4 ms·
Here's a fun thing I just did with my RPI4. I've got "watch -n 1 vcgencmd measure_temp" running. Equilibrium temp is arount 73C running a realtime website. Tak
by lordnacho 7y ago
Here's a fun thing I just did with my RPI4. I've got "watch -n 1 vcgencmd measure_temp" running.
Equilibrium temp is arount 73C running a realtime website. Take a £2 coin and place it on the CPU. Temp drops 10C within seconds. I can get it under 60C by swapping a second coin. They stay pretty hot after you take them off. Also the equilibrium temp when you just leave the coin there seems to be a good few degrees less than with no coin. Possible the larger surface area helps remove the heat, just not as good as an actually designed heatsink.
- esotericn 7y agoYep. I bought my rpi4 in store and picked up a few tiny heatsinks from an electronics store for about 70p. I just rested them on top of the chip, no compound, no glue. Definitely reduced throttling before I could get a proper heatsink shipped. A few quids increases the surface area quite a lot!
- bArray 7y agoI think that's called "throwing money at the problem"! Taping the coin (or heat sink) down should give you better heat transfer, therefore better cooling. Designing your own case in OpenSCAD and 3D printing is a piece of cake, building a large fan into the case (lower noise) is a nice weekend project.
- Mtinie 7y agoThis sounds like a job for the trusty denizen of the homebuilt computer builder’s toolbox, thermal paste!
- jagged-chisel 7y agoA bit of thermal paste between the chip and the coin would also help with heat transfer
- lostlogin 7y agoPaste between coins with a stacking arrangement going big-small-big-small etc so that there was a semblance of fins would be interesting.
- Scoundreller 7y agowould probably work a lot better if you filled the void space with any kind of goop. You probably had very little metal-chip contact. Even toothpaste works well, until it dries out.
- dannyw 7y agoYeah, just buy some cheap thermal paste. MX4 works well, never disappoints, and won't cost you more than a few bucks.
- Scoundreller 7y agoI wonder how well it would work to super glue a set of bolts to the cpu.
- gdxhv 7y agoPretty good, at least compare to nothing. When you lie the heat sink you have a rough surface of air bubbles. Super glue would fill those bubbles with a solid material which always has a better heat conduction than air
- bitwize 7y agoThermal paste would do an even better job, I'd think.
- atoav 7y agoA lot of materials conduct heat better than air. A coin has not necessarily a flat contact surface tho (which also helps with conducting heat). In terms of practicality the best is probably to take a real heatsink with heatconducting double sided tape on it already
- BubRoss 7y agoThat's pretty interesting. I don't know why they didn't just include a small heatsink, it can't cost more than 25 or 50 cents and it improves the performance significantly by cutting down the thermal throttling.
- TaylorAlexander 7y agoBoth times I’ve bought raspberry pi’s from Canakit.com they included adhesive heat sinks. But these were added by the vendor. It certainly seems like they should come with the pi from the factory.
- kijin 7y agoBut then anyone who wants to use an aftermarket cooler will need to peel off the stock cooler first. I don't think that's consistent with the Pi philosophy, not to mention you might damage the SoC if you apply too much force while removing an adhesive heat sink.
- onion2k 7y agoImagine how much cooler it'd run if you put a £20 note on! :)