Heatsink quality and quantity?

I don't have any background specialty dealing with SOCs, but decades with other devices that get hot. That's not to say I really have a grasp what makes a good heatsink, other than it should conduct from hot part to heatsink, conduct heat away and allow air to cool the outermost part of the heatsink. No problem, I've hoarded heatsinks from anything recycled or thrown away, and ordered some heat sink cement (thanks for advice Gravelrash).

But wait, while waiting 30 days for that order to come in, I spy 5 heatsinks for $1 from Singapore, so order $2 worth, great I'll have 10 of them with thermal adhesive behind the sticker. In my mind's eye I think I'd make cuts against the grain with a power tool to allow more surface area for air to carry heat away, but so far so good.

Then after looking at Beelink X2 pictures, there's more than a few chips. So how do I know which ones deserve heat sinks? Just run it hard and touch with finger? I'll also carefully drill holes at strategic places of the plastic box and that ought to take stress from heat conducting on the circuit board copper.

The reason being, any electronics over the years that I've cooled or filtered noisy electricity, pretty much everything still runs, and at full kilter and overdrive. There's one month a summer where it's humid here and hot days, and if I don't run a fan directly it'll be near enough a room fan.

So how do you approach cooling and heatsinks? And thank you.

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Joey,

A bit off topic if you don't mind.

What do you think to make your own heatsink using the evaporate and/or condenser tubes found in an air conditioner unit?

ones to cool are the SOC themselves and the power regulator chips

habibie Wrote:
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> What do you think to make your own heatsink using
> the evaporate and/or condenser tubes found in an a
> ir conditioner unit?

I'd give it a season of hobby just for the knowledge. Like anything mechanical with a lifespan it's usually heat, contamination and vibration (and in the case of electronics, bad electricity) that reduce lifespan.


Gravelrash Wrote:
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> ones to cool are the SOC themselves and the power
> regulator chips

I'll be on the lookout. I gave up a couple of WYSE Thin Clients to Best Buy for recycling, but all of the serious ThinClients have a large slab of aluminum (Al-you-mini-uhm) that is quite effective for main CPU and graphics processor.

There will be experiments in my future dealing with passive cooling, aluminum metalwork including rivets, and get to the bottom of these questions. But as for the X2's, nothing complicated, just a hedge of protection as the good steward I am :-)

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