Vorke V1 Plus Review

[SeekTruth]

I wouldn't worry about that, as long as you don't overtighten, just snug once contact is made. I would be more worried about the correct thickness. 2mm was just an after the fact, top of my head guess. It might be closer to 1mm. I'd get a good measurement, or buy a couple thicknesses. Copper would be the best heat transfer, but likely more expensive and since the original is aluminum, I don't think you will gain from copper.

Excellent. Will keep all advice in mind. Will post my results here. Cheers!

[SeekTruth]

Approximate Measurements of Heatsync and CPU

- L x W -

CPU/Package
- 31mm x 24mm

Black Rubber Pad that sits on CPU Die
- about .4mm or .5mm thick
- about .3mm when tightened

Raised Aluminum Rectangle Part of Heatsync (Touches Black Pad)
- 31mm x 24mm

Heat Sync
Inside Spokes/Risers - Narrowest Point - 41mm

Heatsync Width
- 48mm

Screws that tighten heatsync to CPU
- 4mm

PCB (Circuit Board)
- about 1.2mm

----- My Conclusions to replace Black Rubber Pad -------

.5mm - Copper shim.

Will also work with .3mm without issue (there was additional space when tightening screws).

Before Mod:
90C at Home passmark screen - 105FPS
Fan at Max
------------------------------
After Mod:
60C at Home passmark screen - 100FPS
What fan?

Wow, what a difference!

I have additional shims if anyone needs.

[SeekTruth]

One more thing, I am not sure how close the heatsink gets to the on board soldered components once it's trimmed down, it looked to me like it had clearance, but to be safe I cut a little corner of the SATA spare drive anti conducting sheet and covered the about 1" square area of components between the CPU and exhaust port. You will see what I mean. Better safe than cooked.

Are you referring to the little resistors around the Die? on the CPU Package? When I placed the copper shim, it was touching one of them. Should I worry about the CPU getting fried because of this? .... Had to file down the shim so it wasn't touching the raised areas on the package... Now it's safe.

[icaps3]

Has anyone manage to extract line in/line out connections? I see a line in point on the silk screen, but have no idea if it is real. I'll need these for a RTL/SDR setup.
Thanks..zim

PS: I think I've got this solved using and old external USB sound card. I still may try testing that line in spot just for grins.

[keup]

Approximate Measurements of Heatsync and CPU

- L x W -

CPU/Package
- 31mm x 24mm

Black Rubber Pad that sits on CPU Die
- about .4mm or .5mm thick
- about .3mm when tightened

Raised Aluminum Rectangle Part of Heatsync (Touches Black Pad)
- 31mm x 24mm

Heat Sync
Inside Spokes/Risers - Narrowest Point - 41mm

Heatsync Width
- 48mm

Screws that tighten heatsync to CPU
- 4mm

PCB (Circuit Board)
- about 1.2mm

----- My Conclusions to replace Black Rubber Pad -------

.5mm - 15mm x 15mm Copper shim. Thermal Paste on either side.

Will also work with .3mm without issue (there was additional space when tightening screws).

Before Mod:
90C at Home passmark screen - 105FPS
Fan at Max
------------------------------
After Mod:
60C at Home passmark screen - 100FPS
What fan?

Wow, what a difference!

I have additional shims if anyone needs.

Tried the Copper and it works very good. Temperature difference about 20 degrees Celsius.
Thanks very much!!!

[SeekTruth]

Tried the Copper and it works very good. Temperature difference about 20 degrees Celsius.
Thanks very much!!!

You're welcome! But wasn't originally my idea. Just be wary of any copper touching the raised capacitors or whatever they are on the CPU package. Over time, it might cause conductivity possibly frying CPU.

[keup]

You're welcome! But wasn't originally my idea. Just be wary of any copper touching the raised capacitors or whatever they are on the CPU package. Over time, it might cause conductivity possibly frying CPU.

It seems to work until now ;-)

[SeekTruth]

It seems to work until now ;-)

Indeed. I had same situation as I posted, then realized I needed to file it down cause it was hitting the other pieces. Easy to reopen and adjust. But yeah definitely cooler!

[keup]

Indeed. I had same situation as I posted, then realized I needed to file it down cause it was hitting the other pieces. Easy to reopen and adjust. But yeah definitely cooler!

But what did you adjust? I placed it about in the middle and screwed it down. The copper didn't seem to make contact with the CPU. Afterwards I ran a stresstest for about ten minutes and it seems fine.

[SeekTruth]

But what did you adjust? I placed it about in the middle and screwed it down. The copper didn't seem to make contact with the CPU. Afterwards I ran a stresstest for about ten minutes and it seems fine.

On mine, the edges of the copper were touching the top capacitors of the CPU so it would need to be carefully shaved down (outside of the system). almstsobur, as shown previously in this thread didn't use copper, instead he filed down the heatsync risers, (from my understanding) then cut some of the SATA heat shield that is on the bottom of the unit, and cut it to shape around the die to protect the top capacitors.

