NanoPi M4V2 SATA HAT Heat Problem

[foprel]

I recently bought a NanoPi M4V2 with the SATA HAT extension. I'm planning on using it to build a personal NAS. However, I have some concerns about the SATA HAT. The chip on it turns out to get very warm when idle despite the installed heat sink. I haven't been able to measure the exact temperature, but I'm unable to put my finger on the heat sink for more than a few seconds.

 

I'm running the following specs:

 

• NanoPi M4 V2
• Armbian buster with Linux 5.4.49-rockchip64
• SATA HAT for NanoPi M4
• 1x 2.5" Seagate Barracuda HDD (1TB)
• 12V/2A Charger with Locking (see image)
   

Under this post someone suggested to replace the original thermal pads with copper shims and thermal paste. I ordered MX-4 thermal paste and copper shims on Amazon, but in the meantime I wanted to know if anyone else has experienced similar issues with the SATA HAT?

 

Also, I would like to know if there's a way to obtain the temperature of the SATA HAT chip via CLI? Or is this only possible for the CPU?

[kmoore]

Hi, I'm having a similar problem running the server version of focal for armbian with 5.8.13 kernel.  It seems to get fairly warm when left idle with the NVME hat.  I can feel the heat of the aluminum case.  Current temps are: cpu 51.7C and gpu 49.4C and they were lower by 2C 10 minutes ago and I'm not having the system do anything.  And the fan doesn't come on anymore.  I installed fancontrol but pwmconfig doesn't find any fan sensor.

 

Kevin

[NicoD]

59 minutes ago, kmoore said:

Hi, I'm having a similar problem running the server version of focal for armbian with 5.8.13 kernel.  It seems to get fairly warm when left idle with the NVME hat.  I can feel the heat of the aluminum case.  Current temps are: cpu 51.7C and gpu 49.4C and they were lower by 2C 10 minutes ago and I'm not having the system do anything.  And the fan doesn't come on anymore.  I installed fancontrol but pwmconfig doesn't find any fan sensor.

 

Kevin

Hi. I don't exactly understand your question.
That the heatsink heats up when the SBC is on for longer seems normal. How long was it turned on?
The RK3399 does run hot. You can set the clockspeeds lower, and set governor to ondemand.
In mainline it runs at 2Ghz/1.5Ghz while in legacy it runs at 1.8Ghz/1.4Ghz.
To do all this:

sudo cpufreq-set -c 0 -f 1.4Ghz
sudo cpufreq-set -c 5 -f 1.8Ghz
sudo cpufreq-set -c 0 -g ondemand
sudo cpufreq-set -c 5 -g ondemand

I also advise not to close the case with NVMe. Many NVMe drives can heat up a lot(+90C). Certainly when there is no room for moving air.
You could also use thermal pads in between the lit and the NVMe. But then the heatsink will also heat up more/faster.

@foprel Do you mean the heatsink of the sata hat getting hot? Or the heatsink of the SoC? I don't have the sata hat. No idea if there is a there's a thermistor in it.

[kmoore]

I was commented more on the prior post.  And I apologize, I don't write things well.

 

I tried the DietPi version for the Nanopi m4v2 and the fan would kick in, yet with the Armbian version at similar temperature ranges it never did.  I'm looking into that but I'm no expert by any means, just a curios person. lol

 

There is a fan that comes with the metal case that also includes the nvme hat.  The fan is plugged into a connector on the nvme hat.  It's a 12 volt fan and it doesn't seem to have a variable speed, it just shuts on and off with bursts of some activities.   But it seems odd then when the system is basically idle except for the default background stuff it still gets pretty warm.  I guess that's part of my question is why besides the additional heat of the nvme being powered and why the fan doesn't activate on Armbian 20.08.9 Focal Server with 5.8.13-rockchip64 kernel aarch64.

 

[Igor]

7 hours ago, kmoore said:

why the fan doesn't activate on Armbian 20.08.9 Focal Server with 5.8.13-rockchip64 kernel aarch64.

 

Using modern kernel is always a trade - features takes a lot of time and a lot of money that gets there. If you need fan working, you will need to stick to Armbian with kernel 4.4.y atm. Not sure if we already ported fan support to modern kernel and probably nobody else did.

[JackR]

See this post <https://forum.armbian.com/topic/11086-pwm-fan-on-nanopi-m4/?do=findComment&comment=110117> for a working solution under Armbian 20.08.9 Buster with Linux 5.8.13-rockchip64 (12 V fan with variable speed (pwm) on sataHat and nanoPi M4V2).

 

As the pwm signal is transmitted via pin23 of the GPIO2 connector, I guess it will also work with the NVME hat. But I don't have this hat, so it will be useful if someone can test and report here

 

I also found the temperature of the sataHat chip was too high. After exchanging the original heat sink by a much bigger one, temperature seems acceptable (finger measurement )

 

I also looked for the sataHat chip temperature measurement, but could not find it. If someone can provide the information if it does exist and how to get it, I will be happy to include it in the script to drive the fan pwm.

 

[kmoore]

I just decided to remove the M4V2 and attached NVME hat from the case (that came with the hat inside) and went back to using the heat sink on the bottom of the M4V2 like I had before I even had the NVME hat.  It has helped and I've ordered a heatsink for the NVME.  It just seemed to me like the better overall solution in my case, I can do without the case.   I don't need to have a sealed unit.

 

[GeorgeP]

I built a system very similar to this one:

https://cgomesu.com/blog/Nanopi-m4-mini-nas/

 

The heatsink on the SATA hat does run hot but using the fan driver on the 'hat' and the code in the article (which drives the fan according to the SoC temperature) keeps everything running nicely.

Welcome to Armbian 20.08.9 Buster with Linux 5.8.13-rockchip64

System load:   2%           	Up time:       8 days 2:59		
Memory usage:  22% of 3.71G  	IP:            192.168.x.x
CPU temp:      40'C           	Usage of /:    33% of 15G 

 

[Ladde]

@JackR Which exact heat sink do you use on the SATA hat?

Did you find one that matches the original mounting posts or did you glue it on with thermal adhesive?

Thanks

[JackR]

On 12/6/2020 at 12:20 PM, Ladde said:

@JackR Which exact heat sink do you use on the SATA hat?

Did you find one that matches the original mounting posts or did you glue it on with thermal adhesive?

Thanks

Sorry I didn't visit for a long time ... I used the heat sink of the chipset of an old PC that I cut to the right size and I made the holes for the screws. It's mounted with thermal past.

 

[tparys]

On 10/13/2020 at 8:54 AM, Igor said:

 

Using modern kernel is always a trade - features takes a lot of time and a lot of money that gets there. If you need fan working, you will need to stick to Armbian with kernel 4.4.y atm. Not sure if we already ported fan support to modern kernel and probably nobody else did.

 

For what it's worth, from what I've seen, the M4 SATA hat uses the same PWM control that the M4 metal case does.

 

And the kernel can control it just fine via overlay on the modern kernel. Just need to define a fan on that PWM channel, and attach it as an active trigger to the CPU. https://forum.armbian.com/topic/17022-automatic-kernel-control-of-nanopi-m4-m4v2-metal-case-fan/

 

Might still need some tweaking, but could try and finish it up and submit it as part of the kernel overlay?