quite the sight to see. I've been tempted for a while to build a big case with some sort of mounting standard (maybe a Peek array?) so that I can add whatever hardware I want to it (mostly electronics). This seems like a job for that.
  - kllrnohj 7y ago
    convection cooling needs a decent gap between the fins for it to really work. This is why something like Noctua's passive cooler ( https://www.anandtech.com/show/14486/noctua-shows-off-concept-fanless-cpu-cooler-up-to-120w-of-cooling-performance https://www.anandtech.com/show/14486/noctua-shows-off-concep... ) looks totally different from their tower coolers with a fan. Just slapping a normal CPU heatsink on the pi4 will probably work OK just do the thermal mass and exterior surface area of it, but you're probably not going to get much convection-cooling from it, either.
  - FullyFunctional 7y ago
    I appreciate you actually trying. A "negative" result is still valuable. What I don't like about the article is that small fan have to spin fast (= noise) to generate enough flow. I'd much rather use a 80 mm fan, slowed way down, but I suppose I'd had to roll my own case for that. Better still, wait for someone to start offering this (or maybe this: http://blog.flirc.tv/index.php/2019/06/24/new-pi-4-cases/ http://blog.flirc.tv/index.php/2019/06/24/new-pi-4-cases/)
    - gadgetoid 7y ago
      I'm not the best judge, but these are really quiet fans. I can hear the ones in my laptop, but don't notice Fan SHIM at all. We've had a couple of customers who have, but a replacement fan has been quiet- guessing it's a tolerance issue with the plastics.
- bjoli 7y ago
  did you try a big enough heatsink? I put a northbridge heatsink on my odroid xu4, and it did even better than the stock cooler with a small fan.
geerlingguy 7y ago
The problem is there are now a number of chips on the board—many of which are too small to pop a heatsink on them—which get crazy hot. If you have the Pi inside any kind of enclosed case, that heat just bakes everything else, even if you have heat sinks.
- 0815test 7y ago
  You could design a copper heat-spreader to pop over the heat-sensitive part(s) of the board, and then apply a heatsink to that. Maybe copper foil would do the job. Another approach is to just run the Pi submersed in mineral oil, with liquid convection then taking the heat away from the board and shedding it to the surrounding environment. We usually don't run our electronics like this (even though the general approach is widely used for cooling needs of all sorts) because mineral oil is gross and might even impact the endurance of our hardware - but the Pi is tiny and cheap enough to make this a non-issue.
  - rahimnathwani 7y ago
    The Pi has connectors on both the long and short edges, so you'll want to be sure everything is plugged in before you dunk it.
Someone1234 7y ago
That's what Apple used to do with their Macbooks. Heat pipes into the metal frame which conducts it over a larger surface area creating natural convections which carry the heat into the air. The real downside is that mass plays a substantial role. Meaning thicker metal, larger cases, are better than thinner/smaller. Whereas a fan can accomplish similar results for less cost and space (but not passively). If people don't think passive can work they need to check out Apple's recent Mac Pro that passively cools two Radeon Pro 580Xs. There's no limit, except cost. Personally I still feel a combination of heat pipe, into heat sink, with a small progressive fan is the ultimate. If it is large enough the fan should stay off except under heavy load.
- vel0city 7y ago
  While there are not extra fans on the cards themselves, I'd hardly call anything in the Mac Pro "passively cooled" considering there are three giant fans on the chassis immediately in front of those heatsinks.
- HeWhoLurksLate 7y ago
  Apple has a pretty long history of passively cooled devices, including the G4 cube, which had a massive (for the time) CPU and GPU, if you wanted in it, was 8 inches cubed in volume, and cooled convectively.

seanhandley 7y ago

I can recommend Pimoroni's fan shim. They provide a python project that allows you to set temperature thresholds to kick the fan in so it's not on all the time. It's not silent but it's pretty quiet. https://github.com/pimoroni/fanshim-python https://github.com/pimoroni/fanshim-python

geerlingguy 7y ago
I thought about getting one of these, as they are a little more turnkey... however I couldn’t find an easy way to purchase and get quick shipping in the US. Is there any other way besides ordering through the UK?
- whiskers 7y ago
  Ahoy! We ship (pretty fast!) to the US. :-) Failing that I'd hope Adafruit will have them in stock soon! I'm one of the co-founders of Pimoroni, drop me a line if you need any other help.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
rvz 7y ago
Indeed, the fan shim is insanely cool and I just bought one of these the moment that it was back in stock together with my Raspberry Pi 4. It also works on the Pi 3 and 2. Here's the link if anyone's interested: https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/fan-shim https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/fan-shim
- whiskers 7y ago
  Glad you like it! We think it's the best solution for cooling any model of Raspberry Pi that's available.
  - knd775 7y ago
    Does it have a standalone mode, where it doesn't need to be controlled by software? I'm interested in using it with prebuilt images that wouldn't be able to run the python to control the fan.

