How are you cooling your Pi 3?

drake999

I'd like to find a case that supports a fan and heatsinks. I have a very slight overclock on my Pi3. The idea was to bring memory and GPU performance up to the same level as the supported overclock of the Pi2. Below are my overclock settings which have proven to be stable except for gradually building thermal issues.

arm_freq=1200
core_freq=500
v3d_freq=500
sdram_freq=500
over_voltage=2
dtoverlay=sdhost,overclock_50=100
temp_limit=80

I didn't use gpu_freq because for what I'm doing there is no need to overclock the video decoder or camera block and I figured leaving them at their stock clockspeeds would help prevent heat buildup, and it seems to have done just that to a point, but I'm still having trouble dissipating heat. After about 1 to 2 hours of use depending on the emulator, the temperature will start to approach 80 degrees and the yellow warning indicator will begin to appear. I'm hoping to find a case that will support heat sinks as well as a small fan and allow access to the SD card. Does anyone have any suggestions for a case? My heatsinks are applied with thermal adhesive and I would rather not purchase a new Pi3 just for a fan. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

drake999

You may notice I have an earlier post stating that heatsinks will suffice if you overclock. At that time I was working on a Pi2, which is the case with that model. Hopefully I didn't mislead anyone.

caver01

@drake999 Earlier in this thread, someone posted a link to a case with a sink and fan. Looked like a great option for the price for sure.

Ekstreme

I tried heat sinks and they did pretty much SFA, so I've ordered one of these:
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Black-Aluminum-Alloy-Case-Shell-Enclosure-Box-Fan-for-Raspberry-Pi-Model-B-L3-/282136693749?hash=item41b0a84bf5:g:QnMAAOSwawpXsV0t

Got the case already but they forgot the fan. Hopefully that shows up soon as Metal Slug (my son's fav game) cooks this poor lil thing

obsidianspider

I've only had my Pi 3 for a few days, but I've been running this 15mm x 15mm x 15mm aluminum heatsink from Adafruit (not an affiliate link) with a little thermal grease and my temps haven't gone over 57 C even with N64 games while overclocked to 1.4GHz. I've been getting the lightning bolt so I have a 3.5A power supply on order, but back at "not overlocked" (no lightning bolt) I'm hovering around 51 C with Mario 64's demo "Press Start" screen running for a few hours.

drake999

@caver01 I took a look at that, but didn't seem to suite the style I'm hoping to get. I found the following which looks perfect, but I can't seem to get it in my local.

https://www.amazon.com/Performance-Active-Cooling-Raspberry-ODROID/dp/B01ESLEI7M/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8&qid=1476720006&sr=8-16&keywords=raspberry+pi+3+case+fan

spannernick1

I use the old heat sinks from my RPi1 and it works fine,I didn't know you could overclock it,when I goto the raspi config it say it can't be overclocked..??

nanar

I bought a case with 3 small thermal dissipators. I never had problem before, but I needed a case...
BUT, yesterday I did re-install MAME2010 "by the source" and I got the thermometer icon for the 1st time. (no O/C)
A LOT of heat, extremely hot dissipators. I had to blow on the PI, and it tooks forever to reinstall. I have a copper dissipator I simply put on the small one, it helped a bit, but not enough. So I'm going to use a fan and bigger dissipators, and maybe make my own case.

backstander

@nanar
I've had that same issue compiling MAME2010 from source and I have a RPi3 with those thermal heat sinks. I happen to have a cheap USB fan that I got from Walmart that I keep near my RPi. I rarely need it but when I do it's nice and cools my RPi quickly when it starts getting too hot. My power supply has enough power to push all this (including RPi, my controllers, USB mouse & keyboard) and that fan has a little on/off switch so I just turn it on when needed. Also that fan folds down flat so I can easily put it away and it can run off batteries but I've never tried this. I actually ended up getting a 2nd one that I keep next to my desktop PC because that thing can be like a little space heater and I needed something to keep me cool.

nanar

@backstander
Hey thank you, I didn't knew this kind of fan, cool stuff. I'll rethink about making my own case, a fan should be enough without overclocking (I saw people managed to control the fan with GPIO, PWM fan) Pretty abnormal it get that hot when compiling..

backstander

@nanar

Pretty abnormal it get that hot when compiling

It is pretty rare except maybe when I'm compiling something large like MAME.

(I saw people managed to control the fan with GPIO, PWM fan)

I haven't thought about that. Sound like a good idea!
I have several old fans from out of old PC cases but I doubt any of them are PWM fans.

garrettendi

At what point do you need to cool your Pi/Retropie? Is that the only way to play certain emulators that come pre-installed? I was under the impression that stuff like the N64 or Dreamcast emulators would run "out the box", minus the ROMS of course

dankcushions

@garrettendi said in How are you cooling your Pi 3?:

At what point do you need to cool your Pi/Retropie? Is that the only way to play certain emulators that come pre-installed? I was under the impression that stuff like the N64 or Dreamcast emulators would run "out the box", minus the ROMS of course

it depends on your case, room temperature, model of pi, overclock, etc.

ultimately pis downlock when they overheat, so they're able to operate safely regardless.

garrettendi

@dankcushions

I see, so regardless of overclocking or not, it will still run safely because of the temperature checks (just read the Wiki!).

But what emulators would require overclocking? I'm hesitant to overclock until needed, having no experience at all in this field.

dankcushions

@garrettendi said in How are you cooling your Pi 3?:

@dankcushions

I see, so regardless of overclocking or not, it will still run safely because of the temperature checks (just read the Wiki!).

But what emulators would require overclocking? I'm hesitant to overclock until needed, having no experience at all in this field.

on a pi3, none, really. there's a small number of mame games that benefit from a cpu overclock, and GPU-limited emulators (PPSSPP, reicast, *n64) should benefit from GPU overclocks, but it's not like they're not working before, but work perfectly after, so i don't see it as a requirement.

garrettendi

@dankcushions

Thanks! I'll go with the stock settings then for as long as possible!

mrbwa1

I'm running a mild OC @ 1350 MHz and 500 MHZ Core/GPU. It seems to run okay for most stuff other than maybe PSP. If I want to play PSP or Dreamcast games, I pop the top of the Official RPi case and put a fan over it.

I have used a small house fan, but recently gutted a dead PC power supply and wired it up to an old 12V power brick. I could really use a lower CFM fan as this one is really loud out in the open. The plus side is that even with the Pi going full out on PSP games, it tends to stay under 50 degrees.

garrettendi

@mrbwa1

So by small house fan you mean a simple desktop fan? The kind I might use in the office to keep myself cool in the summer? How did that work for that level of OC?

enderandrew

I know the Flirc case is popular. Is anyone here running an OC with the Flirc case?

mrbwa1

@garrettendi Yes. I hat the Official RPi case, so the top just pops off. Put the pi on it's side and aimed the fan at it. Not the prettiest setup, but it was moving plenty of air even on low to keep the Pi under 60 degrees. It just looked really dumb. (https://www.amazon.com/Honeywell-HT-900-TurboForce-Circulator-Black/dp/B001R1RXUG

Passive heatsinks have never really been my favorite thing unless you are using a really good thermal paste. Airflow is almost always going to help because room temperature is so much cooler than the chip.

The desk fan approach isn't pretty, but it's not needed a lot of the time, so it could work in a pinch or just for testing OC settings to see if the RAM can even handle it.