Feasibility of a DIY heatsink - Nexus 7 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

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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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.

Related

Thermal pad > arctic silver

So, after taking this apart and removing the thermal pad on the t20... applying arctic silver gel/paste, i think temps are averaging higher.. so yeah, hold off on doing that one..
Edit - it couldve been the loops of 1.646ghz tests i was doing
So... you dismantled your TF and applied a CPU thermal paste in there? Wow, you must be really gunning for higher clocks.
maybe the gap between the two surfaces aren't tight enough for thermal paste to be effective
nickSolo said:
maybe the gap between the two surfaces aren't tight enough for thermal paste to be effective
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And not enough heatsink area to dissipate the heat.
nickSolo said:
maybe the gap between the two surfaces aren't tight enough for thermal paste to be effective
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I'm thinking this.. I'll probably wedge in an aluminum shim.. cut from 'sheet metal'.. I think thats .020"..
Heat is being dissipated more so from the screen (thats bad, as the front of the screen is the underside of the chip).. It means that the 'heatsink', which is a large metal piece, is not getting most of the heat. I'm not worried about the heat tho.. as I have provisions to downclock at ~43-44.. which is ultra conservative.. If only the back of this thing weren't plastic... it'd be a killer overclocker..
I'll post pics..
http://home.comcast.net/~ibladesi/IMG_0023.JPG
http://home.comcast.net/~ibladesi/IMG_0025.JPG
http://home.comcast.net/~ibladesi/IMG_0027.JPG
http://home.comcast.net/~ibladesi/IMG_0028.JPG
btw.. this thing came pre-fingerprinted. heh
that looks like a lot of thermal paste for such a tiny chip
Freelancerx said:
that looks like a lot of thermal paste for such a tiny chip
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thank you. Thats very nice of you to say to me.
Freelancerx said:
that looks like a lot of thermal paste for such a tiny chip
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It is too much. The paste is intended to only fill in the what does not contact the sink not to insulate the sink from the chip. The more surface area of the chip that contacts the sink, the better.
levenite said:
It is too much. The paste is intended to only fill in the what does not contact the sink not to insulate the sink from the chip. The more surface area of the chip that contacts the sink, the better.
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Pardon?
Right now there probably isn't that much contact between the two.. as the hamburger patty of a thermal pad is gone.. so that needs to be shimmed. I swear the 'heatsink' is steel.. it just doesn't have that aluminum frailty to it.. I have some 2000 grit sandpaper if things go far enough to warrant a blingy looking 'lapping' of the heatsink. heh..
That seems like overkill, but good luck anyway, I am interested to see how it turns out!
californiarailroader said:
That seems like overkill, but good luck anyway, I am interested to see how it turns out!
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My main reason for opening it up was to clear the crapload of dust bunnies hanging out in my camera lens. Then I went poking around, seeng what I could screw up.
Blades said:
Pardon?
Right now there probably isn't that much contact between the two.. as the hamburger patty of a thermal pad is gone.. so that needs to be shimmed. I swear the 'heatsink' is steel.. it just doesn't have that aluminum frailty to it.. I have some 2000 grit sandpaper if things go far enough to warrant a blingy looking 'lapping' of the heatsink. heh..
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Think about the two surfaces at the microscopic level. The surfaces are rough. What we want is the maximum contact area between the two surfaces. The paste is used to fill in what does not contact. So it is better to have surface to surface contact than a thin layer of paste between the surfaces. That is one reason why there is usually a good deal of pressure applied between the surfaces.
BTW, be careful some heatsink paste is conductive!
Freelancerx said:
that looks like a lot of thermal paste for such a tiny chip
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Yeah, that's way too much.
Um yeah, that is WAY too much paste. It should be common knowledge that too much paste will actually INCREASE the temperature. Quite possibly your problem right there.
A 120mm fan will cool that down.
I'm no expert on heat sink shims, but wouldn't a iron or steel shim be better as they dissipate heat better?
Of course that much thermal paste wont lower temps? Do you even know what you're doing?
The best way to apply thermal paste is to place a rice-sized dot into the surface, and let the pressure between the heatsink and the CPU naturally spread out the paste. Putting too much will make the temps go higher, not lower.
jjsoviet said:
The best way to apply thermal paste is to place a rice-sized dot into the surface, and let the pressure between the heatsink and the CPU naturally spread out the paste. Putting too much will make the temps go higher, not lower.
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this
a pea sized/rice sized is enough even for a modern CPU let alone a tiny SoC which is about the size of a modern NB/SB of a computer
Mind sharing how you opened this up? There's some shiz on my camera lens too, and would like to clean it.
I kinda dropped mine (no scratches, cracks, damage, etc.) and the back panel popped up a little all around it, i managed to just push it down on all sides though.
jjsoviet said:
The best way to apply thermal paste is to place a rice-sized dot into the surface, and let the pressure between the heatsink and the CPU naturally spread out the paste. Putting too much will make the temps go higher, not lower.
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SwiftLegend said:
Mind sharing how you opened this up? There's some shiz on my camera lens too, and would like to clean it.
I kinda dropped mine (no scratches, cracks, damage, etc.) and the back panel popped up a little all around it, i managed to just push it down on all sides though.
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theres a sticky with a link to a teardown from an XDA remember IIRC

[MOD] Better heat dissipation for TEGRA chip

Hello Atrix owners,
(jump to "The ideas" if you dont want to hear my story! )
Got my Atrix at&t last friday, still tweaking it to my likings, but when I started playing Apparatus, emulators, AirAttackHD, and other games to test the power of the TEGRA chip, I felt the phone becoming warmer and warmer.
EDIT: Played 1 lap on Riptide, went to check on the processor temp: 61 degrees celsius.
I opened the back case. The bottom area, specially above the microSD card, was very hot (based on motorola defy's temps, my previous android phone)
The battery itself wasn't even warm, except for the region near the bottom left.
I was scared I had gotten a defective unit, so I came to xda forums, and most of the topics related to temps came to the same conclusion: that was the normal operating temps under load from the dual core processor.
Still, it worries me because of the position in which they've placed the microSD port. My card's max. operating temps are 60 celsius, and my processor was doing 52 within 5-10 minutes of gaming.
Also, I'm a little obsessed with computer components getting too hot. I've seen lots of motherboards leaving this world because of that.
The ideas:
Since I had recently bought a ICDiamond thermal paste, I started thinking about modding the atrix's case to dissipate more heat, someway.
This page shows a teardown of our phone: http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Motorola-Atrix-4G-Teardown/4964/2
You can see in the board's pictures that the NVIDIA CPU/GPU chip along with the 1gb memory its exactly above the microSD slot - marked in yellow in STEP 10
I was thinking about removing the metal plate covering the chip itself, apply some thermal paste there that would transfer heat to the metal plate. (see picture)
Then, above the metal plate, on the plastic cover shown in this picture, maybe put a small copper sheet (or other heat conducting material) on the inside, to spread the heat to a larger area.
Maybe drill some holes on the plastic cover to expose this metal to the area just under back cover.
One concern (also shown in the picture and in the website) is the magnetic compass, marked blue on the attached pic. Would the metal sheet cause any kind of interference? I could use some help on this from someone with more knowledge on magnetic physics and eletronic compasses.
I haven't done any sorts of thermal modding on computers, graphics cards, etc., so I would like some help, insights, and improves on my initial ideas, so we can have cooler dual core smartphones
Nice post! I'm curious to see some reviews after some other brave souls try this... In theory it should help. As for the magnetic compass.... maybe try using aluminum foil... non magnetic, and will dissipate some heat... probably not as much as the copper, but hey....
This mod would be spreading out the heat from the CPU to about an inch away, but still in the phone, so what's the plan after that? Even without this mod, after maybe 10 minutes the bottom half of the phone is nice and warm under CPU-stressful activities anyway, there doesn't seem to be much need for more heat spreading ability... The heat spreads out fine, the real problem is getting heat away from the phone itself, not from the CPU.
Nice concept.
Drilling some small holes in the cover could help heat get out, but without active cooling, I doubt much will dissipate through there. If you were to drill holes, I would do them on a small CNC mill if you have one available so you get a nice even hole pattern, and minimize a drill wandering and butchering the cover. You could also cut a small piece out of the cover, then put some wire mesh like the speaker cover over it to get more air in/out.
You will be fine using metal sheeting if you do not use anything magnetic. But then the materials available will probably not conduct heat very well.
In all reality, as I previously said, without any kind of active cooling, you may pull a few degrees of heat away from the CPU/GPU, but then it has nowhere to go from there, so I doubt you will gain much.
Only one way to find out for sure though!
Hello WolfFX, my fellow atrix owner,
Nice idea indeed. I would probably prefer to stick a very thin layer of copper on top of the current one and apply the paste between the two copper. If the results seem to better than stock, i would use correct sandpaper to create more space in the housing, so i could put a thicker copper plate. Thicker copper means better heat spreading and cooling.
