Raspberry Pi 3 - Idle/Load temperatures while running Retropie?

hobnob

The heat sinks are attached via thermal tape. I'd be curious to see your actual temperatures as I'm more than likely going to return this kit.

How are you using Artic Silver in this application? Last time I checked that they only made a compound.

caver01

@hobnob That's right. It's a compound which is what they recommend for CPUs. I am about as worried as I should be with a $35 computer that it will one day slide off a bit, but if that happens, I will see overheating and throttling again.

If you exercise a little restraint with the arctic silver, it can go on thin and creates some suction/adhesion. I'd like to figure out a way to hold the sink in position, but I am just not that worked up about it. It hasn't moved.

What sort of test would you like me to do? Here, I'll boot up the arcade (here's my setup)and idle it at where it lands on ES for a while (hour or so). That should get it nice and warm anyway. Then, I can run an arcade game that is pretty taxing. . . maybe something you are trying to run? and I can check the temp. How do I do that, by the way?

hobnob

You can simply run the following at the shell:

watch /opt/vc/bin/vcgencmd measure_temp

I was measuring with it idling at the emulationstation menu and after like 10 minutes playing a game. As mentioned before, 65+C at the menu and 80+C while playing something is not acceptable for my purposes.

I was testing out Super Mario Bros on the NES while hitting these high temperatures.

Thanks for the help.

senkun

@hobnob said in Raspberry Pi 3 - Idle/Load temperatures while running Retropie?:

I'm currently running RetroPie from a Canakit Raspberry Pi 3 starter kit with the 2 heat sinks installed and enclosed in the provided case.

Simply idling within the EmulationStation frontend I'm seeing temperatures of 65-70 degrees celsius. Upon using any emulator (8/16 bit era machines) after 5-10 minutes the cpu throttling will kick in as the temperatures are exceeding 80+ degrees celsius.

I'm aware that the pi 3 runs hotter but is this commonplace for other Raspberry Pi 3 users?

my rpi3 runs idle around 50~52°C , running a game via fba-next etc. brings it up to around 57~59°C. Stark naked, no heatsinks nothing. SIts enclosed in an aluminium case too. Maybe the alu helps heat dissipation somewhat.

senkun

@hobnob said :

The heat sinks are attached via thermal tape. I'd be curious to see your actual temperatures as I'm more than likely going to return this kit.

The tape might be the culprit. Try thermal paste? Before that, try taking the heatsink and tape off, clean the chip and measure? I bet the temps will be lower.

caver01

@hobnob I have a feeling @senkun is right. There was a time when the recommendation was to just forget heat sinks, as they were causing more harm than good. I doubt that was true, but it might have seemed that way for a lot of people if they were using the tape.

I have been idling my P3 for 2.5 hours now after booting into Emulation Station. It is sitting between 58 and 59'C.

Going to launch Super Mario Bros on NES. . . 73.6'C

dankcushions

I use tape and it's fine. unless you've somehow applied it wrong but I would still not expect temps this high. I would be curious what temps it gets to outside of the case?

hobnob

Thank you everybody for all the input.

I've removed the heatsinks and now my temperatures have reduced by approximately 10C. Idling at the emulationstation fronted is around 55C and playing something is around 70C. The board is still within the provided plastic case and isn't throttling so far.

The provided heat sinks have thermal tape from the factory already applied to them. You simply peel the backing off and stick them on to the chips. The tape itself is clearly insulating the heat rather than dissipating it.

I wish I knew exactly what type of tape was utilized here as it's pretty obvious that it's not working as intended.

Hopefully this helps someone in the future who runs into heat issues with this kit too.

caver01

@hobnob Wow. I am glad you figured it out. It's pretty sad that the tape is having the opposite effect. Clearly, not all thermal tape is created equal. Case in point: @dankcushions says he's using tape successfully.

You could still recycle the heat sink--peel off that tape and clean any residue so it is absolutely clean and flat, then get yourself some paste/compound. My heat sink was cut from an old one I had (from an ancient Pentium CPU I think). I had to sand off the crusty residue, cut it to size and polish the bottom nice and smooth. The point is that a heat sink--any heat sink--can make a difference if it's applied correctly. Clearly, a corner was cut on that kit.

tekn0

Revive, I am having the same issue. On an RPI3 running FBA and Metalslug 1. The unit is hovering at around 83c. I tested with both heat syncs from that kit on and off. It holds around 80c on NES.