LeonM 7y ago

So does the pi 3 if you stick it in a case, even with a heatsink. I was using a pi 3 with a heatsink in the official case to play a h265 movie (which will be software decoded on a pi3). After about 10 minutes I noticed it started dropping frames and it displayed the thermometer symbol in the top-right of the display. When I removed the top lid from the case, the temperature dropped enough for the thermometer icon to disappear and playback to continue smoothly.

teraflop 7y ago
Yeah, thermal insulation behaves in much the same way as electrical insulation. If you put a conductor in series with a resistor, the conductor doesn't conduct all that well.
- TylerE 7y ago
  Seems like the winning solution would be to do as Apple does and make the case the heatsink. Aluminum is a pretty good thermal conductor, and at the very least it'd get you lots of surface area.
  - thaumasiotes 7y ago
    Wouldn't that make it hard to touch?
    - amiga-workbench 7y ago
      It wouldn't be too bad, the heat would be spread out and the surface would be at a much lower temperature than whats actually measured on die.
    - iamnotacrook 7y ago
      So don't touch it then?
  - medmunds 7y ago
    Like this one? https://smile.amazon.com/Vilros-Raspberry-Model-Aluminum-Cooling/dp/B07MH39YNM/ https://smile.amazon.com/Vilros-Raspberry-Model-Aluminum-Coo... (I'm just running Hassio, so can't really speak to its thermal effectiveness myself. But it's got enough weight to keep cables from pulling it off my shelf.)

y04nn 7y ago

I installed libreelec on my Raspberry Pi 4 the first day I had it. The CPU immediately started (while playing 1080p video) to heat a lot to the point it stalled. Since I haded a motherboard chipset heatsink that I had laying around on the CPU it worked flowlessly. (I keep it without any case)

the_angry_angel 7y ago
This was exactly my intended use case - as a gift for relatives - the problem I've had is that I need it enclosed to prevent tiny little fingers from getting hurt/destroying the thing. Tried soak testing it one night and experienced the same thing :/ Currently I'm hoping that I can modify the case this weekend to fulfill my needs. As something intended to be used by kids to learn about computing I do wonder how many are going to get hurt fingers from the heat output by accidentally maxing the cpu and/or touching the USB ports, etc.
- krisrm 7y ago
  > As something intended to be used by kids to learn about computing I do wonder how many are going to get hurt fingers from the heat output by accidentally maxing the cpu and/or touching the USB ports, etc. Sounds like one of the unexpected lessons will be heat dissipation :) Probably outside of the realm of weekend hacking, but I wonder if something like this would work for you: https://flirc.tv/more/raspberry-pi-4-case https://flirc.tv/more/raspberry-pi-4-case Best of luck!
  - the_angry_angel 7y ago
    Hadn't come across the case. I'll give it a go if my DIY attempts dont work (or are crap) :D

malensek 7y ago

Even the previous-gen Pis would easily throttle under load without a heat sink (although usually installing a decent heat sink was enough to resolve the problem, assuming decent airflow). As the article notes, the heat was mainly from the SoC in the past. The Pi 4 is on a whole different level indeed. I imagine the logic here is the same as with many other Pi accessories: if you need it, you'll buy it or get it as part of a bundle. In some cases throttling is not a huge issue. But we're a far cry from the simple plug-and-play Pis of the past... Another issue is power -- you can't simply run the newer Pis reliably off any old cell phone charger you have laying around.

AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
Yeah, I'm kinda wondering just what the Pi is supposed to be at this point. Is it still an inexpensive low power device for teaching basic computer science? Because it seems like it's more for making Kodi boxes or the worlds most powerful LED blinkers.
- giobox 7y ago
  I'd love to see some kind of reasonable data on the breakdown of how many Pis actually end up in education environments vs RetroPie/Kodi/PiHole/whatever else "service on an SD card image" turnkey solution type thing people use them for. At this point, my guess/gut feel is that education is an increasingly small part of the market for the Pi, yet appears to still be the main focus of the Pi Foundation. I've always felt the educational focus was much more about the rose-tinted memories of parents who grew up in the homebrew computing generation in the UK. It feels much more a product for me in that regard than it does my kids. Ebon Upton et al are of this generation as well. British computer people of a certain age love to remember their ZX Spectrums etc.
  - kingosticks 7y ago
    There is some data at https://static.raspberrypi.org/files/about/RaspberryPiFoundationReview2018.pdf https://static.raspberrypi.org/files/about/RaspberryPiFounda...

hajile 7y ago

Raspberry Pi tower cooler -- the cooler we deserve. https://www.seeedstudio.com/ICE-Tower-CPU-Cooling-Fan-for-Raspberry-pi-Support-Pi-4-p-4097.html https://www.seeedstudio.com/ICE-Tower-CPU-Cooling-Fan-for-Ra...

thoughtpalette 7y ago
That link 404s for me unfortunately.
- tacotime 7y ago
  It's adorable! https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:k1aQeMacXpQJ:https://www.seeedstudio.com/ICE-Tower-CPU-Cooling-Fan-for-Raspberry-pi-Support-Pi-4-p-4097.html+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:k1aQeM...
  - thoughtpalette 7y ago
    oh wow! absolute unit of a PI heatsink.
- gvb 7y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5IFD2wq_gA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5IFD2wq_gA Heat pipe, heatsink, and fan that is as big as the Pi! :-O

beckler 7y ago

well yeah, this thing pulls 3 amps. even though it's mostly to push amperage down the USB 3.0 ports, those electrons going across the board are gonna generate some heat.

geerlingguy 7y ago
Worst case (headless, at least) with a USB SSD powered off the bus, I was pulling 1.8 amps. But I can imagine if you’re also driving some other USB devices, and one or two HDMI displays, 3A is not far off!

sneak 7y ago

Has anyone made an RPi4 lava lamp yet? Extra credit if there is a camera built in that feeds into the camera connector that supplements the RNG.

vectorEQ 7y ago
lava lamp / hw crypto module :'D match made in heaven

BaconJuice 7y ago

Just a bit off-topic but what are you guys doing that you need to do CPU throttling? I just got a Pi4 and wondering if I'm missing out on some cool projects I can do with it :)

geerlingguy 7y ago
The Pi 4 is the first generation that's actually not horrible at running Kubernetes, so I'm mostly having fun with that (ongoing saga at www.pidramble.com).
- cwyers 7y ago
  Is this just about how fast the CPU is, or is there some other reason the k8s experience is better now?
  - seanhandley 7y ago
    I'm sure 4GB memory helps a lot.
    - geerlingguy 7y ago
      This. Even 2GB is a world of difference. One of the major issues I had was the master (control) node would start getting a little weird sometimes, and it was always due to memory pressure (even if not scheduling pods on the master Pi). Kubernetes docs _say_ 1 GB is the minimum memory requirement, but 2 or 4 GB is more realistic, because at 1 GB and no swap you have precious little overhead.
- milofeynman 7y ago
  Are you planning on adding a fan to the cluster?
  - geerlingguy 7y ago
    I’m using an open case and PoE HATs which have built in fans powered by the HAT itself.

adrianmonk 7y ago

> If you run computing hardware at its thermal capacity for long periods of time, this will cause more wear on the parts than if they are run well inside their limits. So I have a moderately increased likelihood of, at some indefinite point in the future, having to spend a whole $35 to replace the Raspberry Pi. I can prevent this by spending extra money (and time) up front. In some cases, it might be worth it. Maybe I'm using this Pi to control something, so downtime is bad. (But even then, fans have moving parts and a high failure rate, so plan to monitor the fan's condition and be prepared to replace it.) In other cases, if the performance isn't important to you, it may make more sense to just accept a shorter lifespan. By the time it breaks, the next generation Pi may be out anyway. I don't love thinking of hardware as disposable, but at this price point, it may be smarter economically.

junaru 7y ago
> If you run computing hardware at its thermal capacity for long periods of time, this will cause more wear on the parts than if they are run well inside their limits. How true is this actually? Personal anecdote is an I5-2500K overclocked to 4.6ghz with budget aftermarket cooler (its at 4.6ghz constantly regardless of load). It's been running 24/7 in my desktop since 2011. When will it fail? I see these disclaimers all the time and they sound logical, but does anyone have some numbers on these fail rates under these 'prolonged extreme loads'?
- HeWhoLurksLate 7y ago
  I've been running a I7-6700K on a 120mm AIO radiator for three years. It gets loud, but it also smashes my OC results. Personally, my biggest worry is the pump failing, and not the fans.
  - jrockway 7y ago
    I used AIO for many computers, but every single system failed. It was the pump every time. I switched to a Noctua passive cooler that I've used throughout motherboard generations (Noctua always releases a cheap kit to attach it to the latest socket type) and it has never been a problem. Thermals aren't a lot worse; I used it on 200W TDP 10 core SKUs, and on normal consumer chips. It has never let me down. AIO seems like a total waste to me; lots of moving parts to die on Saturday morning and make your computer unusable all weekend.

vectorEQ 7y ago

most components should do fine under these temperatures no? on PC usually VRM's are heat sensitive, but the CPU can take pretty crazy temperatures itself. is the issue similar on PI? What component is at risk at these temperatures? 60-70 seems a little hot for a small device , but is it really TOO hot?

Bootwizard 7y ago
Damaging temperatures are generally between 90-100°C. Throttling can happen at lower temps and those are usually CPU dependent (and cooler dependent). Also CPUs with less cores handle thermal throttling worse as they have less cores to fallback on if one overheats.
- kingosticks 7y ago
  It's very dependent on the device. Enterprise/networking-class chips I work with are usually rated for long-term reliability up to 125C, more recently that's come down a little bit (particularly regarding memories) but still significantly over 100C.
- dboreham 7y ago
  As a sometime hardware engineer, my rule of...er...thumb was that if it was difficult to keep your finger on the device for 5 seconds then it was overheating. Damage to devices certainly doesn't happen at 100C but you might be talking about case temp under some assumptions about how that relates to junction temp for some specific setup. In general its junction temp that decides if the device suffers permanent damage.
  - Bootwizard 7y ago
    Well I guess not damage, but most mobos have an overheat prevention mechanism that will shut the system down at those temps. Can't really use your CPU over 100°C if your motherboard shuts the system off. Sure you can override these in the BIOS but then you're risking damaging the VRMs which might be rated at lower temps.

husam212 7y ago

What about a bigger heatsink?

bjoli 7y ago
That has been tried to great success with the rpi3, so I suspect it will at least make it less prone to throttling. Edit: I just stacked a bunch of 10sec coins on the processor (without any thermal compound) brought the idle temperature down by 3 degrees C. Edit2: Put an carbon tablet pipe on it, filled with coins. It is not up to heat yet, but right now it is idling at about 45C. It would probably be better with some fluid in it. I will probably keep this as my cooler. Edit3: Seriously: I have wonderful thermal numbers. sysbench for 240 seconds, temperature 62C. This is a rpi4 with a poe hat, so my passive cooling options are limited.
- kekepepe 7y ago
  What is 'carbon tablet pipe'? I tried to google it, but nothing useful turns up.
  - bjoli 7y ago
    Sorry, English is not my first language. There are these painkillers called "treo" in Swedish. They dissolve in water, producing CO2 in the process. I don't know if they are available in other markets, but in Sweden you can buy them everywhere. https://www.apotea.se/treo-brustablett-500-mg-50-mg-20-st https://www.apotea.se/treo-brustablett-500-mg-50-mg-20-st

kees99 7y ago

Quote: the metal casing helps spread that heat around It does, to a degree. But that is absolutely not what we are seeing in that IR picture. Shiny bare metal is a mirror at the wavelengths that thermal camera uses. So what you see on thermal image where wifi-module shield and CPU are is reflection of ambient (room) where this picture was taken. Try waving your hand around, you'll see it reflecting there too. To measure real metal surface temperature by IR, you have to paint that metal (ideally, with black matte paint), or apply similarly-textured sticker.

gadgetoid 7y ago
There's a better image here- https://medium.com/@ghalfacree/benchmarking-the-raspberry-pi-4-73e5afbcd54b https://medium.com/@ghalfacree/benchmarking-the-raspberry-pi...
- nixgeek 7y ago
  How was that accomplished? Extremely nice image!
  - JorgeGT 7y ago
    Many IR cameras have actually two cameras, a normal optical one with high resolution (~10^3 x 10^3), and the IR one (microbolometer) which is low resolution (~10^2 x 10^2). They ensemble the two pictures later and produce these results.
    - geerlingguy 7y ago
      I have the cheaper Seek imager, which just has a low res IR camera. Can’t afford the fancy tools where not needed! I mostly use it to check the house for air leaks and thermal issues.
- book-mind 7y ago
  That image is still highly misleading, you can see from the overlayed optical image that the CPU is not coated. Ideally you'd want to coat any metal surface with black epoxy, and set the IR camera Emissivity Coefficient to 0.9 (the coefficient for black epoxy).

