orange pi zero reaches 85 degrees with heatsink!

mat117 · June 10, 2017

i make this post to ask why my orange pi zero reaches easy 85 degrees with a heatsink applied to it. It is placed in a big case. Maybe the temperature reading is wrong? i check temperature with "

armbianmonitor -m and i get:

Time CPU load %cpu %sys %usr %nice %io %irq CPU
09:28:26: 480MHz 0.55 28% 4% 23% 0% 0% 0% 86°C
09:28:31: 240MHz 0.51 28% 4% 23% 0% 0% 0% 86°C
09:28:36: 480MHz 0.54 28% 4% 23% 0% 0% 0% 86°C

what can i do? I'm actually using the orange pi zero as a flight tracker, which is a very cpu and Wi-Fi intensive task, but i think that 86 degrees are too much!! :unsure:

Vladimir Gamalian · June 11, 2017

Any chance to try to touch device with fingers?

kutysam · June 12, 2017

well, a heatsink is to just spread heat out more evenly. It does NOT cool the device actively.

If you place a heatsink in a case, that may not be a good solution.

I suggest you to put a fan above it and see if it gets better.

tkaiser · June 12, 2017

3 hours ago, kutysam said:

If you place a heatsink in a case, that may not be a good solution.

That works surprisingly well even with zero airflow around. If you use the search function you'll find numbers.

Wrt real topic: https://forum.armbian.com/index.php?/topic/4313-new-opi-zero-yet-another-high-temperature-issue/ (nobody uses search function here and nobody tries to nail the culprit down)

kutysam · June 12, 2017

Based on personal experience, my device runs under 3 heatsink ( 2 for ram, 1 for cpu ), my country is humid and it hovers about 27 degree celcius.

Temperature averages at around 50 deg under 30% constant load through motion software.

But when it loads, it runs about 75 deg ++ without any fan.

mat117 · June 13, 2017

It is always in full load... and i see that reaching theese temps is "normal". I can't cool it actively because the device is placed outside and water can't enter. How can i solve the problem? The case is a lot bigger than the orange pi, but closed.