Hello. The Raspberry Pi Foundation unveiled the Raspberry Pi 4 in June 2019.
Owners of the new Raspberry Pi 4 boards immediately faced the problem of the board overheating during prolonged operation.
The overheating issue was causing the performance of the Raspberry Pi 4 processor to decrease. To protect against damage even at 80 degrees Celsius the Raspberry Pi 4 processor slows down performance. The Raspberry Pi 4 GPU does the same at 85 degrees Celsius.
In the photo with a thermal camera you can see that some components of the board heat up to 50-75 degrees Celsius.
If the ambient temperature is high and the load continues, then the board easily reaches critical temperatures. Also, prolonged overheating shortens the life of electronic components.
Take a look at the structure of the Raspberry Pi 4 board and you will see that the main heating elements of the Raspberry Pi 4 board are a Broadcom BCM2711 processor, a Raspberry Pi 4 power system, a USB 3.0 / 2.0 controller, and RAM.
Accessory makers immediately started releasing cooling systems for the Raspberry Pi 4. But many of these solutions have a fan that makes noise and breaks.
Also, many of these Raspberry Pi 4 cooling solutions only cool the processor or CPU and RAM.
In my opinion, the best solution is to transfer heat from all heating components to the outside of the case.
Cooling radiator case for Raspberry Pi 4
The solution to overheating problem for the Raspberry Pi 4 came from China as usual.
The P4 + SRZ008 case has a compact box and a minimalist set of 5 bolts (1 spare) and heat transfer spacers. This cooling case costs about $ 10. I think the body is made of regular steel.
You can see in the photo that I removed the paint from the cooling contacts with sandpaper.
However, you should be careful when buying such a case, because there are case revisions that are not cooled by all 4 heating components of the Raspberry Pi 4.
Here are examples of the wrong Raspberry Pi 4 cooling cases
The assembly of the case is quite simple. I also placed a 3mm layer of thermal padding on the back of the Raspberry Pi 4 board to dissipate heat from both sides of the Raspberry Pi 4 board.
If you want to use the GPIO connectors on your Raspberry Pi 4, you can use the GPIO extender. For example, something like this:
Raspberry Pi 4 cooling test
The Raspberry Pi 4 Broadcom BCM2711 processor idle temperature is 39-40 degrees Celsius. The temperature in the room was 28 degrees Celsius.
After an hour and a half of 100% stress test load, the Raspberry Pi 4 processor temperature was stable at 50-60 degrees Celsius. 10 minutes after the end of the stress test the CPU temperature dropped to 46 degrees Celsius.
Other Cooling Case Options for Raspberry Pi 4
You can also find Flirc case tests online.
The case is made of aluminum, which better conducts heat away from the Raspberry Pi 4 processor. But the Flirc case does not cool the power and USB controllers, as well as the Raspberry Pi 4 RAM.
P.S. If you liked this article, then you can support this site with a donation.
