Hello.
“Rock 3a” board has “Penta SATA HAT” expansion board installed.
The processor has a heatsink “Heat sink for ROCK 3A”
I noticed that the temperature of the processor is often in the range of 61-66 degrees Celsius. I want to add cooling with a fan.
Can you please tell me what kind of radiators + fans you use to cool the processor?
From what I understand, the “Penta SATA HAT” board can be lifted up using “40pin-header-socket” to increase the height between the boards.
I can confirm from my tests on the Rock 3A with the dedicated small heat sink (glued with thermal pad) and Penta SATA hat installed that the temperature of the SOC, in a room at about 18 Celsius degrees, reaches:
43 degrees in idle mode (after >10 min)
61 degrees in stress mode (after > 5 min), almost asymptotic
Measurements were done in static conditions, without fan or ventilation. Idle power at plug was about 3W, 7W in stress mode (values are informative/not very precise), with SATA hat and eMMc module installed but no HDD/SSD connected.
My impression is that this chip does not overheat as a Rock 5B (12~15W in stress mode), so I think this is sufficient, but if used in a closed case, a fan is indeed required to avoid higher temperatures.