Tronsmart T428 thermal problem

[Finless]

By the way, ram temp is usually not an issue. It's the processor and especially the wifi chip that gets hot.

I was suprised about the wifi chip but there is a old post in the 3066 forums somewhere where a guy took a thermal picture and the wifi chip was the hostest thing on the board.

Bob

[s0s]

the wifi chip was the hostest thing on the board.

I was not sure at the bottom, so I'm just all connected to the aluminum plate.
the heat is evenly distributed and delivered through the heatsink glued to the outside.
I'm a careful human.

[mustanley]

I added heat sinks to the RK3188 and the wifi/bt module only. You can also see the parts to my next endeavor of attaching an external wifi antenna. I must create a small bracket first to attach the RPSMA jack.

[Finless]

Nice tall heat sinks there!
I think that will work very well for you.

Bob

[Sigismundpower]

??Cooling??

It is essential to the cooling?

[mustanley]

I don't know. I experienced instability and because I already had the heat sinks, I decided to mod the device. I am also going to use a better dc power supply as soon as I convert this 2.5A unit from an old D-Link router over to USB.

[s0s]

I added heat sinks to the RK3188 and the wifi/bt module only. You can also see the parts to my next endeavor of attaching an external wifi antenna. I must create a small bracket first to attach the RPSMA jack.

I have a old wifiantenna from my Asus P5B Deluxe Wifi-AP.
I don't know this get work.

[AlbaJoe]

I have now found out how to open the stick.
First you need to replace the two side panels.
These are glued.
For this, it is best to use a knife with a thin blade.
The rest is then very easy.
The pictures I will not comment, which speak for themselves, especially from the the "heat sink".

For gods sake what on earth have they spat into the market?

This is a major issue and why on earth did they make it so hard to get into the organs of this item. Oh wait perhaps they dont want you to see what isnt there that they said was there?

Really is a joke.

BTW is it possible you can repost this "how to get it open" in a seperate sticky or something?

[Sigismundpower]

Maybe there is a solution

http://www.moddiy.com/products/Server-Grade-Ultra%252dThin-Thermally-Conductive-Adhesive-Heatsink-%28Black%29.html

Those who agree to look at it!

[thrakkor]

mk908

I can't speak to the t428, but after several hours of streaming video (through google chrome) on my mk908, the unit crashed, leaving the screen multi-colored.

the device was piping hot, damn near too hot to touch.

i cracked it open to cool off faster.

the 908 has a heatsink covering an entire side (and chip I assume), but the rubberized case was inhibiting airflow across the heatsink, rendering it useless in my opinion. heatsink was scalding hot.

[fwupow]

Heatsinks, airflow

I haven't had any crashes on my T428. I played Beach Buggy Blitz for a couple of hours tonight and no crashes.

One thing I noticed is that the case is vented on both sides, but if you have the stick lying flat on it's side, convection airflow will be weak. Mine usually sits about 5mm off my TV table because it's partially on top of some cables.

I know the above isn't much of a solution.

Considering what most of us want to do with these devices and the fact that they spend most of their time connected to a TV (except for those who do their own firmware development of course.), I think maybe it's time to get away from the whole "HDMI Stick PC" concept and steer toward the "Set-Top Box" design. That way a good tall-fin heatsink & fan and a few more ports for network and USB could be included. We're using an HDMI cable to connect it to our TVs anyway, so a tidy appearance and better performance would make the small-box type enclosure worth it, I think.

BTW, these Chinese manufacturers could establish a standard board form-factor and even sell just the boards, while some other folks sell standard form-factor enclosures. That way we wouldn't have to keep collecting a new batch of cables every time we bought a new stick. We could optionally just buy the board.

[fwupow]

Awesome products. FINALLY!

http://www.moddiy.com/products/Serve...8Black%29.html

Those who agree to look at it!

Thanks for sharing the above link.

I was looking all over for small heatsinks like that a while back and couldn't find squat.

[fwupow]

T428 heatsink

Finally took apart my T428.

I have the adhesive copper tape with black colored something or other over the top of it. Doesn't increase the surface area so I don't know what the heck good it is.

Here's some info that kinda shudda gone out at the start:

SoC size is approx 20x20mm, so if you're looking to order a heatsink and don't know what size to get, it's 20x20 but you've got room to put on a 25x25 if you don't mind a little overhang.

[fwupow]

simple passive heatsinks USA supplier

Here's a place I found to purchase low-profile motherboard chip style heatsinks:

http://www.frozencpu.com/cat/l3/g40/c16/s1861/list/p1/Air_Cooling-Chipset_HeatsinksCoolers-All_Passive_Chipsinks-Page1.html

I just ordered a couple of these:

http://www.frozencpu.com/products/17853/vid-193/Chipset_Aluminum_Heatsink_w_3M-8810_Adhesive_-_20mm_x_20mm_x_6mm_-_Anodized_Black.html?tl=g40c16s1861

[s0s]

I just ordered a couple of these:
http://www.frozencpu.com/products/17...tl=g40c16s1861

I think that is not optimal for passive cooling.
Look at what is written by csjonny.
This cooler has a much larger cooling surface.
This is important because the cpu is very hot and the heat
must leave quickly.

A good heat sink is how it works, see the picture: