Cool the MiniPC drive bay

[MichaelG]

It gets Hot real Hot
Put your hands onTop after an hour of playing
Hot enough to shorten the life of our RGB LED’s

Wired in series, when one led burns up they’re all going out, that includes the important power knob LED too

I am on my 2nd AM08pro due to the RGB failure
Not going to happen this time

M.2 HDD’s get real hot, so hot they can Throttle down transfers during gameplay, and Heat Rises right to the LED board cooking our RGB

Let’s install some Fans
Okay a few questions 1st-
-How to mount, on the door
-What size, twin 30mm
-How to power, usb 5v
-How to vent incoming air, drill baby drill

Well we all need more USB’s on the back for printers and whatever, so let’s heat glue a 4port USB onto the drive door, done. Well that’s 5v so we have door power.. (you’ll see it in pics)

Next place fans on door, center between 2 HDD’s
cut n clear, honeycomb makes this easy to place

5B18F99C-418E-4196-BE8B-CF18B8E6B19E.jpeg (4.18 MiB) Viewed 1139 times

Next cut some holes and heat glue the fans in place. Notice drilled holes between magnets to vent heat

6A5CA26E-73C1-49E8-8C26-D24FD7AB0F70.jpeg (4.41 MiB) Viewed 1139 times

Not the prettiest hole job but it worked, use heat glue to fill in any air gaps

E8F28BBF-6E7F-4816-8C02-500E0A76CBDB.jpeg (4.91 MiB) Viewed 1139 times

Chip away any honeycomb to set wires into the honeycomb, don’t need wires hanging..

F61CDF6C-A1C5-49F1-ACFB-916E78877427.jpeg (2.85 MiB) Viewed 1139 times

Slap the door back on plug usb hub in Fire it up..
Oh and forget the RGB app, electrical tape to the rescue, cut strips for the top side LED’s and the large ACE onTop, leaving MAGICIAN lit up.. I use app to turn them off anyway, they are distractingly Bright, now it’s just right

E11A1A00-0538-4F8C-81AB-13A3E605950A.jpeg (2.21 MiB) Viewed 1139 times

Worked out Excellent, HDD’s are cool, top of the system gets just a little above room temperature now.. Can Feel the air coming out of the drilled holes..

I have saved my LED’s from burning up..
I need my power button LED, tells me what setting I have it at and that it’s powered up..

Hope this post helps others out..

Remember, when an m.2 HDD starts throttling, your game starts jittering, this solves any of that..
.

16ECAEFD-A461-4B2C-AB37-FE93EBBDAB6A.jpeg (2.19 MiB) Viewed 1139 times

Here’s the 30mm fans i used, they fit perfectly in the honeycomb, Any USB power cord will work

FDB2287F-5FB7-42F0-BDEA-33F303AC535E.jpeg (603.86 KiB) Viewed 1139 times

[MichaelG]

Updates:
Moving air around inside this LiL’DutchOven is very important, as all stray heat rises right up to our LED board and is trapped with no place to go, as the motherboard cover under the hard drive has a Lip that traps the heat with no venting..

There are No Vents Anywhere in the upper area of our AM08pro’s case, and the heat pipe vent is Not Sealed to the back of the case, so stray heat from that also rises to the top of our LiL’DutchOven..

So at the very least, Let’s vent the heat..
=Updated Drill Hole Locations to vent the heat=

3C01483E-71A8-482A-AC5E-CBB7F046AC50.jpeg (3.43 MiB) Viewed 847 times

These two drill holes are very important
They vent the trapped heat from the heat pipe

AE9429F5-C811-4F21-AA17-9439DED42D5D.jpeg (2.89 MiB) Viewed 847 times

C7C36468-5DF6-4C2F-AD83-9C5A6F02BE26.jpeg (1.63 MiB) Viewed 847 times

Here you see the Lip behind memory
That Traps the Heat, Drill baby Drill..
These drill holes line-up perfectly with the drill holes on the door cover between magnets

DE4D3A8E-B5FC-4526-A57E-0532A367970B.jpeg (2.51 MiB) Viewed 847 times

Clear pics of board cover Front and Back

719A5ADA-8429-4D6B-AFA3-704C84852ED2.jpeg (4.24 MiB) Viewed 847 times

984AB558-F96D-417A-B756-19A782E225BB.jpeg (2.27 MiB) Viewed 847 times

inside view of rear two holes to vent heat pipe

E3035E3C-8D73-4468-BF84-4B7FBF9569C5.jpeg (2 MiB) Viewed 847 times

ALL drilled holes line-up under the LED board
This Alone will reduce the heat up top

There are vents underneath the AM08pro that will allow convection to occur, IF you have a path for the heat to exit on top

Adding these vent holes are Significant

In my case with the fans installed, causing positive case pressure, all vent holes are forced exhaust..

Thanks for viewing my post, spent a few days putting this all together with the little details and pics for you to see. Hope it helps and if you have an idea Post it, I’d like to see what you did, show your work teachers always say LoL

Let’s keep our PC’s cool everyone..

[MichaelG]

Another Update:

So I have the Case nice and cool, the Hard Drive nice and cool, the entire motherboard has nice cool airflow..

Yet the cpu fans still burst full, slow down, burst full slow down, so we still have a thermal issue that needs to be addressed..

Running any cpu temp app shows the chip spiking 90°C repeatedly with general temps of 86-88°C during heavy gameplay, the TJMax is set at 90 in the bios so the cpu is throttling or “stuttering”.. This is an indication of thermal conductivity failure between cpu and heatsink, or inadequate heatsink assembly for the cpu..

Let’s play with the cpu heatsink surfaces
and find out what’s going on

Break everything down to the chip, not hard to do watch the Tear Down video on this forum..

When I removed the heat pipe assembly I was shocked to see thermal paste everywhere plastered across the entire chip square. And on the cpu die itself the paste was Wet consistency, and the rest was a dryer chunky consistency, that’s thermal paste failure, i just got this AM08pro less than 30 days ago..

This is the Wrong Paste for this type of cpu..

Picture is after 15 minutes of cleaning sheesh

1FCCF628-201C-4A8E-9BC9-1CEFDF1192F5.jpeg (4.11 MiB) Viewed 276 times

.
After applying an even layer of the Correct thermal paste for an open die cpu, we see Everything stabilize

The fans now never burst to full speed and instantly slow down, we have gradual fan speed increases

The cpu temps, well they are phenomenal..
During heavy gameplay 73°C averages
Maximum burst temp 81°C
Idle temps of 43-46°C depending on what background processes you have running

Never even touches Max TDP

This is what I used, has a high thermal of 13.8

E99E82C8-D634-4C07-B330-715733E38B7A.jpeg (614.82 KiB) Viewed 276 times

.
Now I am assuming y’all are familiar with the procedures to reassemble and everyone knows what I know, so I’ll touch the process just in case..

Clean everything up heatsink surface too
Bunch of Q-Tips works well here
Caution with surrounding surfaces of the actual cpu die, there are little resistors and such you Don’t want to flick off while cleaning, you’ll kill the chip

Apply an even layer of thermal paste across the cpu die only, the whole die as close to the edges as you can get, force of heatsink will squish paste over edges of die to conduct the die edge heat also

Lower heatsink straight on to position, eyeballing screw holes to ensure your centered, don’t let it slide around you’ll uneven the thermal paste on the cpu die..

Screws-
Crisscross X pattern tighten, the center 4 screws 1st, then do the 2 outside screws.. Done..

Reassemble is reversal of the way you took it apart
Pay attention to the fan sealing tape, ensure it seals each edge evenly, keeps air going through the heatsink

Enjoy the system it is done, and will last a lifetime