Concern over Pi 2 heat output

[rpiswag]

I am worried when I play open arena at 1 ghz on the pi 2 running all 4 cores on the cpu and the core on the gpu to 100% the pi will damage it's self and the warranty will be voided. Is it normal for the pi under this kind of load to burn my finger or will the pi use thermal throttling to keep it's self from going critical. If this helps I overclocked the pi 2 to the pi 2 overclock setting on the raspi-config menu.

[EtonMess]

Yesterday I was seeing 45 degrees on my lxpanel temperature app.

I know that some people use a fan and heat sink on thier Pis, I've never felt the need to go that far.

[rpdom]

Checking the temperature is a lot more accurate than touching the chip. Yes, computer chips do get hot. This is quite normal. Some chips can run hot enough to boil water (although this will often reduce their lifespan).

45°C is a fairly normal temperature for a Pi SoC. It may hurt to keep your finger on it at that temperature. It will certainly hurt if the chip gets to 60°C, and that is still a normal temperature when loaded. You should really only worry if you are frequently seeing temperatures of over 80°C as that means your chip may have to slow down to cool off for a bit. Putting a heatsink on it in that case will mean it doesn't have to slow down so often. If you don't get that situation, don't bother with a heatsink.

[jamesh]

I am worried when I play open arena at 1 ghz on the pi 2 running all 4 cores on the cpu and the core on the gpu to 100% the pi will damage it's self and the warranty will be voided. Is it normal for the pi under this kind of load to burn my finger or will the pi use thermal throttling to keep it's self from going critical. If this helps I overclocked the pi 2 to the pi 2 overclock setting on the raspi-config menu.

No, you cannot void the warranty by making it work hard. The chips themselves are capable of going well over 100c without any real damage but will automatically throttle themselves at 85.

[rpiswag]

For my own personal preference can I lower the temp at which the thermal throttling starts. If I can how do I do it.

[mahjongg]

I don't think you can its fixed at that temperature, but you can always chose not to overclock, then its a moot point at which temperature the PI shuttles the overclocking back.

note its this throttling back at 85 degrees what makes that you can overclock without loosing the guarantee, so tweaking the temperature at which it throttles back is not allowable.

[rpiswag]

Is there a way to keep the pi cool (in the 55c and below range) while running a game like open arena at the max settings for my monitor (1080p).

[DavidS]

Is there a way to keep the pi cool (in the 55c and below range) while running a game like open arena at the max settings for my monitor (1080p).

I would think it would help to run your monitor at 1024x768, or 1280x1024. Or 1280x720 if it is a wide screen monitor.

[rpdom]

For my own personal preference can I lower the temp at which the thermal throttling starts. If I can how do I do it.

I think you can do this by setting "temp_limit =xx" in config.txt, where xx is less than 85. It might not be able to stop your Pi going over that temperature in a warm environment, but it will disable any overclocking if it gets to that temperature.

[rpiswag]

Thanks that was very helpful. I love the pi forums site! Yay!