I wouldn't have cut anything, clearly that aluminum acts as both a shield and shim between the components in the middle section etc and the black heatsink altogether work as a thermal mass to draw the heat away, cutting it will reduce the efficiency of the mass.
The thermal paste in between the components and this aluminum should have been reapplied and contact checked.
IMO this is a terrible design to begin with, the heatsink should be in direct contact with the chips for maximum efficiency, and this is why the side areas have and indentation where the heatsink has matching areas that sink to that depth.
With this said, it would be a perfect piece of kit to demonstrate a better engineered thermal solution.
Anyway, 17.5C is within the temperature range suited to enhance natural Circadian Rhythms, maybe you will have a inspired dream that will guide you to a better solution
Joined: 08 May 2018 Posts: 14125 Location: Texas, USA
Posted: Mon Dec 20, 2021 18:56 Post subject:
Bride wrote:
I opened this baby again and removed the fan I added previously. Removed the big black heat sink. Then I removed also the aluminum lid on the CPU part (yellow area, tks to TweakTown for the pic) and replaced the old thermal pad with a 5mm grey one, directly in contact with the big black heat sink, without the aluminum lid. For now, after 34 minutes of uptime, room temp 19C degrees and CPU temp 64C degrees. Let's see
IONK wrote:
Bride wrote:
without the aluminum lid
the aluminum lid is for RF shielding, so probably it's better (for nearby electronic equipment, living beings, and for the router itself) to fill the gap between the chip and the lid with thermal pad, and keep the lid closed, instead of removing it.
the-joker wrote:
Bride wrote:
to be precise, cut the aluminum lid on the red line and removed the part in yellow.
I wouldn't have cut anything, clearly that aluminum acts as both a shield and shim between the components in the middle section etc and the black heatsink altogether work as a thermal mass to draw the heat away, cutting it will reduce the efficiency of the mass.
The thermal paste in between the components and this aluminum should have been reapplied and contact checked.
Arctic Blue thermal pad. I don't think paste would be good here, since I don't think it is used in the original configuration, but I have to agree that this is a horrible design to begin with, but due to RF shielding requirements, it is what it is. _________________ "Life is but a fleeting moment, a vapor that vanishes quickly; All is vanity"
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tks guys, I thought that the aluminum lid was acting also as shield from other radio interference, but in terms of thermal conductivity, is not useful.
If you try (and I tried) to put a metal foil between a normal CPU and the heat sink, instead to improve the heat dissipation, you reduce it. CPU-Thermal paste-metal foil-thermal paste-heat sink. Too many layers in terms of heat dissipation. So it's exactly the same here. Keeping in contact the BCM CPU with the black heat-sink, you can only improve the heat dissipation. For example, there is a procedure called direct-die contact in normal desktop CPUs, for maximize the overclock potential.
Anyway, as someone said, this router is good but with e very bad cooling system. I am just sharing these "experiments" as online knowledge, maybe useful, maybe not.
I cut that lid in a way that you can apply it back as before, quickly and safely. I am totally not concerned about what I did.
Previously I tried to keep the aluminum lid, replacing all the thermal pads with GELID high-conductivity ones, but right now, with the black heat sink in direct contact with the BCM CPU, I reached the lowest temp values.
We will see in the next step
Uptime
21:09
Temperatures
CPU 69.1 °C / WL0 55.9 °C / WL1 52.0 °C / WL2 49.8 °C
the thing you did to your rf shield is similar to "CPU delidding" https://www.pcgamer.com/delidding-your-cpu-is-scary-but-worth-itand-surprisingly-easy/. This mod is very common to a few generations of Intel CPU when Intel tried to cut cost and used a cheaper process instead of soldering the silicon to the metal cover. Some extreme overclockers even throw away the metal lid and put the heatsink directly on top of the silicon die. There's significant reduction in temperature, but I don't think your router can pass FCC test anymore without the lid.
p/s: weird... no comment about the oversized photo attachment... let me try...
Joined: 08 May 2018 Posts: 14125 Location: Texas, USA
Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2021 6:08 Post subject:
There's no image resolution limitations anymore, but if people upload 5MB files, it's going to load slow as sh*t. That was part of the reasoning for limiting the resolution in the first place, aside from skewing the page formatting. _________________ "Life is but a fleeting moment, a vapor that vanishes quickly; All is vanity"
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the thing you did to your rf shield is similar to "CPU delidding" https://www.pcgamer.com/delidding-your-cpu-is-scary-but-worth-itand-surprisingly-easy/. This mod is very common to a few generations of Intel CPU when Intel tried to cut cost and used a cheaper process instead of soldering the silicon to the metal cover. Some extreme overclockers even throw away the metal lid and put the heatsink directly on top of the silicon die. There's significant reduction in temperature, but I don't think your router can pass FCC test anymore without the lid.
p/s: weird... no comment about the oversized photo attachment... let me try...
sry for the oversized photos, probably I made a mistake uploading it.