I had 2 defy's myself. The reason for the defy spreading heat better cause its internal design isn't as complicated as atrix plus its thicker. Generally, the singlecore cpu's can also get very hot if they're used in a thin housing IMO.
I use some on the base of a small fan that hooks up to my micro usb port for active. If you've read this far I am kidding and its not possible because the usb port is not.powered.
On another not cutting out approximately 1-1.5 square inches in lower part of the back cover and replacing with copper might help. Cutting out a hole/holes in the back of tpu case would help hold copper plate and let heat dissipate. It would be ghetto fabulous but the question is would it dissipate enough heat to make it worth the trouble.
I voided my warranty and your mum.
Dual core machines have to work harder in an environment designed for single core like Android. If the app you are running is optimised for dual core it should run cooler. ICS will be multi-core optimised. Dual core naturally run hotter than single.
Sent from my MB860 using xda premium
dragon_76 said:
Dual core machines have to work harder in an environment designed for single core like Android. If the app you are running is optimised for dual core it should run cooler. ICS will be multi-core optimised. Dual core naturally run hotter than single.
Sent from my MB860 using xda premium
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Kinda funny that the idiots on Engaget constantly crave for quad-core, when we are struggling as it is on dual-core technology with single core FW...
Sent from my MB860 using XDA Premium App
palmboy5 said:
This mod would be spreading out the heat from the CPU to about an inch away, but still in the phone, so what's the plan after that? Even without this mod, after maybe 10 minutes the bottom half of the phone is nice and warm under CPU-stressful activities anyway, there doesn't seem to be much need for more heat spreading ability... The heat spreads out fine, the real problem is getting heat away from the phone itself, not from the CPU.
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I tought about that, and you are right, it will still be warm.
But if the copper works, the processor temperature readings will be lower, while the warmth will have more area to be dissipated.
It will still be passive, but better than the actual state.
Does anybody have knowledge about motorola's warranty on the Atrix?
Supposing I would open the phone to put the copper and thermal paste, (but dont drill the case, that would be irreversible), would that void any warranty stickers or something like that?
I got my phone last friday, haven't unlocked bootloader or anything because I'd like to keep my warranty for a while...
ccrows said:
Kinda funny that the idiots on Engaget constantly crave for quad-core, when we are struggling as it is on dual-core technology with single core FW...
Sent from my MB860 using XDA Premium App
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If people were satisfied with what exists, there would be no innovation.
Not saying increasing core count is innovative, but its far better than being stagnant nonetheless.
WolfFX said:
I tought about that, and you are right, it will still be warm.
But if the copper works, the processor temperature readings will be lower, while the warmth will have more area to be dissipated.
It will still be passive, but better than the actual state.
Does anybody have knowledge about motorola's warranty on the Atrix?
Supposing I would open the phone to put the copper and thermal paste, (but dont drill the case, that would be irreversible), would that void any warranty stickers or something like that?
I got my phone last friday, haven't unlocked bootloader or anything because I'd like to keep my warranty for a while...
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what do you think? would you want to honor a warranty after making hardware changes like that? if you really want to try, buy a phone off craigslist with a broken screen or something and do the mod and see what happens.
pukemon said:
what do you think? would you want to honor a warranty after making hardware changes like that? if you really want to try, buy a phone off craigslist with a broken screen or something and do the mod and see what happens.
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If someday I move from Brazil to United States I can think about your suggestions.
