Plug's temperature

[john3voltas]

One of these days I had to open my Seagate Dockstar.
I removed the top cover and haven't put it back on. Once in a while I get close to it and I can feel it burning hot.
I don't have a thermometer but I would say that it's around 50~60º Celcius which for a CPU that doesn't come with a proper heat sink I would say it's too hot.
Are these 50~60ºC a normal "reading" for a Kirkwood that is basically idling all day long?

I tried using lm_sensors but apparently it doesn't work on a Kirkwood.
Do Kirkwoods even have temperature sensors?
If so, is there any tool that I can use to properly read temperature sensors on Kirkwoods?

[WarheadsSE]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('john3voltas', 'I') don't have a thermometer but I would say that it's around 50~60º Celcius

[john3voltas]

I honestly can't tell if it really falls within 50..60 but it sure is a whole lot hotter than 40º which is an air temperature that we get around here in the summer. It's really hot.
I see that the operating temperature range is very wide and goes well above 100ºC.
But usually I get a bit nervous when I know a cpu is very hot.
Does anyone know a good Mod to keep the Dockstar cool? I wouldn't even mind if I had to change the case.

[moonman]

Is it under load or idling? You could try linux-kirkwood-dt and set the governor to ondemand on boot given that you have mainline uboot and the device idles most of the time. Otherwise don't worry about it since its within the allowed range. My gfh gets hot too doing 100% load for days sometimes. I did replace the hdd for a slower one (wd green which i think is 5900 rpm) as i think the previous 2 died because of heat, but thats probably specific to just gfh because of hdd case without any ventelation.

[bodhi]

Dockstar: I used a set of 4 plastic feet to raise it higher. This reduced temperature quite a bit.
GF Home: you could open up the HDD (quite easy) and drill some holes for more ventilation. As matter of fact, I did that for one that I bought a case separately and install a 5400rpm HDD in it! There was a time when you can get a factory refurb GFHome for $USD 10 and a HDD case for $USD 6 on eBay:)

[john3voltas]

@moonman
Yes, mine is hot and it's basically idling...
I did check on the DT kernel. But then I saw this:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', 'If you are not familiar with the care and feeding of a DT
enabled kernel for your device, uninstall this package and
continue to use linux or linux-kirkwood for now.
')
Unfortunately I must admit that I am not familiar with DT at all so I reinstalled the regular kernel back on it.
I guess I would gladly add a proper heat sink if I did know how to remove that black piece of rubber that already comes on top of the cpu without damaging the unit. And add a fan, although I must admit that I would get upset with a cpu fan making noise in my little girl's bedroom.
I gotta admit: I'm a cpu temperature freak

@bodhi
I've read other posts from you saying that you put silicon-rubber feet on your dockstar.
That's weird because the rubber feet would help cool air getting inside the case, right? But the stock case on my dockstar doesn't have any holes on the bottom of it. At all.
Maybe you have a modded case with holes? If so, could you please post some pics?

[bodhi]

Perhaps you should get a new case then! I remember somebody has made new Dockstar case for sale (lots of ventilation). Mine runs a lot cooler with more airflow under it.

[john3voltas]

@bodhi
Sorry mate. I updated my previous post while you added your previous post.
Could you please check again?

EDIT: this is the only mod I've seen with a proper new case.
http://bastel.dyndns.info/~dockstar/mods/
If only I could buy a similar case.

A weird thing about this topic: everytime I try to quote a post (at least from this topic I get a message saying "This topic is too old to reply, so, it's locked now. Thanks.". But it still allows me to simply add a new post

[moonman]

@bodhi I did not feel like ruining a solid looking case my 5900rpm will beat your 5400rpm speedwise

@john3voltas if you have mainline uboot installed you don't need to do anything extra. Double check $this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', 'fw_printenv | grep fdt_file')
It should output:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', 'fdt_file=/boot/dtbs/kirkwood-dockstar.dtb')

[bodhi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('moonman', '@')bodhi I did not feel like ruining a solid looking case my 5900rpm will beat your 5400rpm speedwise