For Raspberry Pi4 continuous selfhosted server operations: with and without case fan. This graph show a 20°C decrease, with a slow rpm fan.
The metal case has thermal stickers to reach for main components on both sides, and the fan is what I have in scrap parts, totally not for that case but pushes a lot of air with low noise compared to screaming mini cpu fans.
Kinda misleading lower limit on the graph
TBF 0C and 0F are kinda arbitrary values.
0 F is defined as the lowest temperature a guy was able to reach with some random mixture which is arbitrary.
But 0 C is commonly defined as the point at which water turns from solid to liquid and the other way round. Scientifically it’s ever so slightly off but still it’s defined via Kelvin.
Celsius is defined at the arbitrary standard pressure, different pressure values change how water acts (this is very noticeable at 100C - boiling). Kelvin steps are defined from Celsius. Even the speed of light which is constant is still defined in terms of an arbitrary time unit.
Usually you’d measure it relative to room temperature. Probably harder in this scenario (I don’t have a thermometer laying around, but 20°C is probably a good starting point.
Esp. for CPU temps. A much more interesting range is 50-100C.
That is one beefy fan for a rpi.
I’ve just got a case similar to this; but all snap together, no screws:
The fan runs off the pin headers. Meant for 5v, but I use the 3.3v line to run it a little quieter/slower.
Even that makes a good 10°c difference.
Does the CPU thermally throttle without a fan in your case?
So how did you attach that fan to the case? Looks like an interesting idea seeing that its powered through the USB.
@ddash The fan is just sitting on top of the case, mostly centered as the turbine opening is slightly smaller than the case itself.
The duct shoots air horizontally in the general direction of another of a LibreComputer Lepotate. I take that as a bonus.
I’ve kept a raspberry pi 4b that’s given a mild OC to 1900Mhz in my boiler cupboard for a year and all its needed to keep it below 50 is:
- a tiny metal heatsink
- a 5w usb fan blowing already-warm air sorta towards it
@merthyr1831 Pretty much anything you have at hand will do 👍
I had multiple fan failures which brought down my system, so instead I picked up one of these heatsink cases and it’s been running mostly uninterrupted for years.
No, the highest temperature I have ever recorded was 76°C. Without fan, and using thermal pads to connect the case to components.
But I hate high numbers, excessive heat already shortened a Pi lifetime here, since then I am very cautious about that.
