Overheating

R

romah

New member
Hi,
I rencently purchased a Minix Neo G41V-4 (1 month ago).
It's overheating and crash when I simply stream a video in HD (after 40 minute of use).
Is there a way to replace the fanless cooling system with another solution? I'm thinking to install a fan like this one: https://www.lc-power.com/en/product/cpu-cooler/lc-cc-65/
What do you think? Good or bad idea?

If yes, could you provide me a schematic where to plug the fan (3 wire) ?

I'm open for any other solution/alternative.

In advance many thanks & Best Regards,
Roma
 
I don't believe the device has standard mounting points. You best option is to clean the system, and/or purchase a USB fan that can help move air. Something like this Screenshot_2021-06-29-23-44-45-48_b5f6883d2c20a96c53babc0b4ac88108.jpg

Before any of that, I would email support to ask their opinion. Even with essentially no cooling, the device should throttle - not shut down entirely unless there's a problem elsewhere.
 
romah said:
Hi,
I rencently purchased a Minix Neo G41V-4 (1 month ago).
It's overheating and crash when I simply stream a video in HD (after 40 minute of use).
Is there a way to replace the fanless cooling system with another solution? I'm thinking to install a fan like this one: https://www.lc-power.com/en/product/cpu-cooler/lc-cc-65/
What do you think? Good or bad idea?

If yes, could you provide me a schematic where to plug the fan (3 wire) ?

I'm open for any other solution/alternative.

In advance many thanks & Best Regards,
Roma
Click to expand...

tonemapped said:
I don't believe the device has standard mounting points. You best option is to clean the system, and/or purchase a USB fan that can help move air. Something like this View attachment 3481

Before any of that, I would email support to ask their opinion. Even with essentially no cooling, the device should throttle - not shut down entirely unless there's a problem elsewhere.
Click to expand...

How are you measuring this excess heat? Various system monitoring tools? Specialist hardware externally? The back of your hand held against the external casing of the device ;)?

Otherwise, I'd be more concerned as to what's actually causing overheating to that extent to begin with rather than trying to treat the symptoms which may or may not help anyway if there's another underlying problem at play!!

(These devices have been extensively stress tested to handle significant heat at high ambient temperatures, & obviously still function perfectly well using a passive cooling system only.)

If you have the device sat on top of or underneath another electronic device that's also producing its own heat as well, I'd advise that you ensure sufficient space for the device to passively cool itself in the first instance. If it's in tight proximity to other heat producing devices, allow it a little extra space given that it relies on passive cooling alone too.

Secondly, if you hadn't already you can install some very low resource intensive system monitoring tools that may give you an indication if the system is essentially being overworked or not throttling down /idling correctly when it should which could potentially cause excessive heat.

See how you fair with that or what results that gives you & share your recorded temps/information for comparison if you wish :). If your device happens to be significantly hotter than normal obviously you can consider other alternatives based on your findings such as a return & exchange if you only made your purchase one month ago.

(P.S. @tonemapped , I've quoted & replied to your response purely as an FYI as you're already a part of the conversation, obviously you're already aware of potential causes & remedies etc. ;)!!!)
 
ArcticWolf said:
How are you measuring this excess heat? Various system monitoring tools? Specialist hardware externally? The back of your hand held against the external casing of the device ;)?

Otherwise, I'd be more concerned as to what's actually causing overheating to that extent to begin with rather than trying to treat the symptoms which may or may not help anyway if there's another underlying problem at play!!

(These devices have been extensively stress tested to handle significant heat at high ambient temperatures, & obviously still function perfectly well using a passive cooling system only.)

If you have the device sat on top of or underneath another electronic device that's also producing its own heat as well, I'd advise that you ensure sufficient space for the device to passively cool itself in the first instance. If it's in tight proximity to other heat producing devices, allow it a little extra space given that it relies on passive cooling alone too.

Secondly, if you hadn't already you can install some very low resource intensive system monitoring tools that may give you an indication if the system is essentially being overworked or not throttling down /idling correctly when it should which could potentially cause excessive heat.

See how you fair with that or what results that gives you & share your recorded temps/information for comparison if you wish :). If your device happens to be significantly hotter than normal obviously you can consider other alternatives based on your findings such as a return & exchange if you only made your purchase one month ago.

(P.S. @tonemapped , I've quoted & replied to your response purely as an FYI as you're already a part of the conversation, obviously you're already aware of potential causes & remedies etc. ;)!!!)
Click to expand...
That's why I suggested emailing support as the device shutting down indicates a problem elsewhere (VRM overheating).
 
tonemapped said:
That's why I suggested emailing support as the device shutting down indicates a problem elsewhere (VRM overheating).
Click to expand...

Many thanks for your answers. I appreciate.

I've monitored my Neo G41V-4 using "Core Temp 1.17.1". After 20 minutes of video streaming with an average of 35% of load on all 4 cpu it get 90°C. It's quite hot no? My room temperature is regulated at 20°C (AC).
Device is on a table free of air obstruction and wihout any device above/below.

Minix Support told me:
There is a socket for fan. However, this socket has 4 pins, not the standard 3-pin socket. This socket is designed for a special fan.
Click to expand...
Waiting support to let me know if I can get a "Special Fan"...

Any others suggestions/tips/help greatly appreciated. In the mean time I continue to investigate the issue.
 
I would try HWiNFO, which provides more information from other sensors. It's also worth, although very much at your own risk, using ThrottleStop to limit the PL1 and PL2 states. I can provide instructions but you should really wait to hear from official support first. 90°C for video streaming (assuming using native decoding via UHD 600) is unacceptable, though I believe the G41V-4 is a 'fanless design' which I dislike and will run hotter. 90°C is within spec. but not ideal.
 
Villa said:
https://www.cnx-software.com/2019/10/28/minix-neo-g41v-4-fanless-mini-pc-review-unboxing-teardown/
Click to expand...

MINIX-NEO-G41V-4-Board-M.2-SATA-SSD-WiFi-Large.jpg


An Option
That's that BGA1090 with (what look like) non-standard mounting holes. A very simple solution would be to measure the heatsink (diagonally) and purchase a 3-pin fan (as mentioned by Support) with reasonable CFM. This would cost ~£10 (US$14). Plugging that into the PCB via the 3-pin header and using even cable ties around the heatsink should severely reduce the heat. That still doesn't explain the rather large heatsink not being able to cool a > 10W SoC.

A Request/Flaw
One major difference I've noticed between the Minix and Intel NUCs is a lack of voltage control in the BIOS. For example, the J5005 BIOS believes it's suitable to use 1.3v for a '10W TDP' part (realistically ~14W peak sustained).

That's absurd. It would be great to ask the technical team if they could enable basic voltage control in the BIOS (even a list of pre-defined max voltages, such as 1.350, 1.325, 1.250, etc.). The J5005 can happily fully boost with only 1.15v-1.20v, based on reports from multiple users.

Thoughts
And from experience, I believe this would make a very large difference to the number of returns/support tickets. A problem like the one raised above could be down to the PCB overvoltage due to look-up tables being very liberal in nature. Just my two pence.

These truly are excellent machines with the Minix-level of quality people expect, but the BIOS functionality is lacking compared to rivals. Another thing that's lacking is driver support/updates. Release-day drivers are not suitable after four years since the SoC launched. Even the atrocious BeeLink has a dedicated driver page.

*This is meant to be constructive criticism as I truly love Minix. Please don't take it the wrong way.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top