novaRom 7y ago

I cannot find a data sheet for its CPU (BCM2711B0). Is Pi4 actually an open hardware system?

tssva 7y ago
None of the Pi's have been open hardware systems.

strainer 7y ago

The Pi4 does not need a fan. There is a grand total of 10 watts of heat to dissipate, 15 watts max supply but that includes power sent to peripherals and wifi. A matchbox sized heatspreader which just touches each of the warm components will work assuming a bit of ventilation is arranged to let 40-50C air float away. The heatspreader shouldn't even benefit significantly from being a top conductive alloy - a bit of tin lid will do the job. Experiences with shifting 200 watts for cpu cooling has people thinking dedicated alloy sinks and fins and fans are appropriate, but this is just 10 watts - it's child's play ;/

kemayo 7y ago

On a related note, there's a pending raspberry pi 4 firmware update which apparently makes a _big_ difference to how much heat it's generating: https://www.pcgamer.com/amp/if-you-bought-a-raspberry-pi-4-grab-this-firmware-update-to-improve-performance/ https://www.pcgamer.com/amp/if-you-bought-a-raspberry-pi-4-g... Last I saw, it's still causing some issues with performance of USB devices, which is why it's not in general release yet.

arendtio 7y ago

I think 'need' is a pretty strong word in this context. 'Could use' would be a better term, as the Pi 4 clearly works without a fan, just not at peak performance for more than a few minutes. For many use-cases, I would prefer some performance reduction over the noise generated by a fan.

Marsymars 7y ago
Yes, if you're committed to a silent use-case, your options are essentially between a processor that doesn't throttle, or a processor that starts faster, and then eventually throttles to a steady-state matching the non-throttling processor in performance.
- geerlingguy 7y ago
  Apparently a massive heat sink like the ICE tower (https://www.seeedstudio.com/ICE-Tower-CPU-Cooling-Fan-for-Raspberry-pi-Support-Pi-4-p-4097.html https://www.seeedstudio.com/ICE-Tower-CPU-Cooling-Fan-for-Ra...) can maintain a safe temp even without the fan running... but that also makes the Pi turn into a massive device with no chance of working in a standard case!

kingosticks 7y ago

There's further information about the thermal control at https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/raspberrypi/frequency-management.md https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/hardware/raspberry... which mentions that config option 'temp_soft_limit' can also be used. Interestingly it is not used by default on the Pi 4, but is set to 60C for the 3B+.

georgeecollins 7y ago

My problem is I use a shield on top of the PI for servo connections. I have found that a PI 3 can get hot without a case but with a board on top of it. I am glad they are improving the PI but I need to think about side mounted cooling.

ausjke 7y ago

I'm happy I have not bought the Pi4 yet, fanless for this kind of boards is the bottom line for me, if Pi4 needs a fan, then it crosses the line at least for me.

jsharf 7y ago

You needed to make that heatmap translucent and overlay it on top of the rpi with a diagram pointing to each chip and what it does. That would have been a super cool graphic.

pas 7y ago
https://miro.medium.com/max/1838/1*KedwLPE9eXoeuwdciZpE0Q.png https://miro.medium.com/max/1838/1*KedwLPE9eXoeuwdciZpE0Q.pn...

MayeulC 7y ago

Reading all those IR images popping about the raspberry made me wonder why we're still using a "rainbow" (HSV) colormap. I think there are better alternatives, that have both a linear luminance variation, and are colorblind-friendly: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17723041 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17723041

stcredzero 7y ago

Raspberry Pi is becoming like a NUC. Meanwhile, there are people using Intel NUCs as fanless Hackintoshes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUUP8K3RqAo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUUP8K3RqAo

Fnoord 7y ago
Except the Raspberry Pi is an ARM SOC (ARM64 in this case), while Intel NUCs are x86-64. macOS requires x86-64 for now. If Apple ports it to ARM, I really doubt they'll make it easy to run on other ARM hardware.

