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The Raspberry Pi 4 needs a fan

jeffgeerling.com

131–140 of 293 posts

Re: The Raspberry Pi 4 needs a fan

#131

If the Nintendo 64 was entirely passively cooled, surely the Pi can be? Mind Nintendo/SGI had much more surface area to work with so this is probably an unfair comparison.

The Pi 4 is much more powerful than an N64. So much so, it can emulate it in software.

Re: The Raspberry Pi 4 needs a fan

#132
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would accept the shorter lifespan just because of the fan noise. Small and cheap fans are very noticeable in otherwise quiet rooms. I'd hate it.

Big passive heatsink is not an option?

I went with a small heatsink for my Pi 3’s.

Re: The Raspberry Pi 4 needs a fan

#133

> If you run computing hardware at its thermal capacity for long periods of time, this will cause more wear on the parts than if they are run well inside their limits. So I have a moderately increased likelihood of, at some indefinite point in the future, having to spend a whole $35 to replace the Raspberry Pi. I can prevent this by spending extra money (and time) up front. In some cases, it might be worth it. Maybe…

I think if you focus too much on "$35" you will be very disappointed with the rpi. You need a power supply, that's $10. You need an SD card, that's $10. You need a case, that's $10. You need a micro HDMI to HDMI cable or two, that's $10. You need a fan, that's $10. If you mentally decide "the Raspberry Pi is a $100 computer all-in" you will be much happier. You won't buy one to sit in a drawer (as many on HN have com…

Despite the fact that doesn't add up, it depends what you are doing whether you need all that. I've had great value from my £34 Pi 4 since I don't need HDMI cables, cases or fans. I did also already have the other stuff too but I take your point there's no avoiding an SD card (yet).

Re: The Raspberry Pi 4 needs a fan

#134
post #9

Even 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 pa…

Yeah, I'm kinda wondering just what the Pi is supposed to be at this point. Is it still an inexpensive low power device for teaching basic computer science? Because it seems like it's more for making Kodi boxes or the worlds most powerful LED blinkers.

Why does it need to be either/or? The way I look at it, every single hobbyist, retropie, dust collector, etc is just enabling the scale that allows them to deliver the hardware at the price point.

If 100% of Pi went into schools, the foundation would likely have dried up 4 years ago. We might not be the target market, but we enable it. We enable the development, the third-party/after-market, we provide the community. The foundation provide the "noble goal", and we provide the cashflow.

Re: The Raspberry Pi 4 needs a fan

#135
post #44

Quote: the metal casing helps spread that heat around It does, to a degree. But that is absolutely not what we are seeing in that IR picture. Shiny bare metal is a mirror at the wavelengths that thermal camera uses. So what you see on thermal image where wifi-module shield and CPU are is reflection of ambient (room) where this picture was taken. Try waving your hand around, you'll see it reflecting there too. To meas…

[deleted]

Re: The Raspberry Pi 4 needs a fan

#136
post #9

Even 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 pa…

Your phone will do this too, that's why sandwiching icepacks between your iPhone makes it do an iCloud backup faster. Lots of vendors disable thermal limiting during benchmarks to get better numbers.

Part of me is wondering if that's why they disabled the 60C soft temperature limit for the pi 4...

Re: The Raspberry Pi 4 needs a fan

#137
post #44

Quote: the metal casing helps spread that heat around It does, to a degree. But that is absolutely not what we are seeing in that IR picture. Shiny bare metal is a mirror at the wavelengths that thermal camera uses. So what you see on thermal image where wifi-module shield and CPU are is reflection of ambient (room) where this picture was taken. Try waving your hand around, you'll see it reflecting there too. To meas…

Yep, a lot of people nowadays is using IR cameras without any calibration or understanding of the physics behind the measurement. The truth is, the camera requires an emissivity coefficient to associate the received radiation with the emitter body temperature. There are tables for different types of materials, but the best is to calibrate against a surface thermocouple or similar. A corollary of this is, when you see…

>people nowadays is using IR cameras without any calibration or understanding of the physics behind the measurement

The four factors are Emissivity (ε), Absorptivity (α), reflectivity (ρ) and transmissivity (t). Emissivity is only one facet. Ideal is high Emissivity and low reflectivity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_properties

Re: The Raspberry Pi 4 needs a fan

#139
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PLUS: You can get MicroSD card file system corruption if not using industrial grade MicroSD cards - especially when losing the power...

I believe this is mainly down to the FAT16/ FAT32 filesystem on the SD cards. Those filesystems have never been particularly reliable, when those were the dominant hard drive formats, MANY users back then lost data (and backing up to floppy had its own set of issues). This is why you have to unmount USB drives, if you pull the drive while data is still in cache would also create problems. The difference is when copyi…

The microSD card in a Raspberry Pi uses an ext4 filesystem, not FAT.

Re: The Raspberry Pi 4 needs a fan

#140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Pi 4 is the first generation that's actually not horrible at running Kubernetes, so I'm mostly having fun with that (ongoing saga at www.pidramble.com).

Are you planning on adding a fan to the cluster?

I’m using an open case and PoE HATs which have built in fans powered by the HAT itself.
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