That depends on the content you are playing.
How old is your device?
I wonder if your heatsink needs re-seating.
It’s from August, 2019.
It’s possible the heatsink is not making a good connection to the SoC. As the device isn’t in warranty now, you could open and reseat it / check it’s making a good connection.
You can use a butter knife gently around the edges to prise the device open. There are no screws. It then just clicks back together.
You should check if the heat sink is making good contact with the SoC.
You might also want to clean some of that residue off the chip.
That’s kind of hard to tell. But if I clean off that residue on the chip and put the lid back on briefly, then the chip gets some of the residue from the white square thing so they must be making contact when the lid is on.
Okay. It’s possible the plate is too tightly screwed down and isn’t making good enough contact with the SoC.
So loosen the screw on the metal plate a bit and put the lid back on? Is the white rubber square supposed to be where it is in the picture?
Yes, the square looks to be in the correct position. Maybe some thermal paste if you had some would help improve the heat dissipation.
To see if things are working, you could actually try operating the device with the lid off. If the temperatures aren’t higher, then you likely have your answer
It seems to make little or no difference running with the lid off. I’ve been running the 60fps UHD/HEVC video for 25 minutes now and the CPU temperature seems to have stagnated at 110-113C which is comparable to my previous post: No signal from device after playing 60fps content - #77 by stefannh
So this suggest that heat isn’t dissipating at all through the heat sink. I can try and order some thermal paste. Would that go directly on the white square or directly on the chip?
The chip probably makes more sense in your case.
If you’re having to place an order it would be better or replace the thermal pad than add thermal paste if that is available to you. You would have to pay attention to the thickness of the pad you order though as the Vero uses one that is thicker than what is most common. If you do go the thermal paste route I would highly recommend using the really cheap stuff (zinc oxide based) because it is non-conductive and it does not migrate with heat cycles.
I already placed the order, and luckily it says that the paste I went with is “non-electrical conductive” so that’s good. I tried looking for a thermal pad but can only find ones that are either 1mm or 1.5mm thick which isn’t nearly enough to match what’s there. Are you allowed to stack them?
Stacking them isn’t ideal as each joint will progressively reduce thermal conductivity. Lots of the pastes available are non-conductive outside of zinc oxide but more often than not your pastes sold as being for CPU use at a premium price are non-hardening and relatively thin. This is desirable when you have two rigid flat surfaces that are clamped down under force, less so in other applications. The thinner stuff will work, but it might become less effective over time due to migration which would then require reapplication. For example Kryonaut is exceptional for CPU use but many find they get increased temps within months especially when used in high temp applications.
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So I applied some thermal paste directly onto the chip and also loosened the screw for the heatsink a tiny bit. This has had the impact that temperatures while playing 60fps 4K HEVC stuff builds up more slowly but I’m still reaching high temperatures. Now, it takes around 50 minutes to reach temperatures around 110C. In that time, I’m not seeing too many skipped frames, at least not enough to notice them upon playback (~200 skipped frames in the first 50 minutes). After that I’m starting get a lot of skipped frames and so many that it’s noticable upon playback (currently at 2200 skipped frames 60 minutes in).
So while it seems to have helped some, I still can’t play a full movie at 60fps at 4K with the HEVC codec (with audio passtrough). And I fear that it’ll just get worse as the effect of the thermal paste wears down. To be honest, I’m a bit annoyed having to go through this process apparently because I was unlucky enough to get a copy of the box with heat issues.
Edit: Temperature’s now at 112 C, so just as bad as before, it just took longer to get here.
So after how many minutes of playing Gemini Man you are reaching that temperatures?
Because I have it playing for 30 minutes now and only reached 99 deg
After applying thermal paste I get above 100C after 30 minutes, and I end at 110C-113C after about 50-60 minutes. Before thermal paste, I was at 110C-113C after 25 minutes or so (per my previous post).
Ok let me run it longer to check if it goes above 100C after 60 minutes.
Sofar nearly no drops (most likely only caused by switching on the debug screen.
Thanks. Keep in mind that others have reported no issues regarding temperatures and playback of this file in this thread: