I’m making a custom case for BPI M2 Zero, to house the board itself, a 30x30x7mm 5V fan mounted above CPU heatsink, and Ethernet breakout board. I am planning to use low profile 14x14x6mm aluminum heatsink for CPU, and no heatsink for RAM. The case will have some ventilation holes but not many, to keep clean looks.
Is this enough, or do I need to use a larger heatsink for CPU and/or add a heatsink for RAM?
Also, is it OK to use the board with such small heatsink and no fan for a while, outside of case, to determine that it functions OK before soldering headers - or do I need to immediately add fan for cooling it?
@sinovoip thank you, I will add a heatsink to RAM. What about CPU heatsink size, is aluminum 14x14x6 enough or should I get a copper and/or larger heatsink? Currently I am using this type.
Small heatsink on CPU is a must. There will still be cpu frequency throttling during high load (make sure you have that working, otherwise at ~90 degrees the hardware will do a hard freeze) but my measurements show that adding a fan to M2 Zero is more hassle than it’s worth, at 4-core 100% cpu load it would still work around five-ten percent of the time.
@Tomash thank you. I already installed 6mm high heatsinks on the CPU and RAM. My case will be mostly enclosed, with little ventilation, so I thought the fan is necessary. I will test the device before adding the fan. My experience with other H2 SBCs tells me they do need a fan when used in similar scenarios.
