I've seen a couple of threads in the past where people have asked about creating heatsinks for improving the cooling efficiency of their devices. Under normal circumstances a heatsink wouldn't be necessary, but recently with Clemsyn and other kernel devs starting to push the physical limits of the Tegra 3, heat dissipation becomes a major concern at 1.8Ghz and higher. I'm starting to wonder if there might be a way to get creative with some copper foil and a few old laptop heatsinks I've got lying around, just to give the chips a bit of relief from all of the mean and terrible things I do to them. But having never taken my Nexus apart, I have no idea what kind of room is available for heat pipes or foil.
Anybody ever tried making a heatsink for a tablet or phone? This isn't meant to be wholly a serious discussion, and I fully expect to get a lot of flack about battery usage and melting plastic. I just think it would be cool to mod the device into being able to maintain these ridiculous clock speeds and not have it burn my hands.
using the clemsyn 2ghz kernel in front of the a/c works out well
There's very little empty space inside the Nexus 7, so there's no chance of adding additional cooling without more major modding.
I've been looking in to exactly this. I find my Tegra 3 gets to 60 C even before overclocking. If you study the teardown photos you can get an idea of how it might work. I turns out the main SoC chip's headspreader is nicely accessible.
The back pops off the Nexus 7 so easily we can easily take a peak.
My first idea would be to put a little thermal paste in each layer on the SoC's heat spreader, this is covered by a copper RF shield/heat spreader on the chip, and another copper layer on the back cover. Just a tiny dab would do, and it will be smooshed out over an area when the cover goes on. Could get a bit messy though.
There's exactly zero room to work with, it's all very tightly packed and a nicely engineered tablet.
But the back cover is so replaceable you could cut in to it.
If I was going to do it myself I would cut through all layers and have a heatsink directly on the tegra's heatspreader with an adhesive thermal pad. Any more than about something like 1-2mm and it would not be flush with the rear cover.
Alternately some perforation in the plastic on the rear around the area may help.
If i can scrounge some replacement parts I might have a crack at doing stuff.
Whoa whoa whoa, 2GHZ?
BRB !!
Mungulz said:
Whoa whoa whoa, 2GHZ?
BRB !!
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Click to collapse
Yeah, for those people who want to fry their Nexus 7s.
I've only OC'd to 1.4 GHz..not so sure I'll go much farther than that.
Edit: This is just a fun project. Every octa core phone throttles. That includes my S6. Its AnTuTu score from 5 back to back runs with similar 32C start ranges from 65K to 52K. That means a similar drop in performance. Also overheating & throttling are two very different things. Z3+ & S6 both throttle so that they don't get too hot (or 'overheat'). Glass backs on both don't help either, but I like them anyway. I was just trying to speed up the cooling process- not to cool down anything as the phone doesn't 'overheat' in the first place. You won't notice this throttling with regular usage & all these temperature numbers are for internal temp, not surface temp. I hope this clears up my intent. *End of Edit* 07/21/2015
This is probably the easiest way to decrease throttling during heavy CPU workload. All I had to do is insert few foil layers between the phone & TPU case. Attached picture shows plots from three scenarios - no case, just case, foil & case respectively. Oh, NFC will get blocked out by the foil. But I don't use it much anyway. Cheers.
#Reserved#
Very interesting thread, mate! It made my lazy as* to sign up just to post my results. Oh, I used this copper foil with a case. You won't need that much, btw lol
amazon dot com/Louis-Crafts-Copper-Foil-Inches/dp/B0042SWM98
My scores (normalized like yours) from 5 consecutive AnTuTu runs (& my initial temp was also a bit higher than yours)
Initial Temp (C) Score
0 34 100%
1 48.1 91.10%
2 49.1 86.86%
3 49.8 84.80%
4 50.1 83.00%
4K Test:
Outdoor-> 4 minutes in 96F / 35.5 degree Celsius weather (starting CPU temp was 37C as I was using few apps before the recording started )
Walked back home two minutes later and then
Indoor -> 9.5 minutes (CPU was still warm at 41C)
It really is the easiest fix ever for extreme users who use case anyway. Thanks!
nfs2010 said:
Oh, I used this copper foil with a case. You won't need that much, btw lol
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Click to collapse
That's freakin' awesome, dude :good: I never knew copper foil existed. Since I can't afford diamond foil, I'll go with copper I'll take the whole roll though as people are (primarily) using it for shielding their guitar pickups. Thanks a lot for your tip.
