over-heating

Power discussions, CPU and case temperature
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ronace
Posts: 4
Joined: Tue Oct 02, 2012 12:32 pm

over-heating

Post by ronace »

hi. my fitpc3 with ssd is overheating (!) the specs state that max temperature is 70C, my room is definately NOT that hot, but the fitpc3 is very hot to the touch and eventually shuts down.
is this a hardware problem? should i use some setting?
i'm very happy that fitpc doesnt have a fan, and therefore very discouraged that i have to place an old cpu fan over it constantly.... :(
any help would be greatly appreciated !

mbirger

Re: over-heating

Post by mbirger »

fit-PC3 is a fan-less computer and definitely doesn't need any fan to operate when within specs. Please verify no damage on the power supply, or storage drive. Otherwise consider RMA:
http://www.fit-pc.com/web/support/rma/

eapperley
Posts: 6
Joined: Thu Apr 04, 2013 9:23 pm

Re: over-heating

Post by eapperley »

We have experienced exactly the same problem - we have two units. Most of the time the CPU is idle and its never handling video streams and the CPU load is never high.

The room temperature does not exceed 35C, the units are supported on a ventilated tray in the middle of a rack. The symptom we have experienced is exactly the same - we have to reboot.

The only workaround we have found is to mount an external fan on top of the CPU boxes. So much fan-less PCs ...

Can you advise how the stress testing was done on these units during development?

irads

Re: over-heating

Post by irads »

fit-PC3 is often deployed in much more difficult conditions than described here.
Please advise what version of fit-PC3 you are using, what SSD, operting system and the details of the observation.
FYI, in-house testing included running fit-PC3 under load in a heated temperature chamber.

Sent from my GT-N7100 using Tapatalk

eapperley
Posts: 6
Joined: Thu Apr 04, 2013 9:23 pm

Re: over-heating

Post by eapperley »

Irad,

I can't get access to the site at present and the users aren't keen on removing the fan for testing, but here are some details.

fit-PC3 LP Diskless (AMD G-T40E CPU, 4GB RAM)
SSD is an ADATA SX900 64GB drive
Wireless LAN is disabled
2 x Self-Powered Seagate 2TB USB drives on front USB ports
OS is Ubuntu Server 12.04 LTS

Utilisation:
Used only as a file and print server. System has only 6 users, one of whom is generally not using his PC. The other users only back-up their CAD and software files to the server. Also used as a common file repository for the engineering group.
Does an incremental file backup from the main USB drive to backup USB drive daily at noon.
Shuts off to save power at 10pm daily (wake-on-LAN configured so that it starts when the first workstation is powered on.
There is no application software running under the server OS - no web server or database server.
Server is idle for >95% of the time.

Installed 2013 - heat issues noted within first week. Failures became evident when users found that they were unable to access the server. Initially always resolved by turning off the server, waiting 5 minutes and restarting the server. After several weeks a small fan was placed to the side of the server blowing horizontally across the top surface of the Fit-PC case. There have been no failures reported since implementing this workaround.

irads

Re: over-heating

Post by irads »

Thanks for the detailed report.

My analysis -
fit-PC3 T40E is a very-low-power system (T40E is rated at 6.4W) so direct thermal issues are very uncommon.

I see 3 possible explanations:
1. Heating occurs in another system element e.g. the ADATA SSD which leads to system failure.
2. Production fault that leads to poor thermal coupling between the CPU and the housing. Not likely if similar behavior is observed with two units as you stated before.
3. Coincidence - that is the failure is not due to thermal issues but due to another factor.

Depending on how much you wish to investigate the problem further we can help with analysis.
I would suggest to first look at the relevant temperature numbers - CPU temperature through LM Sensors and SSD temeprature through S.M.A.R.T.
You may also run memtest since marginal memory often affects system stability.

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