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
Click to expand...
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.
Click to expand...
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?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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)
Related
The lower right side of the back of my HD2 looks like it has heat damage. The black finish is bubbling up. I do not believe it was from an external heat source. Is this a known or common problem? Anyone know what is located in the lower right corner of the back side of the phone? I'll snap some pics later.
IDQ said:
The lower right side of the back of my HD2 looks like it has heat damage. The black finish is bubbling up. I do not believe it was from an external heat source. Is this a known or common problem? Anyone know what is located in the lower right corner of the back side of the phone? I'll snap some pics later.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Pics please.
Only source of heat there I can think of would be the battery while charging. Are you using the stock charger?
Snarksneeze said:
Pics please.
Only source of heat there I can think of would be the battery while charging. Are you using the stock charger?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Stock charger.
There is a video floating around of someone taking the HTC HD2 completely apart, I'll see if I can find the link and possibly you can see exactly what part is located under there.... It was from someone complaining about a cracked screen.
EDIT: found it:
http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/03/02/official-htc-step-by-step-video-for-disassembling-the-htc-hd2/
IDQ said:
Stock charger.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can you tell me what the brown liquid is? Kinda looks like a coffee spill...
I ask, because to my untrained eye, it looks more like you accidentally sat the phone down in a puddle of a mineral-spirits-based liquid. It looks a lot like what I would expect from paint-thinner or the like.
I wouldn't have thought so until I actually saw the stains on the battery cover as well.
Is there anyone out there with a very hot phone coming back from a charge?
I've left my phone on to charge once, placed it under my pillow. The next morning I got a text and pulled it out to read, the phone was so hot I nearly dropped it, but it did no damage to the bed or the phone. I was able to hold it again after unplugging it for a few moments. Less than 30 seconds in all.
Now I am getting concerned...
Down below on the backside there, under that spot are the heat sinks for the processor and memory
sirphunkee said:
Down below on the backside there, under that spot are the heat sinks for the processor and memory
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Whoah! If you are 100% sure this is heat damage, return the phone now!
I don't mean tomorrow, I mean right now!
This is a potentially dangerous situation, considering the battery is so close. Remember all the "exploding laptop" issues that were cropping up all over a few years back? Imagine that happening in your pocket or on your dresser at night!
Does the phone still function normally? If it was heat damage to the point it was melting the finish you would expect some chip damage as well. You are not working with some solvent like brake fluids or any type of acids?
When I charge mine it rarely even gets hot. Even under full load with GPS, WIFI etc. it gets warmish but not blistering hot.
Take it back, definately warranty issue unless they can prove it was purely cosmetic - which they would check buy opening up the case - heat damage (interior) would show there.
IDQ said:
Stock charger.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Looks more like a chemical reaction than a heat reaction, have you had it around any alcohol base liquids like Patron perhaps?
It looks more like the soft-touch plastic came unglued from the case below rather than the case actually melting through and pushing the soft-touch up.
Can you poke it? Does it feel soft (like a bubble of air inside)? Would you mind taking a knife to it and cutting around the boil to see the condition of the case below?
I'll agree with other's here and say that it looks more like external damage.
I've had my HD2 and used it heavily (bluetooth and wifi while charging, screen always on at full bright) and it does get warm. Actually, it's hotter than warm but cooler than hot. Maybe like the bottom of a crappy laptop (or a mac, six of one...). Anyway, it's never frozen or lagged, so I don't think there's any actual damage going on.
I'm going to agree with everyone else who said it looks like a chemical reaction. FWIW, I've seen alcohol-based hand sanitizer do this to the soft touch surface in a car before.
BAMF said:
I'm going to agree with everyone else who said it looks like a chemical reaction. FWIW, I've seen alcohol-based hand sanitizer do this to the soft touch surface in a car before.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm still waiting for the OP to come back and tell us if it might be a chemical burn instead of heat related.
I watched the entire teardown video from an earlier post and from what I could see the heat sink for the processor is located in the center of the mainboard. The only thing directly below the spot in question is the copper/brass antenna. This does not rule out a heat-related cause, but it certainly helps to bring it into question.