[mslogo]

I have also aplied the upgrade to the thermal compound.
But the fan starts always at 55 Degree (win10).
The dptf Bios setting is at 70 Degree.....

At Linux the fan always goes to full speed,....
The fan will not be detected! (pwmconfig)

Wheres my fault?

[rakufm]

The fan is annoying, but it was an easy fix. The thermal solution between the heatsink and CPU is just a thermal pad, not nearly as efficient as good thermal compound. I tried to apply some MX-4 CPU thermal compound it's it's place and realized the heatsink standoffs were just a hair too tall for it to make contact. I pulled out the Dremel and grinded about 2mm of each standoff and boom, in business. Put on a dab of MX-4 and put it all back together. 2 days later and I haven't even heard the fan kick on one time. Just a good thermal connection between that rather large heatsink and the CPU is enough too cool a 10 watt TDP CPU passively.

-RP

I recently Purchased Vorke V1 Plus. I never heard fan kick in but after doing some research I decided to open the casing and make some improvement. Sadly I did not make any temp measurements before mods, so hard to compare but I checked against other results and I believe I made a nice improvement. Here is what I did.

Firstly I ground the back of plate, that makes contact with CPU. Originally surface roughness and finish were completly not acceptable, as they looked pretty much as the surface of the moon. It did not take long and after getting 320, 600 and 1200 grit I ended up with a very nice flat and fine finished surface.

Then I measured up the gap/clerance between the CPU and heatsink bottom and ground off stand offs - no need to remove 2mm . I removed ~0.3mm, and no need for dremel. I only used sanding paper and all took me very little time.

After cleaning the heatsink with water and compressed air, degreasing and applying Arctic Silver 5 I am seeing in AIDA64 ~60°C and most importantly fan is not kicking in, so this thing is completly quiet! Bear in mind, CPU is all the time at 2-2.1GHz.

I hope someone finds it helpful as this is extremly simple mod and well worth it .

[MrOrpheus]

I recently Purchased Vorke V1 Plus. I never heard fan kick in but after doing some research I decided to open the casing and make some improvement. Sadly I did not make any temp measurements before mods, so hard to compare but I checked against other results and I believe I made a nice improvement. Here is what I did.

Firstly I ground the back of plate, that makes contact with CPU. Originally surface roughness and finish were completly not acceptable, as they looked pretty much as the surface of the moon. It did not take long and after getting 320, 600 and 1200 grit I ended up with a very nice flat and fine finished surface.

Then I measured up the gap/clerance between the CPU and heatsink bottom and ground off stand offs - no need to remove 2mm . I removed ~0.3mm, and no need for dremel. I only used sanding paper and all took me very little time.

After cleaning the heatsink with water and compressed air, degreasing and applying Arctic Silver 5 I am seeing in AIDA64 ~60°C and most importantly fan is not kicking in, so this thing is completly quiet! Bear in mind, CPU is all the time at 2-2.1GHz.

I hope someone finds it helpful as this is extremly simple mod and well worth it .

---------
Hey Man - thanks for this great advice, I followed this last night, and got my Vorke v1 plus down from 70's to 50's (I'm also a total noob on this kind of thing and have never even repasted my cpu, much less sanding down heatsink and stands by eye).
Also I sanded down the stands and just got the tolerance until I could not see through the gap between the cpu and the heatsink anymore.
I used ArcticSliver5 also.

Anyway I basically joined here to say thanks, because your little post really helped me.

[Guest]

I, too, just registered to say thanks to rakufm for the suggested thermal improvement. I was hoping to find a utility to monitor fan speed before and after the change, but was unable to find one for Windows 10. Anyone find one? Running Prime95 at 100% CPU load for all 4 cores I was getting around 89C before the mod. After grinding down the studs, polishing the heatsink and applying the thermal grease I had on hand (Noctua), temps went down to around 66C, for a pretty impressive 23C reduction. I took other data points but that was the most impressive. My very qualitative observations are that if the temp is around 51C or less, I can only hear the fan if I'm within a couple feet of it, so not when sitting on my sofa. Around 60C I become mildly aware of the fan from my sofa, but it is quieter than my frig cycling on and off in the kitchen, and only noticeable if the house is dead quiet. Around 70C the noise becomes quite apparent. The computer is used mainly to stream content, which keeps the temp below 60C, so the fan is no longer an issue to me.

[Driton H]

I did do the same mod however without grinding the studs(I found the heatsink did not have a big gap and the compund Seems to be in place fine). I found that Max temperature reached 68 degrees when doing a stress test with the software 'heavy load'. However the fan kicks in at 57 degrees and at 60-65 it is quite noticable. I am not sure if this is just as good as it gets but from previous posts it Seems like the fan never kicks in. Im wondering if i can do more - maybe changing bios settings on thermal management or so. Let me know if have any idea of what im doing wrong