The damn taxes on my country make the carrier free phone cost equivalent to 1250 dollars.
The broken screen phone here probably will cost the same as a new one on US...
Whatever, soon I will lose my extreme-obsessive-care-for-new-gadget and unlock the bootloader, void the warranty, and test this mod.
If anyone has the courage to do it, please take some pics and post them here, along with comments
If you ever do it, I suggest slotting/drilling the back cover first and seeing what gains you.
I voided my warranty and your mum.
palmboy5 said:
If people were satisfied with what exists, there would be no innovation.
Not saying increasing core count is innovative, but its far better than being stagnant nonetheless.
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I understand the need to innovate but...
IMO we are not at the point with CPUs where we can "comfortably" put 4 cores on phones yet.
Can it be done? yes, but it would be dumb to do IMHO. We need smaller transistors on chips, an OS that can handle multi-core, and devs that can write Apps properly for that.
Otherwise you're wasting money on an oven that happens to make calls...
Sent from my MB860 using XDA Premium App
pukemon said:
If you ever do it, I suggest slotting/drilling the back cover first and seeing what gains you.
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By back cover you mean the one with torx screws, or the outer one?
To do it on the external cover I would need some fine tools, since any mistakes would screw even more the visual appeal of the phone
I saw on another topic here on the forums where someone was asking if there was something such as a metal back cover. That could help on the heat issue. But all the answers were negative. The flexibility of the plastic seems to be what allows it to be opened in the first place
ccrows said:
I understand the need to innovate but...
IMO we are not at the point with CPUs where we can "comfortably" put 4 cores on phones yet.
Can it be done? yes, but it would be dumb to do IMHO. We need smaller transistors on chips, an OS that can handle multi-core, and devs that can write Apps properly for that.
Otherwise you're wasting money on an oven that happens to make calls...
Sent from my MB860 using XDA Premium App
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That and the fact you would need a much larger battery to make it a day, or stay with the thin is in but haved a wired cell phone because you wont go anywhere for long with a dead cell phone.
I voided my warranty and your mum.
like CaelanT said, without active cooling (read: a fan), there really will not be much benefit. the entire casing is made of plastic so even if heat were to be dissipated under that area, it would still be trapped there.
dLo GSR said:
like CaelanT said, without active cooling (read: a fan), there really will not be much benefit. the entire casing is made of plastic so even if heat were to be dissipated under that area, it would still be trapped there.
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Wont dissipate too much, but the fact that we can feel the warmth outside means heat is coming through. I'll wait my tests week to be over so I can buy some tools and still need to find out where to buy the copper or aluminum sheet.
WolfFX said:
Wont dissipate too much, but the fact that we can feel the warmth outside means heat is coming through. I'll wait my tests week to be over so I can buy some tools and still need to find out where to buy the copper or aluminum sheet.
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heat is coming through but it has nothing to remove it. we can heat sink it to another part of the phone but without a HUGE piece of heat conductive metal to take it, it will simply stay hot. there is no fan/active element to remove the heat from the device and so we are stuck with how it is. that's the problem with microelectronics and ICs that don't allow for fans, and it's up to the software and its use of the CPU to minimize the load on the processors.
i know the effort is valiant but i honestly, from an EE standpoint, don't see you getting much noticeable difference without cramping something else up (i.e. messing with reception because of rogue metal plates or transferring that heat to other parts / ICs of the phone which are not as heat resistant)
yes im sure this definetly voids warrenty (fyi lol i voided mine )
unlocked bootloader att. atrix. honeycomb rom. faux oc kernal