DaveNavy said:
Looks more like a chemical reaction than a heat reaction, have you had it around any alcohol base liquids like Patron perhaps?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe this owner owns one of the Aliens? ****...
IDQ said:
Stock charger.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
From the looks of it, for me it seems externally caused like acetone or the like chemicals. If it were caused by heat as you mentioned, the bubbling would be uniformed for that certain area unlike what we see. And if that where the case, there would have to be a really small circuitry in that area that have risen in temperature at a fast pace to form an almost "branding" like form. Also, you can see the residue of the chemical partially cleaned from that area due to discoloration.
** Sorry didn't mean to be rude.
My G1 use to get about twice as hot as my HD2 ever gets and never had any bubbling or melting. I've had my phone on a car charger stream music over bluetooth and using GPS and it barely gets warm. Your phone would have to get extremely hot to bubble the finish on the phone.
speoples20 said:
My G1 use to get about twice as hot as my HD2 ever gets and never had any bubbling or melting. I've had my phone on a car charger stream music over bluetooth and using GPS and it barely gets warm. Your phone would have to get extremely hot to bubble the finish on the phone.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, My G1 did the same, I always felt like it was going to just melt into a puddle of nothing with how hot it was getting. Check your battery on your G1, mine has swollen from the heat.. Haha, thank god I have the HD2 now!
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
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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..
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
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.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
theres a sticky with a link to a teardown from an XDA remember IIRC
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.
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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.
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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
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.
So I've noticed my phone tends to get hot (not nearly as bad as some users described) but noticeably warm. I don't game much but I will watch high def videos. Tonight I noticed it was very cool after a day of typical use. I checked my CPU temp and it was running 10 to 12 degrees cooler than usual at between 41o 46 Celsius.
Only thing I did different was last night before going to bed I removed the case and left it off. There's a link to my case below. If you're using this case or a similar one I'd just like to hear your experience.
http://www.supcase.com/nexus-6p-unicorn-beetle-slim-clear-bumper
I like the case and don't think the higher temps are cause for alarm. But if Id be open to trying a different one if it provides good protection and keeps it a little cooler. Thanks.
Edit--sorry that link doesn't seem to direct you the right way. Its the Unicorn Beetle Case.
Well any plastic case is going to have a detrimental effect on how your phone deals with heat. If you use your phone bare, as in no skin or case, it has the entire metal body to transfer heat to and dissipate from. Plastic, or leather, or anything but metal, doesn't have that kind of heat conductivity and will act like a layer of insulation that prevents your phone from dissipating the heat outside.
tl;dr: yes cases will make your phone heat up more
ttminh1997 said:
Well any plastic case is going to have a detrimental effect on how your phone deals with heat. If you use your phone bare, as in no skin or case, it has the entire metal body to transfer heat to and dissipate from. Plastic, or leather, or anything but metal, doesn't have that kind of heat conductivity and will act like a layer of insulation that prevents your phone from dissipating the heat outside.
tl;dr: yes cases will make your phone heat up more
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But it's safe to use, let's say, a Spigen Thin Fit right? I mean it'll hold a little more heat, but not that bad, as this 810 v2.1 should throttle itself long before the danger threshold right?
About to get mine in today..
prodygee said:
But it's safe to use, let's say, a Spigen Thin Fit right? I mean it'll hold a little more heat, but not that bad, as this 810 v2.1 should throttle itself long before the danger threshold right?
About to get mine in today..
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There are number of things that will protect your phone if it reaches dangerous heat. The CPU and GPU will throttle, the phone will shut itself off in order to not generate more heat if necessary etc.
I use a Spigen Rugged Armor and I also have a Spigen Thin Fit. Both of them will make the CPU and GPU throttle more but it's barely noticeable with or without the cases.
No need to worry about the hardware, the battery might not be great in 2-3 years but you can replace them if you're a little bit handy.
prodygee said:
But it's safe to use, let's say, a Spigen Thin Fit right? I mean it'll hold a little more heat, but not that bad, as this 810 v2.1 should throttle itself long before the danger threshold right?
About to get mine in today..
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It won't overheat. The 6P does throttle aggressively though and you can see it in the performance.
Thanks guys. I noticed the phone getting a little warm, but nothing too major. Take my thanks!