opmac 7y ago

They sell cases with heatsinks and fans for $10-$20. I would just recommend buying one of those versus modding one like the guy in the article did.

devinjflick 7y ago
I feel like if I buy official parts, they shouldn't require modding to get the max performance out of the product. They should work without issue together. Currently you can barely get moderate performance with the official case. This article and mod are helpful, even if obvious, for people like me who bought an official case with my RPi4 expecting them to work well together.
- opmac 7y ago
  But they do work without issue, until you start stressing the CPU. In the majority of normal workloads, you don't run into thermal throttling, especially if not using the official case. Also, if you have the official case and want to do this mod - for a few bucks more than the cost of two "pi fans" (which run $8 on Amazon), you can get a well designed case with heat sinks and a fan. I see very little reason to actually do this mod versus buying a properly designed case besides the urge to tinker.

bjoli 7y ago

So, I just stumbled upon an amazing heatsink while replying to a comment below. I use a painkiller carbon tablet pipe [0] that fits (barely) in my poe hat fan hole. It brings the idle temperatures down to 42 degrees C, and sysbench never goes above 61 degrees. Image here: https://imgur.com/a/Cr38Abz https://imgur.com/a/Cr38Abz [0]: https://www.apotea.se/treo-brustablett-500-mg-50-mg-20-st https://www.apotea.se/treo-brustablett-500-mg-50-mg-20-st

TazeTSchnitzel 7y ago

If the Nintendo 64 was entirely passively cooled, surely the Pi can be? Mind Nintendo/SGI had much more surface area to work with so this is probably an unfair comparison.

bantunes 7y ago
The Pi 4 is much more powerful than an N64. So much so, it can emulate it in software.
- seanhandley 7y ago
  Way to put it into perspective!
- TazeTSchnitzel 7y ago
  Not in terms of heat output surely?
  - darkpuma 7y ago
    According to random unsourced claims I just found on an internet forum, which I've decided to trust: NES: 9 watts Super NES: 10 watts Nintendo 64: 19 watts GameCube: 39 watts Wii: 45 watts PlayStation: 17 watts Game Boy: 0.7 watts Game Boy Advance SP: 1.6 watts The rasppi 4 is supposedly 4 watts when idle, and under 8 watts when loaded. (So there is really no question that a machine like this can run with passive cooling, but obviously it's going to be a function of case size and design, as well as heatsink size and design.)
ChickeNES 7y ago
The Nintendo 64 has a U shaped piece of aluminum spanning the width of the console that screws through the RF shielding and into heatspreaders on the RDRAM, CPU, and RCP. It's about 2 RasPi's long by itself :P

RoutinePlayer 7y ago

Raspberry Pi 4 most definitely do need fan. I'm not sure why this is not being made more clear. The default case for it also doesn't help dissipate the extra heat either :-( I've ordered mine fans from pimoroni.com. I hope it addresses the issue.

Borlands 7y ago

pick me! pick me!

TaylorAlexander 7y ago

The article references something called the “Flir” heatsink as a case, but maybe they meant this one by a company called “Flirc”? https://flirc.tv/more/raspberry-pi-4-case https://flirc.tv/more/raspberry-pi-4-case I didn’t find a raspberry pi case made by Flir, the thermal imager company.

pslam 7y ago

This article is actually describing how the Raspberry Pi 4 does NOT need a fan. This is not the 1990s. It is perfectly acceptable and even advantageous to design for a high peak:normal load ratio, with thermal throttling. In this case, it allows for a compact, cheap, fanless design for the vast majority of users. There is no evidence the heat dissipated will impact lifespan. It is common for the components picked out in particular (power supply, USB-C controllers) to be deliberately designed to run hot. They aren't made on the same process as the SoC. I feel like there is a missing piece of the software/hardware design art here. There are many takes like this on the Raspberry Pi 4 design. Why only one ethernet? Why no fan? Why not more USB-C? Because it's $35 and because, perhaps, you aren't the target majority market. It's going to satisfy the vast majority of people, and those it doesn't have very simple and cheap ways to mod it so it does.