Another cooling idea. Would like input.

I have been reading a few other threads and have a different idea. I have some small sheets of copper, and would like to incorporate them as a heatsink. This is really a two part mod. First, the N7. Second, the case. Lets start with the N7.
My idea is pretty simple and cheap. I will lay out the process as i visualize it, then ask for advice on the specifics. First, i need to cut the sheet of copper to fit over the cpu and gpu. Now, here is where the questions start.
1. Would it be best to remove the original foil that is covering it now, or use the new sheet in addition?
2. Best way to adhere it? If original foil removed, could we simply use normal heatsink paste? If not, then how?
The second part on the device itself is the back cover. I think it would be ideal to drill small holes directly over where the cpu gpu sits. I would recommend getting an extra back.
The holes lead to the case. When seated in the case, i want to modify with a hole directly behind the cpu location and our new holes on the n7 backing. Over this large hole would sit a fan. A small one with a usb power source would be perfect. That would require an otg, but needed to get away from external power source.
1. Would it be best to suck hot air away from the unit, or cooler air at it. Most likely the first, but im not sure.
Ill post pics of the areas i am talking about later. Xda app is being cranky right now.
Skyrocket on AOKP by R4ins

Easy Fix for Throttling

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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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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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.
Click to expand...
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...
Click to collapse
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?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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
Click to expand...
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
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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)

Adding a heat sink?

Sorry for the noob question, but I have this new "core board" in the attached picture.
Do I just need to glue a heat sink to the silver part, obviously moving the cord out of the way?
Is it that simple, or are there certain spots to avoid?
I wonder if this drilled plate can be removed just to check its alignment to chip. Having just a fan above this (attached to HU's walls) might turn better solution.
ste2002 said:
I wonder if this drilled plate can be removed just to check its alignment to chip. Having just a fan above this (attached to HU's walls) might turn better solution.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So just remove the screws and see what is under there?
Yes. Some of us report that thermal paste is missing/no contact with plate etc. Such setup as in your photo - I've never seen yet though, but it is good to make sure the contact is properly arranged - then additional heatsink makes sense.
So if something is not touching the top part, a heat sink will do nothing?
I took the heat sink off mine. It did appear to have good contact with all the chips, but before replacing it, I spread the heatsink compound evenly across all the chips.
Then I added extra heatsinks on top with thermal adhesive, and added fan to top cover. See main heatsink thread for details, and read from beginning. Here's my post. https://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=75274018&postcount=154
CadillacMike said:
So if something is not touching the top part, a heat sink will do nothing?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Even "better": it will block available vent holes. IMHO if there is no proper contact *and* no way it can be restored/arranged, then fan can do the cooling job via vent holes.
pwood999 said:
I took the heat sink off mine. It did appear to have good contact with all the chips, but before replacing it, I spread the heatsink compound evenly across all the chips.
Then I added extra heatsinks on top with thermal adhesive, and added fan to top cover. See main heatsink thread for details, and read from beginning. Here's my post. https://forum.xda-developers.com/showpost.php?p=75274018&postcount=154
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It also acts to suppress RFI and acts as a heat spreader.
For my PX5 Android 6, I replaced the thermal compound on the heat spreader, added a heatsink and fan. Bonded using thermal adhesive, all parts repurposed from old laptop. Includes connectors, supply sourced from unit switched 5v which is powered off on sleep. Simple resistive voltage drop added results in cool temps and barely audible fan.
I have further modified the case top section to add a grill and filter medium.
ste2002 said:
I wonder if this drilled plate can be removed just to check its alignment to chip. Having just a fan above this (attached to HU's walls) might turn better solution.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Agree. Replace thermal compound and a fan either pulling hot air from or blowing cool air onto the SOM heat spreader and sourced externally should keep things cool.

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