Both tests have the ctr-pi shader running in nearest neighbor.

caver01

@tekn0 the moment I added a heat sink to my Pi3 using arctic silver compound I have never seen my Pi throttle performance due to heat--not once. And my sink is just one I threw together by cutting a square off of a sink from an old Pentium CPU. I am really questioning the quality of the adhesive in these kits, as the heat sinks themselves look much better than mine.

Concat

Get a case + fan combo on ebay for like 10 bucks shipped. They work very well at keeping things cool... keeping it quiet is a different story, but oh well.

mrbwa1

The Pi3 runs hot, especially if you Overclock. Running a mild 1350Mhz OC with 500 MHz core and MEM bus speed, I can ply most 8 bit and 16 bit, but it's getting into the 70-75 degree range in a Pi Foundation Case with the lid off. I can't run Dreamcast, PSP or PSX with Enhance resolution for long without throttling though.

Once I figured out it was getting so hot, I rigged up a fan from a dead PC power supply and an old broken wall wart. It's not exactly quiet, but even going all out, temps rarely get above 55 degrees.

I would second the recommendation to get a case with a fan if you are seeing overheating. I tried just aiming a desk fan at my open case and even that kept temps around 60 degrees on the low setting (a lot less airflow that the loud PSU fan)

Concat

I'll add that a heat sink on its own really doesn't provide much cooling. If you research the topic you will see many example of people only getting 5 degrees cooler with a heat sink. Coupled with a small 5v fan running off the 5v out on the GPIO, however, you get 20 degrees cooler.

Any overclock setup should probably have a fan for the rpi3 in my opinion. Static air just isn't very good for heat transfer.

mrbwa1

Funny thing: I just logged into my Pi to make sure I shut down emulation station yesterday and noticed it is idling at 52 degrees (with Emulationstation running) sitting there doing nothing. That means it idles hotter than it runs maxed out with the fan added.

Arcticade

I have had my PI3 idling on emulation station AND transferring data over wifi for 12 hours right now. My CPU is 36 Celcius/96 F (very low). I have heat sinks and a kick ass fan installed. For those of you wonderinf if your heat sinks are working. Touch them. If they are hot, they are working. If your CPU is at a high temp and your heat sinks are just warm, they aren't.

Drob10

Just to chime in that I had this exact same issue running Pi3 from a canakit with the heatsinks attached. Pi idled around 65c and as soon as I removed the cpu heatsink the temps dropped at least -10c.
I just switched cases, which came with another heatsink. The pi, just running emulationstation with new heatsink, is at 49c cpu and 48.3c gpu.

wolfgangrumpf

For what it's worth, I have the same basic setup as OP described (RPI3 Canakit with thermal tape holding on heat sinks). My temperatures were getting VERY high (75 - 80C!) in the miniature NES case I printed up for it, so I went ahead and installed a fan at the bottom of the case that blows up directly onto the heat sinks - now my temperatures rarely exceed 55C. The fan makes a bit of noise but not enough to be distracting in a quiet room, really.....

Capeman

The pi isnt designed to need a heat sink. If you look at a typical X-86/64 processor versus an ARM processor, you'll notice the material housing the processor on an X-86 is metal and really smooth - that design is intentional - the metal cap conducts heat to the surface which transfers to thermal compound then to the heat sink which is then blown away by a fan.

An AMR processor you'll notice is the same material as a standard IC, its plastic capped with a textured surface and printed markings. The textured plastic is terrible for heat sinks. Tape will leave microscopic air bubbles between the plastic and the tape, air is the best insulator. The last thing you want between a CPU and a heat sink is any layer of insulation. Only a really squishy tape OR thermal compound will have any sort of effect if well worked in... but because of the basic material housing of the ARM processor, it is not designed to be heat sinked.

If the pi was meant to have a heat sink, the foundation would have included one or at least put a mounting solution in for one.

caver01

@capeman I agree with this to a point. The assessment of the materials, the texture-induced air pockets, and most importantly, the failur of “tape” to properly conduct heat are all important points. I think the take-home is that if you are serious about getting the most out of a sink, you should be using a thermal compound, not self-adheasive tape to apply it.

Yet, once applied properly, even a sink without a fan can do wonders. As for the Pi Foundation not intending us to use a heat sink–this is true, but only because they have the throttling mechanism built-in. If we simply allow throttling, sure, no need to ever install a heat sink. But most of us want to push the heat envelope and maximize performance.

One of the problems with all of the anecdotes about only getting 5 degrees of effective heat reduction without a fan etc. is that most of us are using different solutions. We have different heat sinks, different application methods, different cases, and so on. It’s apples and oranges in many cases. Still, what we do know is that there are paths to success. Some use fans. Some don’t. I don’t, but I have a good sink with Arctic Silver. The details really matter.