Penta HAT htop cpu temperature consistently 85 DegC

#1

Hi Community,
I’m noticing my rockpi4 NAS is consistently around 85 deg C.
This feels very high as a standard operating temperature.
What is the expected range for this operation that others are seeing? and;
What is the maximum recommended continuous temperature operation for the RK3399 chip?

Please note my temperature reference is from cpu temp indicator on htop (oled not working in my build yet).

#2

The temperature is too high, please try to install the fan in reverse.

#3

fan comes preinstalled on the board. Currently blowing hot air out at the top, I don’t envision blowing air into a closed space will help. Board is running at a much lower temp today, will see where it gets to when I start uploading files to the drives.

#4
#5

And our next version will change the direction.

#6

So, against my better judgement I gave it a try. It has little to no difference, maybe 1 degree better. In terms of heat transfer, you typically want to be pulling the hot air away not trying to force air into a box where it has nowhere to go. The fact that this even has a marginal effect speaks to the inability to get air where it needs to be.

I hope this is seen as constructive feedback than a disgruntled customer (despite the username). For the most part I like the concept despite the 3 days of troubleshooting, broken emmc mount (my bad) and my own custom holes to enable use of an sd card (because the case doesn’t allow the use of one…).

A few tips for your next design… this unit needs to go the other way around. The rockpi needs to be at the top with a fan on the heat sink seeing as this is the source of most of the heat. The hard disks and hat can site below.

  • The case needs to facilitate the use of SD card on the rock pi.
  • You should focus on 1 board rather than then many you seem to offer and get it right.
  • Rather than offering many distributions of your own. Leverage other distributions and write easy add-ons to one so that the majority of foreseeable software can be applied. In the case of NAS OMV 5 is a no brainer. I highly suggest you have a step by step tutorial on all aspects of the install of such aswell (or some other alternative).
  • I honestly think that you need to refine this design before you sell any more I think it will do your brand more harm than good (tough call to make though I wouldn’t want to be in position myself).
  • Finally, I highly encourage you to thoroughly test these designs before taking to market, there are sooo many issues that could be resolved easily during prototyping… In fact, also hire a business guy to advise, Apple needed both Wozniak and Jobs to be successful. Without either it would have failed.

Anyways, take it or leave it :). Thanks for your assistance in any event setq.
One thing you have going for you is attentive service (and your obviously bloody savy with this stuff), it’s hard to put a price on that, keep it up.
Best regards,
Only somewhat disgruntled…

#7

The previous test was done using RPi + Quad SATA, which has two fans. So the results might be different.

The failure of RockPi and every other SBC out there
#8

I have the Rock Pi 4B with Penta Sata Hat, Fan Hat and metal case.
I am normally around 40C with fan at low speed.
I have Armbian with OMV5 and Plex installed via Docker and Portainer

Running Plex and transferring files for extended times 500GB transfer at 120-140MB/sec I am running only 54 degrees C.
I did use a good thermal paste during the build.
Also I did reassemble a couple of times for various issues but found care had to be taken to get the processor level with the heat sink base so good contact was made. This is easy to mess up and could be an area for improvement.
Fan could be a little quieter under load but maybe next project.

I have to say I am quite happy, Great transfer speeds, opensource software where I can customize. Low power and look fine.

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