The Raspberry Pi 4 needs a fan
jeffgeerling.com
The Raspberry Pi 4 needs a fan
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Re: The Raspberry Pi 4 needs a fan
#2I'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
Re: The Raspberry Pi 4 needs a fan
#3I'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
I tried a heatsink but it didn't really help unless I had a desk fan providing some air flow.
Re: The Raspberry Pi 4 needs a fan
#4I 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.
Re: The Raspberry Pi 4 needs a fan
#5I'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
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.
Re: The Raspberry Pi 4 needs a fan
#6So 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.
Re: The Raspberry Pi 4 needs a fan
#7I 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)
Re: The Raspberry Pi 4 needs a fan
#8I 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
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?
Re: The Raspberry Pi 4 needs a fan
#9Even 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.
Re: The Raspberry Pi 4 needs a fan
#10I 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
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?
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.