Really high temperatures

[xram]

hello,
believe me, I have NMT about one month and installed the 2.5'' 80GB samsung hdd over 3.5->2.5 cable month ago. It does all job perfectly, no extreme heat situations and noise problems at all. Quiet, stable, almost perfect.
80% watching DVD iso-s, 20% avi-s.

pardizzone Wrote:I was thinking of doing something like that, small fan on side and different heatsink but was nervous about getting the heatsink thats on it now off. The fan I have is from an old video card that is small and extremely quiet and where the unit is you can't even see the top.

[pardizzone]

xram Wrote:hello,
believe me, I have NMT about one month and installed the 2.5'' 80GB samsung hdd over 3.5->2.5 cable month ago. It does all job perfectly, no extreme heat situations and noise problems at all. Quiet, stable, almost perfect.
80% watching DVD iso-s, 20% avi-s.

Go to the Apple trailer site and download a bunch 1080p trailers (like 15). Play all 15 straight through two times and see how hot the unit gets with the 2.5 drive.

[xram]

pardizzone Wrote:

xram Wrote:hello,
believe me, I have NMT about one month and installed the 2.5'' 80GB samsung hdd over 3.5->2.5 cable month ago. It does all job perfectly, no extreme heat situations and noise problems at all. Quiet, stable, almost perfect.
80% watching DVD iso-s, 20% avi-s.

Go to the Apple trailer site and download a bunch 1080p trailers (like 15). Play all 15 straight through two times and see how hot the unit gets with the 2.5 drive.

I agree with you It can be. But currently in my case everything is ok and silence is most important thing. Nor psu fan or something similar will be work quietly.

[LucidDreams]

xram Wrote:hello,
believe me, I have NMT about one month and installed the 2.5'' 80GB samsung hdd over 3.5->2.5 cable month ago. It does all job perfectly, no extreme heat situations and noise problems at all. Quiet, stable, almost perfect.
80% watching DVD iso-s, 20% avi-s.

The issue isn't with DVD quality video. As mentioned, it's when playing back HD video - esp. 1080p content. Heat is evil to electronics and the lower you can keep the temp. then the longer the life it will have and also the more stable it will run.

To make matters worse, I think the heat sink that's on the chip in the Popcorn Hour is using adhesive backing - the cheap stuff. This doesn't provide a good heat transfer vs being bolted to the board somehow (like a CPU is) or expoxied to the chip itself.

That's why I'm thinking about replacing the heat sink with a taller one and bending the fins so they touch the top of the case lid. That way the entire case will act as a heat sink. This kind of thing has been done for PCs to make them silent (no fan). Where the entire case is nothing more then one big heat sink of sorts.

[ajr]

xram Wrote:

pardizzone Wrote:

xram Wrote:hello,
believe me, I have NMT about one month and installed the 2.5'' 80GB samsung hdd over 3.5->2.5 cable month ago. It does all job perfectly, no extreme heat situations and noise problems at all. Quiet, stable, almost perfect.
80% watching DVD iso-s, 20% avi-s.

Go to the Apple trailer site and download a bunch 1080p trailers (like 15). Play all 15 straight through two times and see how hot the unit gets with the 2.5 drive.

I agree with you It can be. But currently in my case everything is ok and silence is most important thing. Nor psu fan or something similar will be work quietly.

Yes, but this thread is about problems from overheating when the chipset is taxed. Saying that you don't have heat issues playing DVD iso-s really doesn't prove anything. I can play DVD iso-s with a 3.5 Seagate 160 GB drive without any heat or noise problems, as I'm sure many others also can. What we're concerned about is that the unit can become very hot when playing some HD material.

[pardizzone]

ajr Wrote:

xram Wrote:

pardizzone Wrote:

xram Wrote:hello,
believe me, I have NMT about one month and installed the 2.5'' 80GB samsung hdd over 3.5->2.5 cable month ago. It does all job perfectly, no extreme heat situations and noise problems at all. Quiet, stable, almost perfect.
80% watching DVD iso-s, 20% avi-s.

Go to the Apple trailer site and download a bunch 1080p trailers (like 15). Play all 15 straight through two times and see how hot the unit gets with the 2.5 drive.

I agree with you It can be. But currently in my case everything is ok and silence is most important thing. Nor psu fan or something similar will be work quietly.

Yes, but this thread is about problems from overheating when the chipset is taxed. Saying that you don't have heat issues playing DVD iso-s really doesn't prove anything. I can play DVD iso-s with a 3.5 Seagate 160 GB drive without any heat or noise problems, as I'm sure many others also can. What we're concerned about is that the unit can become very hot when playing some HD material.

That's exactly what I was getting at. I'm curious if with a 2.5" drive that it gets hot like with a full size drive.

[jimbo]

Well, I ordered a 40x40x6mm fan and a 25x25x10mm fan and going to try both methods. I'll mount the 40x40 on the heatsink and drill a whole bunch of holes above it to draw air out. Then for the 25x25 one I'll attach it to the side and somehow make a sleeve out of something to direct air flow over the heatsink, through the sleeve, and out the fan. I've got two coming so I'll put one in each and see which works best and report it here. Now to order a thermometer...

[zuwarrior]

I'm planning to make something to gain some height inside using aluminium, using parts like this and installing under the top cover.