ryanmercer 7y ago
To add to this, I wonder if a properly designed case could create a chimney effect (not unlike the crossdraft kiln Primitive Tech made in his most recent video) where escape heat is drawing in cooler air in such a fashion as to be adequate enough fo the vast majority of applications. Not that fans need to be very loud, or even spin very fast for something of this size, I imagine relatively low RPMs (probably sub 100 RPM) could still achieve considerable cooling, especially with a crossdraft optimized case.
- guelo 7y ago
  But then you would need a "This Side Up ↑" label and you would only be able to orient the case in one way.
  - darkpuma 7y ago
    It would work for most people, wouldn't it? And the people putting their raspis into unusual scenarios for which the case was poorly suited could simply choose to not use that particular case. Encouraging thermal convection (ideally flowing over a proper finned passive heatsink) with a chimney design seems like a pretty good idea to me.

pankajdoharey 7y ago

I would prefer a noiseless option perhaps a good heatsink?

darkpuma 7y ago

I'm sure this is a dumb question on account of how obvious it seems to me, but has anybody tried simply putting real heatsinks on this thing? Not putting it in an Al case or something milquetoast like that, but actually putting a proper finned heatsink/radiator directly on the SoC with a bit of thermal grease between them. Like you would do for a real PC, except without the fan. AFAIK, the peak power draw of these boards is substantially less than 10 watts, so regardless of how high the temperature of one small part of it becomes, we're still talking about a rather small amount of heat energy that needs to be pulled off the board. My gut says that a passive heatsink with a relatively large surface area to facilitate radiation and convection currents should be able to do the trick.

ars 7y ago

The POE hat comes with a built in fan, so might be a nice option. https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/poe-hat/ https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/poe-hat/

prashnts 7y ago

I’ve been using old ssd cases (aluminium ones), which would otherwise end up in trash. Drill four holes, use a screw to create threads in those holes. Lay some thermal tape, and mount the pi. I haven’t seen it rise above 60degs — plus it looks alright in my opinion. Few pictures here [1]. I got rid of the ports because I don’t need them (headless) and so they mostly fit entirely. I’ll make some sorta cover though. Edit: Forgot to mention that these cases are strong. It fell a few times and nothing visibly bad. I added Pimoroni shim in second iteration because I did want to keep hdmi there. Also left the Ethernet leds for indicator lights. https://imgur.com/a/5DdWQ68 https://imgur.com/a/5DdWQ68

penagwin 7y ago
I have over 4 RPi's and many SSDs and I've never thought of that, nice!
pwg 7y ago
> use a screw to create threads in those holes You'll get better quality threads, and it will likely be easier, if you use a proper tap to create the threads: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tap_and_die https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tap_and_die
- prashnts 7y ago
  Thanks for the pointer. I was mostly using discard material and accidentally discovered that screws can make threads (yeah, not a machinist) — otherwise I’d planned to use nuts on the other side. I might be able to find a tap at maker space nearby — I didn’t know what a “thread making tool” was called.
prashnts 7y ago
Adding to that, these cases are an exact fit for three raspberry pi zeros, laid flat. I made a pHAT display board with it. Pictures: https://imgur.com/a/bhnESTS https://imgur.com/a/bhnESTS

superkuh 7y ago

This is also true for any real computer which isn't a desktop or server. Smart phones, SBC, whatever, they all have form factors which mean they can't disipate heat easily. They all thermally throttle quickly.

Causality1 7y ago

FYI, you'll get much better definition from your Seek camera if you use orange-on-purple mode and adjust the focus. Here's a comparison picture I made of my ceiling fan: https://i.imgur.com/CjCFdlX.jpg https://i.imgur.com/CjCFdlX.jpg

sm4rk0 7y ago

No mentions of PWM to regulate the fan speed according to the temp?

Duladian 7y ago

I picked up a 2G Pi 4 yesterday and did some basic thermal testing using the onboard thermal readouts. None modified Pi 4 running the latest Raspbian will idle at 67C in a room that is 22C. Pointing a small 30cm 5V fan powered off the GPIO header will reduce this to ~50C. Placing a heatsink on both the CPU and RAM reduces the temp to 50C. Modifying a Pi 3 heatsink + fan combo to fit the Pi 4 results in a 42C idle temp. The life expectancy of the board may be decreased due to the higher idle temp. IMO I would say a heatsink is the bare minimum for running a Pi 4 and a heatsink fan combo is required for anything process intensive such as 4k video.

newsreview1 7y ago

The new Pi 4 looks amazing! It’s crazy to think the original only had a single-core processor, 256MB of RAM, and one USB slot.