Yes, I know, that's exactly the delidding process, I used it with few desktop CPUs.
About the lid, I agree that I am affecting the FFC standards. In your opinion, the daily home use can be affected? the black aluminum heat sink in fact is not acting as shield?
About temps, I can only see benefits.
Last edited by Bride on Wed Dec 22, 2021 14:08; edited 4 times in total
There's no image resolution limitations anymore, but if people upload 5MB files, it's going to load slow as sh*t. That was part of the reasoning for limiting the resolution in the first place, aside from skewing the page formatting.
In your opinion, the daily home use can be affected?
some children say their mom's microwave oven makes the WiFi slow. some people claim extended exposure to high power RF can cause cancer. Some say they have ED because they put their mobile phones in their pants pocket. But that's for self-reading, I don't think we should discuss about that topic here.
Bride wrote:
the black aluminum heat sink in fact is not acting as shield?
Definitely no if it's not connected to the ground plane of the PCB. I don't have the router so I can't tell if the black thing is connected to ground or not. Even if it's connected to ground, there are still small gaps at the sides.
In your opinion, the daily home use can be affected?
some children say their mom's microwave oven makes the WiFi slow. some people claim extended exposure to high power RF can cause cancer. Some say they have ED because they put their mobile phones in their pants pocket. But that's for self-reading, I don't think we should discuss about that topic here.
Bride wrote:
the black aluminum heat sink in fact is not acting as shield?
Definitely no if it's not connected to the ground plane of the PCB. I don't have the router so I can't tell if the black thing is connected to ground or not. Even if it's connected to ground, there are still small gaps at the sides.
p/s: it seems like someone added the auto shrink function to the image attachment, that's why the large photos can't kill the layout anymore, so the mods relaxed the rules.
no, the heat sink is not connected to the ground plane of the PCB, tks for the details
Umm, a piece of metal does not have to be connected to a ground plane to still block a substantial amount of RF, as long as the gaps are far smaller than the wavelength. It works better if it does but this is more about shielding cabling not RF in all situations. I suppose the point is, the heatsink isn't meant to be a shield but would be to a significant extent if it came to that.
Think microwave oven door shield, that piece of metal screen has no ground on most microwaves.
I just discovered something very interesting.
It's a BCM4708 instead of 4709, but here goes...
My Netgear R6700 was running in the '70C range, about 75C average, without P2P and no QoS running yet.
I know that's not alarmingly high but still, wanted lower. So, I have the means, took a hole saw and put 2" hole in the cover, screwed a 50mm fan on.
The thing is, I have to find some connectors to do this, want it easy to swap replacement fans in (I had several new spares of same fan), so project completion put on hold. I put the cover back on the router and powered router up, fan not running.
With the fan body mostly (more than 2/3rds) blocking the 2" diameter hole, and fan not even running, CPU is now about 8C cooler running. Ambient/room temp didn't change.
Edit: Not sure why it took so long but many hours later it has settled to 71C with P2P load, so closer to 5C, not 8C lower.
My theory is there wasn't enough additional venting to make this much difference, that I got most of that improvement by merely tightening down the case screws more than they were, so it compressed the thermal pad more. * I could be wrong*, but I think it is worth trying, taking the screws out, wiggling the PCB a tiny bit and putting it back together with screws as tight as reasonably possible.
I'm kind of wishing I didn't even bother with the fan/hole, just drilled a grid of little holes in the lid like I usually do with routers and switches, but I've got the fan on there now, debating whether to use existing 12V input from the wall wart and current limiting or instead keep it entirely external, use a 5V USB phone charger wall wart to power it, then with entire thing external, never need to open the case again to swap or clean the fan.
Last edited by mono on Mon Dec 27, 2021 12:40; edited 2 times in total
Umm, a piece of metal does not have to be connected to a ground plane to still block a substantial amount of RF, as long as the gaps are far smaller than the wavelength.
First, there is a common misconception that a microwave oven is a Faraday cage. It is not. Not even a close approximation. Go in your kitchen and open the door of your microwave. Look at the mating surfaces between the door and oven. There is no bare conductive metal at all, usually power coated sheet metal or plastic on both surfaces. It is essentially *wide open* from an RF perspective except right at 2.4GHz.
Attenuation at 2.4GHz is achieved through the use of metal features inside the door that make the slot between the door and the oven look like a quarter wave reactive choke. 2.4GHz is essentially reflected back into the oven from the door/oven seam. This is why the door is so thick.
The amount of attenuation at 2.4GHz is chosen to address human safety limits for RF exposure, with no consideration for RF communications. It is generally 30-40dB,
At 30dB, 600W on the inside, enough to cook your chicken, becomes 600mW on the outside, about the same amount your cell phone radiates.
This is a *lot* of attenuation when viewed from a human safety perspective, but only a modest amount of loss from an RF communications perspective. RF link budgets for WiFi can be > 100dB.