In this short tutorial we’ll see where to place the heatsinks on the Raspberry Pi 4 B. After completed this tutorial, your Raspberry Pi will be equipped with the necessary heatsinks.
In contrast to the previous Raspberry Pi models where a set of heatsinks was just advisable and not always necessary, with the Raspberry Pi 4 B we have a completely different situation. Here the CPU gets really hot under normal load or even at idle. If the board is mounted in a closed enclosure (as the official Raspberry Pi case), the CPU starts to throttle in no time and consequently a loss of performances is inevitable.
Placing heatsinks on the CPU will certainly help to dissipate the heat. But if you use a closed case, there is very little chance for the heat to dissipate. Because an effective heat dissipation solution is really critical for the Raspberry Pi 4, beside placing the heatsinks, we advise to use well ventilated cases and / or cases provided with a fan.
What you’ll need for this tutorial
You need a kit which includes the aluminium heatsinks for the Raspberry Pi 4 B:
- 14 x 14 x 6 mm (for CPU) with 3M conductivity thermal adhesive
- 9 x 9 x 5 mm (for USB controller) with 3M conductivity thermal adhesive
- 9 x 9 x 5 mm (for ethernet controller) with 3M conductivity thermal adhesive
If you’re missing a set, don’t hesitate to visit our shop : http://freva.com/product/heatsink/
Which components are getting hot?
- the processor is by far the component which really gets hot. A board without case, without heatsinks, running at idle reaches easily a temperature of about 60°C! The CPU temperature increases to more than 80°C with a board in a closed case and a CPU loaded at 25%. Luckily there is a built in sensor that sets the CPU to throttle as soon as 80°C is reached. This behavior affects the performance of the processor of course.
- the temperature of the USB controller will increase depending on the type and number of connected USB devices.
- finally there is the Ethernet controller
Remark : The RAM doesn’t add additional heat to the board. It’s useless to put a heatsink on this component.
Placing the heatsinks
Let’s see now where to place the heatsinks …
As shown in the figure on the top of this page, it is very easy to place nicely the 3 heatsinks which are already provided with thermal adhesive.
If you are looking for a set of heatsinks, have a look at our shop.
And if you are interested in learning to program electronic components on your Raspberry Pi, don’t hesitate to visit our shop. We have a nice kit which contains all the things you need tot start.