Have you guys considered the fact that the phone might, and let me say it again, MIGHT get hotter because we're in summer and it's seriously hot outside? I just checked the forecast for Austin TX, OP's town according to his info, and he has 37C over there. I think that MIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT have something to do with the phone getting hotter than usual.
Just saying.
schecter7 said:
This is probably the easiest way to decrease throttling during heavy CPU workload. All I had to do is insert few foil layers between the phone & TPU case. Attached picture shows plots from three scenarios - no case, just case, foil & case respectively. Oh, NFC will get blocked out by the foil. But I don't use it much anyway. Cheers.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What do you think about putting foil around the actual battery? Some people have suggested putting paper around it. Does anyone think either of those things are safe?
MarkMRL said:
Have you guys considered the fact that the phone might, and let me say it again, MIGHT get hotter because we're in summer and it's seriously hot outside? I just checked the forecast for Austin TX, OP's town according to his info, and he has 37C over there. I think that MIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT have something to do with the phone getting hotter than usual.
Just saying.
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Click to collapse
Yes, it's quite hot over here in ATX. I added an extra comment to my first post. I hope that makes things clear now.
pacattack81 said:
What do you think about putting foil around the actual battery? Some people have suggested putting paper around it. Does anyone think either of those things are safe?
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The foil will short out the internal components and your phone may get toasted . Please DO NOT try it. But I really wanted to open the back and put some thermal compound like this one. I'll try it some day!
schecter7 said:
Yes, it's quite hot over here in ATX. I added an extra comment to my first post. I hope that makes things clear now.
The foil will short out the internal components and your phone may get toasted . Please DO NOT try it. But I really wanted to open the back and put some thermal compound like. I'll try it some day!
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Thanks I was very close to trying it out. Funny you should mention the thermal compound...there's a guy on YouTube who opened up the nexus 5 and put some on the CPU and a little piece of metal
heat sink. I have the thermal compound but I don't have the piece of heatsink to test it out so I haven't tried it. One day I'm going to try it though as I have a nexus 5.
pacattack81 said:
Thanks I was very close to trying it out. Funny you should mention the thermal compound...there's a guy on YouTube who opened up the nexus 5 and put some on the CPU and a little piece of metal
heat sink. I have the thermal compound but I don't have the piece of heatsink to test it out so I haven't tried it. One day I'm going to try it though as I have a nexus 5.
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That's great! You'll have better luck with the compound on the N5 as it has plastic back - I guess? On Z3+, I'll probably get bottle-necked by the glass back regardless of the internal enhancement. I could be wrong though if the heat sink goes all the way to metal side frame. It's certainly worth a shot.
As battery wrap, you'd probably want something that's thermally conductive AND electrically non-conductive.
schecter7 said:
That's great! You'll have better luck with the compound on the N5 as it has plastic back - I guess? On Z3+, I'll probably get bottle-necked by the glass back regardless of the internal enhancement. I could be wrong though if the heat sink goes all the way to metal side frame. It's certainly worth a shot.
As battery wrap, you'd probably want something that's thermally conductive AND electrically non-conductive.
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Click to collapse
Yea, there's got to be something you can wrap around a smartphone battery that could shield in the heat. I just bought an oppo find 7a and it has a removable back. Maybe some sort of insulation can be put on the inside back cover so your hands don't feel the heat when the phone heats up. Any ideas for either the battery and/or back cover? What's thermally conductive, but not electrically conductive?