[/img]

[nicpom]

I think that all of you could find interesting my post on this thread

http//www.networkedmediatank.com/viewtopic.php?p=11413#11413

This unit is thermally flawed, and the solution should be found by the manufacturer, not by the users.

A serious company would address it and provide the fix free to all users, be it an improved heatsink, or case, or fan or anything else. I beat that this will not be the case.

This forum is really useful as I was able to understand the real quality of this product before purchasing it.

[jimbo]

Hey well thanks for posting several times why you're not buying one. That's great news for everyone else in queue so Ok.

Now you build a computer that can play 1080p video files in a huge assortment of codecs with HDMI and digital audio out and have it cost $179 then we'll talk. $179 + $10(fan) = still a lot lower than any other HD mkv capable device out there.

[Eric]

jimbo Wrote:Well, I ordered a 40x40x6mm fan and a 25x25x10mm fan and going to try both methods. I'll mount the 40x40 on the heatsink and drill a whole bunch of holes above it to draw air out. Then for the 25x25 one I'll attach it to the side and somehow make a sleeve out of something to direct air flow over the heatsink, through the sleeve, and out the fan. I've got two coming so I'll put one in each and see which works best and report it here. Now to order a thermometer...

look fwd for your picture..

[Tartanpion]

OwL Wrote:I bought a 12V 25x25x10mm 10000RPM 0,8W 25dB fan and placed it vertically to the left by the heatsink using a double adhesive soft pad on top of the "mini PCI solder points" sucking air out of the box and instead of feeding it with 12V I used the 5V feed for the harddrive... it is totally silent, and I guess it runs in about 4000RPM... not very much noticeable airflow, but the temperature is considerably lower! (Atleast I think.... I don't have any instruments to measure it, but the top of the box does not get as hot as before, and I have not had any hangs) I have a 500Gb WD drive in the box.. and that also seems cooler!
The important thing is to get the air OUT of the box, since passive cooling of the chipset should be enough and no high airflows are needed thru the heatsink, but the emitted heat must have somewhere to go! suck it out baby! (I also think this is better than having a thin fan on top of the heatsink)
=)

I installed this fan when I got my first hang while watching a 1080p movie... and I have not had any hangs after that. (knock on wood...)

Regards // OwL

I put one like this (mine is 5V - 15dB - 25x25x6) but I get some vibrations from case. Do you have some ? Or any idea to prevent from that issue ? :?

But now temperature is OK and less crash (there was not much air near PCH while playing; with fan, it is better)...

[nicpom]

jimbo Wrote:Hey well thanks for posting several times why you're not buying one. That's great news for everyone else in queue so Ok.

Now you build a computer that can play 1080p video files in a huge assortment of codecs with HDMI and digital audio out and have it cost $179 then we'll talk. $179 + $10(fan) = still a lot lower than any other HD mkv capable device out there.

Maybe because they are not cooking themselves all the time? Case, connectors, heatsinks, tests and proper engineering are a significant part of an electronic product cost.

Here we have a chip that does almost everything, so the electronic board is quite cheap. Even PC motherboards MUCH more complex cost some tens of dollars at the production point.

The modest additional cost of a decent thermal solution would not change the price class but drastically improve the reliability and life. I really do not understand such policy.

However, I expect a high percentage of present players will eventually fail or show serious problems. Heat damage is cumulative.

Or the next model will address this issue, or the enthusiams will cool down soon.

No good news for people still in the queue, anyway.

[werner]

i have my testdevice now 6months (TOP HD Feeling also without fan and same Temperatures) and never had heatproblems?? and on the PC Part sorry but when you look to an nforce board there is 70°C normal on the nforcechipset also often higher!!!
The fact is that heat dont destroys an chip as long as it is an stable heat it will make no problems also on longtime use! and as long as it works inside the specs there will be no Problems. I dont understand why you are still here when this device is such an bad designed device??
Also on Blueray Players with the Sigma Chip inside there is no better heatsink so please if you dont no the specs of this chip then dont talk about things you dont know, it is also that the 8634/35 make less heat agains 862x and this chips never had an heatsink!!

werner

[nicpom]

werner Wrote:i have my testdevice now 6months (TOP HD Feeling also without fan and same Temperatures) and never had heatproblems?? and on the PC Part sorry but when you look to an nforce board there is 70°C normal on the nforcechipset also often higher!!!
The fact is that heat dont destroys an chip as long as it is an stable heat it will make no problems also on longtime use! and as long as it works inside the specs there will be no Problems. I dont understand why you are still here when this device is such an bad designed device??
Also on Blueray Players with the Sigma Chip inside there is no better heatsink so please if you dont no the specs of this chip then dont talk about things you dont know, it is also that the 8634/35 make less heat agains 862x and this chips never had an heatsink!!
werner

Heat is never stable in a chip which is under very different loads, from stand-by to full, everyday.

Heat shortens the life, this is a proven and documented effect. More, virtually ALL active components show degraded performance increasing the operation temperature.

Not all products are made to last, and first generation blu-ray players surely were not designed to be long life products...Nforce? not an example of reliability too.

I do not know specs of this chip but know hundreds similar and silicon wafers limits are always the same, apart from custom designs for aerospace and military use (not this case, I dare say).

I know very well what I am saying. It's my job.

However, my point is clear enough. and I will not post again about this issue. I have no interest pro or against this product. Simply there is an evident cause for many of the problems reported in this forum.