ChuckMcM 7y ago

Apropos of the thread: https://www.seeedstudio.com/ICE-Tower-CPU-Cooling-Fan-for-Raspberry-pi-Support-Pi-4-p-4097.html https://www.seeedstudio.com/ICE-Tower-CPU-Cooling-Fan-for-Ra... (a fan for the CPU that is reminiscent of the first "big" Pentium fans). I asked on twitter if the RasPi had "jumped the shark" here, being sucked into territory it wasn't really designed for. As someone who has lived through the microcomputer revolution it is amazing to see the "$100 desktop" at this point of history. If we arbitrarily pick 30 years as a delta (so 1989 vs 2019) and use BYTE[1] as a reference a 20MHz 80386 desktop with a 40MB hard drive was $2500 (as a clone, name brands were more). An actually comparable computer (32 bit processor at 20MHz, 1MB RAM, 640x480 graphics, 40MB+ of storage (ignoring for the moment "protected mode") today can be built for less than $10. That is a huge step function to try to absorb. [1] https://archive.org/details/byte-magazine-1989-10/page/n347 https://archive.org/details/byte-magazine-1989-10/page/n347

omni 7y ago
The giant heatsink seems like plain overkill, given the author of the article was able to stop it from throttling under stress tests with a much smaller and simpler fan install
akira2501 7y ago
> That is a huge step function to try to absorb. It is a bit on the Heaviside, isn't it? I'll show myself out.

Havoc 7y ago

My thinking has been more towards running with an oversized cooler. e.g. I've got a tinkerboard which also tends to run hot & there simply adding a solid pound of copper did the trick. Really not keen on having moving parts on my SBCs

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

sbhn 7y ago

The odroid xu3 had a fan. It was innoying i could here it at night.

PunksATawnyFill 7y ago

I will worry about this when they come out with the fixed USB-C port.

megous 7y ago

I'd worry more about placement of the uSD card under the hottest parts of the board, where there's 0 air circulation in the original rpi case. "The higher the temperature that the NAND flash experiences, the greater the acceleration of charge de-trapping mechanisms that could lead to random data bit failures. NAND endurance is also impacted since endurance has an inverse relationship to data retention, and the rate of wear-out of NAND cells is affected by temperature at the time of programming and erasing NAND." https://www.eeweb.com/profile/eli-tiomkin/articles/industrial-temperature-and-nand-flash-in-ssd-products https://www.eeweb.com/profile/eli-tiomkin/articles/industria... This effect is very significant. It's like the acceleration being 250x higher between 25°C and 70°C.

galkk 7y ago

Might be anecdotal, but some cases with fan on Amazon went to "will be delivered after some date" in timeframe between morning and $CURRENT_TIME

mastazi 7y ago

In the pictures I can see only one hole immediately above the fan, but I assume you would need at least an intake and an exhaust? Where is the other one?

stevefan1999 7y ago

I'm always a fan for RPi4

bayesian_horse 7y ago

It already has plenty of fans, me being one of them.

paule89 7y ago

I would love to have a case for the Pi which can utilise a normal Desktop Tower Cooler. Be it 80, 120mm size coolers. The larger the cooler the quieter it can be. (Looking at some nice Noctua fans) Alternatively the seedstudio one looks good but how loud is it really? https://www.seeedstudio.com/ICE-Tower-CPU-Cooling-Fan-for-Raspberry-pi-Support-Pi-4-p-4097.html https://www.seeedstudio.com/ICE-Tower-CPU-Cooling-Fan-for-Ra...

travolter 7y ago

I was setting up some software on my pi4, just installing some packages with apt. Most of the time it was idling because I was away and not paying attention... and it indeed got very hot. Not uncomfortable to touch just yet, but this was really minimal load... Sounds like I'm getting a fan.

squarefoot 7y ago

Moving the CPU on the other side of the PCB would allow the use of a larger and more efficient heatsink, with no need for noisy fans, save maybe for heavy overclocking. Not to mention metal enclosures or panels which would easily become themselves heatsinks once the board is screwed on them using the right spacers and decent thermal paste. Noise aside, fans have moving parts which can break, especially cheap ones (just about all those used in consumer IT), and that makes them a weak spot; that's why I would avoid them whenever possible until really necessary.

w0mbat 7y ago

It would also be prudent to drill some air inlet holes in the case as far from the fan as possible to facilitate airflow. Otherwise you Have the fan sucking on a mostly closed box, which strains the fan and makes it hard to move much air through. The existing holes for ports seem inadequate for this as they look largely blocked.

g00s3_caLL_x2 7y ago

Well...I'm a fan! Knyuck Knyuck