---------- Post added at 09:28 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:08 PM ----------
pacattack81 said:
Yea, there's got to be something you can wrap around a smartphone battery that could shield in the heat. I just bought an oppo find 7a and it has a removable back. Maybe some sort of insulation can be put on the inside back cover so your hands don't feel the heat when the phone heats up. Any ideas for either the battery and/or back cover? What's thermally conductive, but not electrically conductive?
Click to expand...
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I can't post links yet, but what about putting some cotton insulation inside the back case? I would think that might shield us from holding a hot phone. Also, what about reflective insulation tape? I think that might actually work. Thoughts?
pacattack81 said:
Yea, there's got to be something you can wrap around a smartphone battery that could shield in the heat. I just bought an oppo find 7a and it has a removable back. Maybe some sort of insulation can be put on the inside back cover so your hands don't feel the heat when the phone heats up. Any ideas for either the battery and/or back cover? What's thermally conductive, but not electrically conductive?
---------- Post added at 09:28 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:08 PM ----------
I can't post links yet, but what about putting some cotton insulation inside the back case? I would think that might shield us from holding a hot phone. Also, what about reflective insulation tape? I think that might actually work. Thoughts?
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Wait, we're not on the same page. I was trying to avoid throttling (not shielding the heat). Z3+ back side heats up where the CPU seats (very small spot somewhere underneath the top row of icons). The idea was to take that heat and spread it laterally over a bigger surface area to speed up the cooling process. Without the foil, I still don't feel the heat as my fingers don't touch that hot spot. The foil also indirectly reduces the hot feel from that tiny spot as the heat gets spread more uniformly.
But your case sounds different. You want to avoid the heat from the battery (or the CPU) ? Battery already has a pretty big surface area. And you probably don't want to keep the heat inside by using thermal insulators as that can be very harmful for the battery. You probably want to establish an even faster heat transfer to the environment so that equilibrium point can be maintained at a lower surface temperature. Is that right? A metal back cover can help in that case.
Also here are some electrical insulators that are thermally conductive - but I'm not quite sure about the availability of those
https://www.physicsforums.com/threa...ductive-thermally-conductive-material.125368/
schecter7 said:
Wait, we're not on the same page. I was trying to avoid throttling (not shielding the heat). Z3+ back side heats up where the CPU seats (very small spot somewhere underneath the top row of icons). The idea was to take that heat and spread it laterally over a bigger surface area to speed up the cooling process. Without the foil, I still don't feel the heat as my fingers don't touch that hot spot. The foil also indirectly reduces the hot feel from that tiny spot as the heat gets spread more uniformly.
But your case sounds different. You want to avoid the heat from the battery (or the CPU) ? Battery already has a pretty big surface area. And you probably don't want to keep the heat inside by using thermal insulators as that can be very harmful for the battery. You probably want to establish an even faster heat transfer to the environment so that equilibrium point can be maintained at a lower surface temperature. Is that right? A metal back cover can help in that case.
Also here are some electrical insulators that are thermally conductive - but I'm not quite sure about the availability of those :confused
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I've tried TPU cases, but I still feel the heat. Maybe a metal case would be better. These look interesting.
amazon(dot)com/gp/aw/d/B00HNKD6A6/ref=pd_aw_sbs_107_1?refRID=1VRK3Q399HJZXA2GHWCJ
amazon(dot)com/gp/aw/d/B00L71LNS4/ref=pd_aw_sbs_107_1?refRID=1BQ362P6XMYRJET82TFG
pacattack81 said:
I've tried TPU cases, but I still feel the heat. Maybe a metal case would be better. These look interesting.
amazon(dot)com/gp/aw/d/B00HNKD6A6/ref=pd_aw_sbs_107_1?refRID=1VRK3Q399HJZXA2GHWCJ
amazon(dot)com/gp/aw/d/B00L71LNS4/ref=pd_aw_sbs_107_1?refRID=1BQ362P6XMYRJET82TFG
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Click to collapse
Interesting! So why does your battery heat up in the first place? Did you try to compare your battery temp (using CPU Z, etc) to others'? I thought battery only heats up during charging.
schecter7 said:
Edit: This is just a fun project. Every octa core phone throttles.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That was genius--thank you.
I've attached a heatsink with thermal paste (cheap one) to my nexus 4 once it didn't make a difference
too bad i sold it i can't try it with my Peltier (TEC)
and my note 4 here is cooler without my tough armor (ofc it is, that case is a monster) i think i bent my phone while taking it out will try it with foil as soon as i get one, hope it doesn't damage it :S
a copper plate would be better! or simply a thin heatsink
I tried this maybe a year ago, phone was a lot cooler but I lost my reception. I noticed this after few days, everyone thought something had happend because they couldn't reach me. I was busy gaming ?
Because the phone is opened from the back (http://www.witrigs.com/blog/sony-xperia-z4-teardown/) we should crowdfund a metal replacement made of aluminium but in the same glossy style and color the frame is and with a copper base which directly connects to the thermonuclear fusion core (aka Qualcomm) so that the heat is as best as possible transported from these to the whole backplate. The only difficulty will be the holes for the camera and LED light to be waterproof. And while we are at it, we could make the backplate a little bit ticker than the glass currently is so that the tiny height difference between the glass and the frame is gone too.
Ok, we can argue about the color and thickness but you get the idea. Should we do that? Once we got them funded we can sell them and get rich
an3k said:
Because the phone is opened from the back (http://www.witrigs.com/blog/sony-xperia-z4-teardown/) we should crowdfund a metal replacement made of aluminium but in the same glossy style and color the frame is and with a copper base which directly connects to the thermonuclear fusion core (aka Qualcomm) so that the heat is as best as possible transported from these to the whole backplate. The only difficulty will be the holes for the camera and LED light to be waterproof. And while we are at it, we could make the backplate a little bit ticker than the glass currently is so that the tiny height difference between the glass and the frame is gone too.
Ok, we can argue about the color and thickness but you get the idea. Should we do that? Once we got them funded we can sell them and get rich
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That'd be excellent & throttling would probably be gone forever. I'm in But some dudes might mix up fast heat dissipation with 'overheating & throttling & battery drain' - all in one sentence The rear area that gets warm on Z3+ is actually very narrow & my fingers don't touch that part at all. But we've already seen a ridiculous amount of whining over that. Can you imagine the whining as we try to expand that dissipation area to get rid of throttling?
I think the thickness would be debatable as some may want to keep the slightly raised lips on the back to keep their phones from sliding around.
fredrik8 said:
I tried this maybe a year ago, phone was a lot cooler but I lost my reception. I noticed this after few days, everyone thought something had happend because they couldn't reach me. I was busy gaming
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lol - good point. It depends on the antenna placement - I think. I didn't experience any difference in reception. I usually get 0-1 bar at home. So I really didn't have anything to lose in the first place lol
If you do this and have the phone on max brightness, does it auto-dim when loading xda's website?
Due to all the ads and issues with the website it always causes the screens brightness to throttle when loading, and then go back to full brightness afterwards.
(Try loading a couple of different topics when doing this)
One of my friends, after drinking too much, thrashed my tablet to the floor, way back in 2013. The digitizer and speakers died of the shock. Still it worked with mouse and headphones. I did the final damage in 2014, when I intended to buy a digitizer; so I separated the LCD from the front glass by blowing hot air. Actually I unscrewed the front panel assembly first, then blowed hot air on it and pulled the LCD backwards slowly from one side with the help of a small flat-head screwdriver as a lever. I did not know the functioning of LCD panels back then. I removed some rainbow colored semiliquid, thinking it to be glue, from the separated surfaces with the help of isopropanol. I observed that the LCD went uniformly white when switched on. That being my my first android device I could not throw it out. After three long years, I examined it again. The battery was dead. Still it will switch on from direct 5V input after a little mod. Now I see that another glass layer at least 1mm thick, smaller from bezel and exactly the size of LCD, is sticking behind the front glass. This combo works as a polarizer. Now I doubt whether what I thought to be glue was actually the liquid crystal layer itself. Pictures attached. Any clue on what actually had happened back then? Is there no option but to throw out the display assembly?
Bump
bump
you sir, have ****ed up. based on what I am seeing here (and I am far from an expert) you have indeed removed the liquid crystals from the display. You're tablet is ****ed. Buy a new Nexus 7, and swap the mother board from your old one and stick it in the new one if you want to keep the whole "first android device" feeling. Otherwise, your "first android device" is broken. I only reccomend this, because an LCD replacement is about 30$, whereas you can pick up a good condition used Nexus 7 8GB (who cared how big the storage is, your swapping boards) off ebay for around the same price. Good Luck with whatever your next move is.
I heartily thank you for insulting my foolishness. I really needed one to move on from lingering false hope.
I've been using my Priv for a year and a half now, without showing it much mercy. Without a case and a screen protector, it held up very well until I took a fall while holding it and cracked the screen. I decided to transplant my motherboard into a defective but like-new unit, and was shocked to see how the heat from the 808 distorted the copper foil that was supposed to help dissipate it. Also, my unit had way too much thermal paste just poured in it, which seems like an afterthought because the upside of the processor doesn't touch any proper heatsink - only the metal frame of the middle of the phone. After reading that a user achieved some improvement by sticking tinfoil between his 810 equipped Xperia Z3+ and an external case, I decided to try to put some tinfoil between the back side of the processor and the back casing. Removing the back housing is very easy and doesn't require any tools, so later modifications and tweaks are not a problem. I covered almost the entire back of the device with tinfoil and closed the housing back on it. The result is quite amazing - the spot where the 808 is placed, where the device used to get so hot I could not comfortably touch it, is now only mildly warm. To confirm that this solution actually worked, I installed antutu both on the modified and on the donor device. The modified unit held the processor at 1500 mhz under the stress test and did not feel hot at all. The unmodified unit dropped quickly to 1200 mhz and stayed there for the entire test. The unit feels a little snappier now, but I do think that the major improvement is in not having to hold that hot potato anymore. Regardless of this fairy tail, I will be purchasing the Key2. Another lesson learned from comparing my old device to the new one is how much an amoled panel degrades in the course of 18 months. I am not bothered by burn in (the bottom stripe is bright compared to the rest of the display), but the display itself is much less vibrant and the colors are much warmer after all that use. It will be hard to part with the beautiful colors I get from the new replacement panel, but overall an LCD has the advantages of maintaining its quality over time, and also being much cheaper to replace. A screen for the Priv costs around $120, while Keyone LCDs cost less than $50.
I wouldn't try that for these reasons:
1: tinfoil is conductive AFAIK, so it might cause an undesired shortcircuit between some exposed contacts
2: for the same reason, it might impact the antennas
However it makes sense from a thermal only point of view!
I'm just curious if you considered the points above and took care of where and how to place the tinfoil?
And did you notice any change in reception quility?
While it is fresh in my mind.
1) The seam for the back is not along the surface, it is along the edge. The silver part and the glass is where you want to attack. It is going to be hot, wear gloves.
2) Don't use metal tweezers around the battery connector as it is always hot. I accidentally shorted the old battery and was afraid I'd also hit the motherboard but apparently did not.
3) The battery is glued in SOLID even though it appears to be a tight spot. The thing is, there are flat cables underneath (see photo) and the screen so you have to be careful. I have read not to use heat on it but I think you almost have to use a little. There is the frame between the battery and the screen, but too much leverage could easily damage the screen. I did not glue my new battery down. We will see.
