BPI-WiFi6 Mini Overheating Under Modem Load - Request for TR6560 Processor Pinout and PWM/Thermal Configuration Tips

Banana Pi Router design BPI-Wifi6/Wifi6 Mini(Triductor)
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Hello Banana Pi Community and Developers, I’ve been using the Banana Pi BPI-WiFi6 Mini as a compact Wi-Fi 6 router with a 5G modem module (Quectel RM500U) for . It’s a great little board with the Triductor TR6560 SoC, but I’m facing a significant overheating issue that’s impacting performance, and I’d appreciate any guidance or official details to help optimize it. Problem Description:

Under heavy load (e.g., high-speed data transfer via the modem + Wi-Fi traffic), the board temperature quickly exceeds 70-80°C (measured via CPU sensors in OpenWrt). Passive cooling (heatsink + thermal pad on the TR6560) is insufficient — after 10-15 minutes of sustained modem load, the board throttles CPU frequency, causing Wi-Fi speeds to drop by 30-50% and occasional instability. This happens even with optimized power settings (e.g., cpufreq on-demand governor), and the board runs noticeably hotter than similar MediaTek-based boards like the BPI-R3 Mini (which stays under 60°C in comparable scenarios). I suspect unnecessary background processes or misconfigured thermal management in the default BSP/OpenWrt images are contributing — perhaps Wi-Fi drivers or modem interfaces aren’t power-gated properly.

I’ve tried:

Latest OpenWrt snapshot (as of October 2025) with Wi-Fi 6 fixes. Disabling unused features (e.g., Bluetooth, unused Ethernet ports) via UCI. Adding a 40mm 3-pin fan to the header, but it runs at full speed constantly without PWM control, which is noisy and inefficient. Monitoring with lm-sensors and htop — no native thermal zones exposed for the SoC.

Request for Assistance:

Processor Pinout/Datasheet: Could the team share the pinout diagram or GPIO mapping for the Triductor TR6560 SoC, especially PWM-capable pins (for fan speed control) and any thermal sensor interfaces? The current docs (wiki.banana-pi.org) only cover basic UART, but nothing for advanced cooling. This would allow community members like me to hack custom PWM scripts or integrate better thermal throttling. PWM and Thermal Configuration Tips: Any recommended kernel patches or DTB overlays for enabling PWM fan control based on CPU temp? Or advice on optimizing modem-related processes (e.g., qmi_wwan driver) to reduce heat without losing performance? If there’s an upcoming BSP update with better thermal support, that would be fantastic.

I saw the related thread on fan control

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Hey, how do you get that temperature reading?

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I couldn’t find a way to query it like cat /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone0/temp, because it doesn’t have a thermal folder. Perhaps the only way is to measure the CPU temperature externally, like with a thermal gun.

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PWM is controlled by GPIO19. The schematics and bitmap information for WiFi6mini have been updated on the official website.

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Thermal management is definitely a challenge on these compact boards, especially when adding the heat overhead of a 5G modem. Since it was mentioned that GPIO19 controls the PWM, it might be worth looking into a custom overlay or a simple bash script to toggle the fan state until the thermal zones are properly exposed in the BSP. Have you had a chance to check if the updated schematics on the official wiki reveal any other GPIOs that might be tied to internal temp sensors?