Well, here I was, quite happy with this little X4 beast, not thinking of anything bad and then all of a sudden:
I’m not convinced by the quality of the fans ):
Any chance to get a replacement?
Somewhere?
X4 cooling fan quality
1 Like
Hello friend, sorry for the inconvenience.
You should contact the store you buy the heatsink, for an RMA
Hey @ryann, thanks for your reply. Already did that and they are refunding me, thats not the point. My problem now is that i’m stuck with a heatsink without a working fan and so far i could only find the 12v version of that fan on order. Can you give me a pointer to where i can get a replacement fan?
thanks!
Hi,
You can actually use any well-known 12v fan like Noctuah NF-A4x10 instead, taking off the frame and connecting it to the PWR-IN in between USB-C and HDMI1.
You will definitely enjoy the silence compared to the original one, and it looks pretty decent as well (sorry for the dusty photo)
1 Like
Take a look at ExplainingComputers Radxa X4 video on YouTube - depending on your use case, you may not even need the fan if the heatsink is attached using his method.
Mine had this exact same thing happen, it appears one of the fins was broken right off the getgo right out of the box. My fan with one broken off fin is off balance so it would vibrate, or would need to break off another fin to balance it out.
Thank you user pinc, I’m gonna go get one of these!
It’s true…an experiment carried out by an well known British academic Explainingcomputers.com proved an simple copper shim can cool the X4 CPU to such an extent that the fan is not actually required to provide cooling and surprisingly when the fan was utilised in the experiment with the shim in place, then the CPU actually produced an higher temperature … Proving the current draw Volts Watts and Amps from an operational fan actually results in higher CPU temps…but thats every bit as academic as the good professor is and had shown…Because you would natuarlly expect the increased power draw of an operational fan to do just that…Increase slightly the device’s overall temperature that is…
well, I did try to run the board without fan and i don’t think my problem is bad thermal conductivity, as the cooler got too hot to touch after a few moments and it didn’t look like a solution that wouldn’t end with heavy thermal throttling ):
Hey pinc,
thanks for the suggestion. Unfortunately my 12V PWR-IN is obscured by the POE board. However there is also a 5V version of that fan, so with a bit of cable magic i could use the original fan connector. How did you mount the fan in the radiator? it looks like you cut away the fan frame and then? tiny screws or superglue? would be interesting to hear your solution.
Thanks!
Yes, I cut the frame away and used a glue gun, as screws did not fit the fan mounting.