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The Raspberry Pi 4 needs a fan

jeffgeerling.com

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Re: The Raspberry Pi 4 needs a fan

#151

Post by kingosticks »

Bootwizard wrote: post #96
vectorEQ wrote: post #35

most components should do fine under these temperatures no? on PC usually VRM's are heat sensitive, but the CPU can take pretty crazy temperatures itself. is the issue similar on PI? What component is at risk at these temperatures? 60-70 seems a little hot for a small device , but is it really TOO hot?

Damaging temperatures are generally between 90-100°C. Throttling can happen at lower temps and those are usually CPU dependent (and cooler dependent). Also CPUs with less cores handle thermal throttling worse as they have less cores to fallback on if one overheats.

It's very dependent on the device. Enterprise/networking-class chips I work with are usually rated for long-term reliability up to 125C, more recently that's come down a little bit (particularly regarding memories) but still significantly over 100C.

Re: The Raspberry Pi 4 needs a fan

#152

Post by amenod »

velox_io wrote: post #121
pulse7 wrote: 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…

> I believe this is mainly down to the FAT16/ FAT32 filesystem on the SD cards.

Well I lost some to power failure, and they all had ext4 on it. Anecdotal I know, but I'll be avoiding RPi for anything that needs to persist data in the future.

Re: The Raspberry Pi 4 needs a fan

#153

Post by sjustinas »

marcosdumay wrote: post #120
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The Pi4 is overpowered for a Kodi box. That said, there is a huge number of applications for overpowered LED blinkers, and no lack of people to use them. And there is a great deal of educational value on having those boards available and easy to get. Besides, it's becoming hard to find people without access to a machine where they can learn basic computer science. So this one niche is closing down, while the Pi is st…

Could you elaborate on why you think Pi 4 is "overpowered" for Kodi?

From what I've seen, there are still some kinks playing 4K HEVC videos. So hopefully, when software/firmware/etc. catches up, it should be "just powerful enough" for a Kodi box, all because of hardware decode.

Barely handling 4K does not scream "overpowered for a media center" to me.

Re: The Raspberry Pi 4 needs a fan

#154

Post by darkpuma »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #149
bantunes wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Not in terms of heat output surely?

According to random unsourced claims I just found on an internet forum, which I've decided to trust:

    NES: 9 watts
    Super NES: 10 watts
    Nintendo 64: 19 watts
    GameCube: 39 watts
    Wii: 45 watts
    PlayStation: 17 watts
    Game Boy: 0.7 watts
    Game Boy Advance SP: 1.6 watts
The rasppi 4 is supposedly 4 watts when idle, and under 8 watts when loaded.

(So there is really no question that a machine like this can run with passive cooling, but obviously it's going to be a function of case size and design, as well as heatsink size and design.)

Re: The Raspberry Pi 4 needs a fan

#155

Post by guelo »

ryanmercer wrote: post #148
pslam wrote: post #146

This article is actually describing how the Raspberry Pi 4 does NOT need a fan. This is not the 1990s. It is perfectly acceptable and even advantageous to design for a high peak:normal load ratio, with thermal throttling. In this case, it allows for a compact, cheap, fanless design for the vast majority of users. There is no evidence the heat dissipated will impact lifespan. It is common for the components picked out…

To add to this, I wonder if a properly designed case could create a chimney effect (not unlike the crossdraft kiln Primitive Tech made in his most recent video) where escape heat is drawing in cooler air in such a fashion as to be adequate enough fo the vast majority of applications. Not that fans need to be very loud, or even spin very fast for something of this size, I imagine relatively low RPMs (probably sub 100…

But then you would need a "This Side Up ↑" label and you would only be able to orient the case in one way.

Re: The Raspberry Pi 4 needs a fan

#156

Post by yboris »

mceachen wrote: post #115
dleslie wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flirc makes excellent passive cooling cases for RPis. Basically the entire shell is a heat sink. Works for me, all my little media boxes run happily with them, despite running 24/7.

I just found out you can pre-order pi 4 cases: http://blog.flirc.tv/index.php/2019/06/24/new-pi-4-cases/ (I don't have any monetary interest in flirc, I'm just another happy pi3 flirc case owner)

AMAZING! And it's under $12 https://flirc.tv/more/raspberry-pi-4-case

Re: The Raspberry Pi 4 needs a fan

#157

Post by yboris »

medmunds wrote: post #45
TylerE wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like the winning solution would be to do as Apple does and make the case the heatsink. Aluminum is a pretty good thermal conductor, and at the very least it'd get you lots of surface area.

Like this one? https://smile.amazon.com/Vilros-Raspberry-Model-Aluminum-Coo... (I'm just running Hassio, so can't really speak to its thermal effectiveness myself. But it's got enough weight to keep cables from pulling it off my shelf.)

This one looks better: https://flirc.tv/more/raspberry-pi-4-case And is cheaper :)

Re: The Raspberry Pi 4 needs a fan

#158

Post by darkpuma »

amenod wrote: post #152
velox_io wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> I believe this is mainly down to the FAT16/ FAT32 filesystem on the SD cards. Well I lost some to power failure, and they all had ext4 on it. Anecdotal I know, but I'll be avoiding RPi for anything that needs to persist data in the future.

In the past when I was using a rasppi (v1) as my media player, I used the SD card only for booting off of. The media files themselves were persisted on my nas, served over nfs. Using network storage really seems like the way to go, particularly now that the shared bus issue has been resolved. At the very least, real hard drives are much more efficient (byte/dollar) than SD cards.

Re: The Raspberry Pi 4 needs a fan

#159

Post by kingosticks »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #142
soneil wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

Because the two goals are somewhat incompatible. The more powerful they make the hardware to please one crowd the less they can meet the "low power", and to a lesser extent price (need a fan now, etc), goals.

I can't agree with that conclusion. Where has the "low power" goal come from (as if 15W wasn't low power anyway). And as has been said already, you 100% do not need to actively cool a RPi 4 to teach kids to code with it!

Re: The Raspberry Pi 4 needs a fan

#160

Post by dboreham »

Bootwizard wrote: post #96
vectorEQ wrote: post #35

most components should do fine under these temperatures no? on PC usually VRM's are heat sensitive, but the CPU can take pretty crazy temperatures itself. is the issue similar on PI? What component is at risk at these temperatures? 60-70 seems a little hot for a small device , but is it really TOO hot?

Damaging temperatures are generally between 90-100°C. Throttling can happen at lower temps and those are usually CPU dependent (and cooler dependent). Also CPUs with less cores handle thermal throttling worse as they have less cores to fallback on if one overheats.

As a sometime hardware engineer, my rule of...er...thumb was that if it was difficult to keep your finger on the device for 5 seconds then it was overheating.

Damage to devices certainly doesn't happen at 100C but you might be talking about case temp under some assumptions about how that relates to junction temp for some specific setup. In general its junction temp that decides if the device suffers permanent damage.

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