How are you cooling your Pi 3?
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25x25x15mm heatsink off eBay, attached with 3M heat transfer tape
More research here: https://github.com/superjamie/lazyweb/wiki/Raspberry-Pi-Cooling
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@suprjami said in How are you cooling your Pi 3?:
25x25x15mm heatsink off eBay, attached with 3M heat transfer tape
More research here: https://github.com/superjamie/lazyweb/wiki/Raspberry-Pi-Cooling
You can use one of those larger heatsinks which are on the top of a PC northbridge. I saw them on eBay with a 5v fan included. I did measure if it would fit and it will fit. The only thing you have to do is to add some isolation layer on the PCB so the heatsink won't make contact with the small electronic components. This month I will but it and I will test it out.
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@PetroRie Let us know how it goes!
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@obsidianspider I also overclock, for Mr. 64, with two Pi 3s. One is in a slab-style case with aluminum heatsinks on the CPU/GPU/RAM, and a 5V fan. It's one cool puppy, but it's total overkill.
The other one is in a Smartipi case with a 7" touchscreen. Runs just as overclocked, with the governor set to performance during gameplay. It's covered by the case, but not sealed and there's a wee bit of airflow. I NEVER get high-temp alarms on it. It gets upwards of 70 C, but that's about it. I can easily force it to go over temp with sysbench, but in real-world use, it's not an issue.
I haven't seen enough Pi's myself to confirm, but Pi 3s might be somewhat varied in how well they handle temperature. It could also totally be that the people with heat problems are using them in cramped corners, behind TVs, or in mostly-sealed cases.
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I use the Performance Pro case by LoveRPi. It's well ventilated and comes with a 5 volt fan. It does get a little bit noisy so there is the option to lower the voltage to 3.3 volts, which is much quieter. And it's only $10.
The one thing I don't like about it so far is that you must unplug it for the fan to turn off. The fan doesn't seem to be aware of when the Pi is on or off so it runs as long as there is power.
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@SimonBelmont said in How are you cooling your Pi 3?:
The one thing I don't like about it so far is that you must unplug it for the fan to turn off. The fan doesn't seem to be aware of when the Pi is on or off so it runs as long as there is power.
Same. When I get time, and a case that will hold it, I plan to add a little NPN transistor so that I can control the fan via GPIO (which shouldn't directly power something like a fan), along with a resistor to throttle it down. This way I can have a quieter fan that only kicks in during high temp, or gameplay, etc.
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I honestly didn't think this was going to be an issue. But now I;m seriously having to do something about it. My Pi3 is running 86 degrees with the cover off and throttling like you wouldn't believe.
Heat sinks are in order, but I think a fan is going to be required also
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I've used the heatsinks on the cpu and gpu, and a ps2 fan over 3.3V. The hottest its get is 41°C. And that is to watch 1080p movies over a streaming network.
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I bought a case with 5v fan and heatsinks off ebay for like 8 bucks.
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@obsidianspider
I originally purchases a kit that came with a Raspberry Pi 3, a 2.5A power supply, a black case (with a top that will pop off) and 2 heat sinks but when I had it overclocked and played alot of MAME games, I stated getting those yellow/orange/red box indicators on the top/right of the screen. I already had a small USB powered fan that I picked up at Walmart last year in the Fall on discount so just for fun, I plugged it into my Pi 3 and I was surprised that the fan actually works without a powered USB hub. I just took the top off the case and had the fan blow over the heat sinks and I never saw the yellow/red boxes again. I have since got a powered USB hub and the fan is plugged into that now but I haven't used it after re-flashing to RetroPie 4.0 (and without any overclocking).From my experience, as long as it's not really, really hot in my house, the 2 heat sinks will suffice unless I overclock my Pi, then I need that USB fan.
My only complaint about this kit I purchased is that it's really hard to get the microSD card out without having to pop open the case a little bit. Putting the microSD card in is very easy.
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@backstander i only use a heatsink on all of mine. One is in an intellivision flashback with no ventilation. I use it daily with no heat issues.
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@edmaul69
When I had mine overclocked, I think it was maxed out in every area I could find in the forums including the SD card reader with "dtoverlay=sdhost,overclock_50=100\n" and it only happened when playing MAME games for extended times. Now with the new updates to the N64 emulator in RetroPie 4.0.x, the Pi 3 handles this pretty well without any overclocking so I haven't used a fan since but I have the fan handy if I ever need to use it :) -
Do you guys recommend using heatsinks and/or cases with fans, with a non overclocked pi?
Just want to know if I need to spend a little bit more money or not.
Btw, I'm thinkin of housing my pi in my old sega genesis, do you guys think it will overheat being closed on the shell of the genesis? -
@Thegodfather
You should be fine without any heating unless it's really cramped in there. -
The only cooling which really works (based on benchmark tests on youtube) is water cooling (overkill obviously) & a large heat sink which means you wont get the top of a case on. Everything else outside of that is a waste of time. I run a pi2 not over clocked and it runs everything.
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@UberJay said in How are you cooling your Pi 3?:
The only cooling which really works (based on benchmark tests on youtube) is water cooling (overkill obviously) & a large heat sink which means you wont get the top of a case on. Everything else outside of that is a waste of time. I run a pi2 not over clocked and it runs everything.
Well, come on now. Just about any sink properly attached will help cool the CPU. I have not seen a single overheat indicator since I added a sink to my Pi3 and before that I was able to easily and consistently trigger temperature throttling by running newer arcade games.
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@caver01 I think if your examination was more scientific ie. A before / after with stats on temp. You would find that no significant improvements are made unless you go above and beyond what fits in a standard case.
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standard-size case that helps temps a lot.
there are also loads of other temperature experiments done with pi3s. these guys will throttle no problem without heatsinks, and often with.
anecdotally, my pi3 + heatsink (bigger than the 'ebay' one in that video) in my alu case keeps my temps down pretty low, but i'll still get throttling when i attempt a mame recompile, and that's with no overclock.
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@UberJay said in How are you cooling your Pi 3?:
@caver01 I think if your examination was more scientific ie. A before / after with stats on temp. You would find that no significant improvements are made unless you go above and beyond what fits in a standard case.
I'm not sure I need to be more scientific. We could get into test data and define what you mean by significant, but we are merely after sufficient cooling. All I know is that I bought a Pi3 when they came out and saw throttling (red box appears, games stuttering, sound dropping etc.). I slapped on a heatsink (cut from an old Pentium sink) using thermal paste and viola--no throttling. In fact, I haven't seen a single instance of throttling since. Is it significant cooling? Depends on how you define it. Do I know how many degrees it has changed? No. I don't remember the temperature delta. Is it sufficient for a better gaming experience? Absolutely.
I don't want to sound overenthusiastic about it, but I think it's important to counter the argument that the only cooling that works is water cooling. That's simply not true. There may be people reading this that are seeing the red box and wondering what they can do about it. Everyone's mileage will vary as we all use different cases and what not, but you don't have to go crazy to see results. A properly applied sink can make an impact and can improve your gaming experience if you are seeing issues.
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