[morinzo]

Might be some useful info for you overclockers, I replaced all of the stock thermal pads with Fujipoly Sarcon XR-m that have a thermal conductivity of 17.0 W/mk and here are the results.

The test were done on stock cpu speed and stock ddwrt settings.

Stock Thermal Pads:


Fujipoly Sarcon XR-m Thermal Pads:


Almost 17C or 62.6F is a big difference to the cpu temp.

If anyone is interested in the size pads needed just let me know. They are expensive but I got everything needed from the free sample request on the Fujipoly site.

[SirSilentBob]

Definitely interested in this! That's a decent temp drop, for sure. Did you take pictures or anything detailing what you did exactly, and the process for assembly/disassemble?

[slidermike]

morinzo,
thank you for sharing your results.
It is nice to see what the motivated member can achieve.

I had posted back sometime in 2014 my results of active cooling & lifting the router of the surface.
With a small fan tilted under the bottom corner of the router I was able to achieve upper 50's.
The fan was on low, I didn't want to hear it.
I have had it stable at OC 1400 but eventually after the fun and novelty wore off I went back to stock clock rate & needed the computer case fan for another purpose. I still have the router about 1" off the surface and that seems to give a minor thermal drop on its own.

The router has a high thermal ceiling, especially at stock clock rates.

Any info you want to share such as pics or step by step instructions will be appreciated.

[morinzo]

No pics, but remove the antennas & then remove the 5 case screws (1 in center and 4 under the rubber feet)

On top and bottom of the pcb you have these square silver things that you need to lift the lid off of to get to the thermal pads. Just gently pry with a small flat screwdriver and try to to bend the flimsy material.

On the top one you have 2 chips with thermal pads & the bottom one had 3 thermal pads & one big one that goes on the lid of the bottom one to transfer heat to the case heatsink.

I cleaned all chips & contact points with acetone before putting new pads on.

I can recommend what size samples to order to complete the job if you need it. And I can find pics online and label it with pad sizes.

[morinzo]

I found some pics online and just labeled them with pad thickness & size.

The thickest Fujipoly Sarcon XR-m comes in is 2.0mm, I had a discussion with the manufacturer you can stack to get the 3.0mm & 4.0mm and it doesn't hurt any of the thermal properties.

If you have anymore questions just post and I'll answer asap.

Top


Bottom

[wgentine]

is this fujipoly the best available heat transfer ratio in the market?

[morinzo]

[jheide44]

in addition to passive cooling mods...

if you want to attempt integrating the fan I've had good luck with PC fans & soldering in a PC fan connection to allow for easy replacements in the future

Just borrow 5 volts from the ac adapter plug (before the "power conditioning" capacitors, if present)

Depending on your device/transformer... you might have to spec your fan to suit your needs. 12v/5v/etc. I always tried to keep the fan amperage down as low as possible.

Also consider the form factor of your fans. the image below is an 80mm monster. With a thin 30mm or 60mm fan and good placement you might be able to flush mount it inside the case. (I typically would blow out the hot air upward, let heat rise, etc. once the case is closed you can generally get a good natural suction across the "right" components. Of course each case is different and placement is key.)

With a dremel, and some patience, you can really make a unit look nice even after playing the part of Dr. Frankenstein.


(Edit: Fixed link to new image location)


Also consider this, I played around on this years ago on older devices. Perhaps newer devices are more sensitive to "dirty power" < -- don't break your stuff if you don't know what you are doing...

YMMV, don't listen to me, I'm just a crazy guy from the internet!

[cyberdev]

70°C ???
Very Hot ...


My R7000 without any Mods:

CPU-Modell ARMv7 Processor rev 0 (v7l)
CPU Cores 2
Taktfrequenz 1000 MHz
Auslastung 0.03, 0.14, 0.14
CPU TemperaturCPU 52.5 °C / WL0 44.54 °C / WL1 49.04 °C

[morinzo]

70F is hot but that was my stock temp & stock ddwrt with only wireless setup. I think my prob was the stock thermal pad that goes on the heatsink was only touching half of the heatsink but all routers are different even if it's the same model.


I was thinking about a fan but I have no plans of overclocking and If I mounted it external I prob solder a usb plub on the end. I night tri a thin internal but on the r7000 the heatsink is on the bottom so I don't know how much a fan on top would help.

[slidermike]

the thermal headroom on the R7000 is pretty high.
It has been discussed in the past.
I believe it is in the 90's.
Even without any extra cooling most folks report OC success and barely any increase in temps.

[jheide44]

Good questions... not sure if I'll ever get them, but I just requested the datasheets from Broadcom on the chipset components in the Netgear ARM units

Of course engineering recommendation/design vs. practical application could be debated for an eternity.


FWIW on the R6300v2 I have up on Putty/SSH right now
CPU 72.5 °C
WL0 46.93 °C
WL1 52.90 °C


Edit:

[lilmister]

Whats the max temp that we should watch for? Im using 1400 / 800 but i havent done a burn test yet.

[jheide44]

[lilmister]

Im going to burn this router and see how hot it gets at 1400, if it gets too hot i will stop.

Also what about txpower? I hear you guys are updating it to higher numbers because of the power amps? What should I set mines at for performance for 2.4 / 5ghz ?

This router is really nice, im loving it. Not sure about this beamforming technology, its still the same o range to me.