4) If the thing turned on (or you turned it on) without the fingerprint sensor connected, you will need a reboot to find the fingerprint sensor. At first, I thought I had not seated the cable but then it dawned on me to reboot before I took the cable bracket and cable back off. That fixed it.
I managed to chip the midframe a little in one spot. Not bad and invisible in the case. Not very noticeable without the case. In fact, I didn't glue the back down yet because my case holds it all together with no issues and I thought I'd take a day or two to make sure nothing is going to pop loose in there.
Thanks for the write up.
Did you end up reusing the old battery door adhesive or go with a new one?
Wasn't sure from your post.
Also how's the new battery holding up?
wd5gnr said:
While it is fresh in my mind.
1) The seam for the back is not along the surface, it is along the edge. The silver part and the glass is where you want to attack. It is going to be hot, wear gloves.
2) Don't use metal tweezers around the battery connector as it is always hot. I accidentally shorted the old battery and was afraid I'd also hit the motherboard but apparently did not.
3) The battery is glued in SOLID even though it appears to be a tight spot. The thing is, there are flat cables underneath (see photo) and the screen so you have to be careful. I have read not to use heat on it but I think you almost have to use a little. There is the frame between the battery and the screen, but too much leverage could easily damage the screen. I did not glue my new battery down. We will see.
4) If the thing turned on (or you turned it on) without the fingerprint sensor connected, you will need a reboot to find the fingerprint sensor. At first, I thought I had not seated the cable but then it dawned on me to reboot before I took the cable bracket and cable back off. That fixed it.
I managed to chip the midframe a little in one spot. Not bad and invisible in the case. Not very noticeable without the case. In fact, I didn't glue the back down yet because my case holds it all together with no issues and I thought I'd take a day or two to make sure nothing is going to pop loose in there.
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Click to collapse
tiguy99 said:
Thanks for the write up.
Did you end up reusing the old battery door adhesive or go with a new one?
Wasn't sure from your post.
Also how's the new battery holding up?
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Click to collapse
After about a week with it in the case, the old adhesive was stuck on good so I left it alone. The new battery is holding up well. Phone is no longer my daily driver, though, but the battery is great.
wd5gnr said:
After about a week with it in the case, the old adhesive was stuck on good so I left it alone. The new battery is holding up well. Phone is no longer my daily driver, though, but the battery is great.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Replaced my battery last night. End up reusing my old adhesive which worked out well. When it was still hot/soft, I took a flat head screwdriver and lightly drew the adhesive back flat on the surface as much as I could before beginning the full teardown.
That did the trick for me.
As for the battery itself, you're right... the battery is in there with some very strong adhesive. Had to actually use my heat gun to soften the adhesive and free it. For me, it wasn't coming out any other way and this part took the longest.
Didn't heat the battery directly as I didn't want to burn it so I heated the area from the screen side....be very careful as you do this as the screen can get burned as well. (Don't ask me how I know)
Overall the new battery is working very well and the phone feels like it did day 1 again. Can't wait to see the SOT time later this evening
Edit see attached...almost 5 hours again with 25% left with normal use and auto brightness on Nougat. Can easily see 6 hours at this rate! Very impressed
Damn this looks more complicated then changing it on an iPhone
xsacter said:
Damn this looks more complicated then changing it on an iPhone
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YMMV but personally I can vouch that its one of the more time consuming and challenging repairs vs usual iPhone jobs. They use some type of space age adhesive that quite difficult to remove. Most of the repair is trying to gently remove the back glass, battery and screen. If you can quickly get those out without damaging the components, the rest of the repair is simple.
Are there replacement backs? My battery lasts maybe an hour of SoT at this point. I've tried factory resetting it. I'm tempted to get a new phone (because I'd like security updates), but the H8 is still fast enough to use. Mostly not knowing what I'm doing I figure breaking the back is fairly likely.