Very noisy fans

[gprovost]

@allen--smithee Actually what you are doing is not ideal since now the inductors (little squary components that appears through your thermal pad) are not able anymore to dissipate heat via the heatsink. These inductors generate quite a lot of heat and it will spread to LPDDR4 and PMIC trough PCB. The purpose of the Helios64 heatsink is obviously not to just dissipate heat for the SoC but for all other key components (LPDDR4, SATA controller, USB-to-LAN, etc...).

 

Here your measurement is only from the SoC point of view, which is not necessary the best way at looking at overall thermal management. Could you add back some thermal pad on the inductors and re-run your thermal measurement. It would be interesting to see if you see the same thing afterwards.

 

In any case we will change thermal pad supplier, we are not really happy by the current one.

 

[allen--smithee]

@gprovost

my Cpu + 2disks fan will always have a PWMMIN=35
my intention is to decrease PWMMAX and to delay the intervention of active ventilation.

 

Before, solicited the cpu made the fans roar, this is no longer the case today.
I can perform tasks with the first 5 minutes of a 100% CPU and the unit remains silent and afterwards I don't need a big air flow to stay cold.

 

cat / dev / thermal-board / temp1_input indicates:
 10 ° less than the CPU during stress.
 1 ° less than the CPU at rest.
I have to perform a long test to confirm but I think I can maintain Tcpu100% < 70° (Tboard < 60°) with only PWMMAX = 50 on fan-p6. 

 

There are certainly some points to improve concerning the thickness, in my unit, I used a thickness of 1.5 mm for the whole surface.

I realized that the inductors were high points on the PCB.

My intention was to remove the thermal pad on top so that it would be in direct contact with the radiator.

It would be relevant to try with 2mm in order to also cover the inductors from the top. 

 

It is planned to dismantle it in a week to see the contact points and check the height in the gel.

unfortunately the gel has already sagged, I can't modify the height of the radiator with the elements unless I do a modeling pad workshop,

but I can crush a very thin layer of pad at the top of inductor to avoid an air cushion. 

If necessary I have a second Gelid Pad 90x50x1.5 but I would like to keep it for the next one 

 

the 3W solution does the job, it's not the most efficient (not to say an insulator) but it's an economical solution,

and intended for most people who use traditional Hard Disk Drives that require active ventilation to improve the life span.

My use is particular, after all my unit screws into a living room and uses SDD that heats up little.

But it's a point to be improved indeed and if you charge an extra 10$ for a 6W pad you can be sure that I'll take it off to put a better and I'll tell you that your solution was crap.

[SIGSEGV]

17 hours ago, allen--smithee said:

@SIGSEGV

The temperature rise of the cpu is now slow and gentle.
I haven't heard my fans all day with these parameters.

 

@allen--smithee

Nice - having the temperature ramp up slowly is sign that the new thermal pad + heat sink + fans are working better.

So from factory only the CPU has a thermal pad? or is there more than one contact point with the heatsink from the factory?

I'm much inclined to try this solution on my system - just to get the slow & gentle temperature curve (plus I have a few ARM based handhelds that might need a bit of heatsink modding).

[gprovost]

12 hours ago, SIGSEGV said:

So from factory only the CPU has a thermal pad? or is there more than one contact point with the heatsink from the factory?

 

I shared the design of the thermal pad, showing that the whole area below heatsink is cover with thermal pad by default.

 

 

@allen--smithee That's very valuable feedback, I think we will need to review our approach on thermal pad.

One factor we had to take in consideration is also ease of installation on the factory line.

[allen--smithee]

@ gprovost

Divulgacher

As we might expect, there is a little spread of the pads on the outer edges of the processor, but also on the edge of the radiator

and so you were right, there is no need to leave the inductors bareheaded.

Now I think 19x19 is enough for the dimensions of the cpu thermical pad with a 1.5mm. 

Divulgacher

 

I redid the separation between the CPU Pad and the rest of the board and put pieces of pad in the slots of the inductors. 

Quote

One factor we had to take in consideration is also ease of installation on the factory line.

You don't know if it will be possible so, nevertheless now we know what we need for our next blends at home ;).

 

P6 and P7> PWM = 35

Divulgacher

P6 & P7> PWM = 50 is my new PWMMAX on Fancontrol

Divulgacher

P6 et P7> PWM = 255

Divulgacher

 

 

@SIGSEGV

If you are interested in this solution.

I recommend TP-VP04-C 1.5mm for your helios64 (2 plates of 90x50x1.5mm)

 

 

[allen--smithee]

The problem of this post is solved !!

Your fans with an efficient thermal pad and SSD drives are 18w and 10db peak.

I very rarely exceed 12w in a day and the unit is completely inaudible.

Except for doing these tests which do not reflect the reality of normal use at all.

[SIGSEGV]

@allen--smithee Thanks for the feedback.