Nov 01, 2023 08:00:00

I installed a genuine active cooler on 'Raspberry Pi 5' and checked the cooling part and interference with HAT.

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Raspberry Pi 5 ', which began shipping on October 23, 2023, comes with a genuine active cooler ' Raspberry Pi Active Cooler ' sold separately. A sample of the genuine active cooler arrived at the GIGAZINE editorial department, so we actually checked the procedure for installing it on the Raspberry Pi 5, the cooling part, and the interference with the HAT.

Raspberry Pi 5 – Raspberry Pi
https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/raspberry-pi-5/

Raspberry Pi Active Cooler – Raspberry Pi
https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/active-cooler/

◆Check the appearance and cooling parts of Raspberry Pi Active Cooler
The Raspberry Pi Active Cooler package looks like this.

Inside the package was the Raspberry Pi Active Cooler itself. The size is 42.50mm long x 63.50mm wide x 13.70mm thick.

There are 3 thermal pads pasted on the back.

Thermal pads are attached to the Raspberry Pi 5's ``wireless communication management chip'', ``SoC (Broadcom BCM2712)'', and ``power management chip area'' in a position that cools them.

The fan was made by CoolCox .

The size of the fan is 30mm x 30mm.

Since the screw holes that secure the fan and the exterior are not aligned, it may be difficult to use general-purpose products.

◆Steps to install Raspberry Pi Active Cooler on Raspberry Pi 5
No tools are required to install the Raspberry Pi Active Cooler, just push the pins into the two holes circled in red on the Raspberry Pi 5 and connect the fan connector.

The installation procedure is as follows. First, remove the fan connector cover.

Next, place the pins in the two holes and push them in firmly.

Finally, connect the fan connector to complete the installation.

This is what Raspberry Pi 5 looks like with Raspberry Pi Active Cooler attached.

When looking at the height of the Raspberry Pi Active Cooler from the side, it was lower than the USB port.

The actual weight of Raspberry Pi 5 with Raspberry Pi Active Cooler attached was 71g.

◆When Raspberry Pi Active Cooler is installed on Raspberry Pi 5, HAT interferes
Like the previous Raspberry Pi series, Raspberry Pi 5 can expand its functionality by attaching an optional board called a HAT to the GPIO header. I was curious if I could attach a HAT with the Raspberry Pi Active Cooler attached, so I actually tried attaching two types of HATs.

First, I tried installing the HAT '

Pimoroni Unicorn pHAT - 4x8 RGB LED ', which has few parts on the back of the board, but the Raspberry Pi Active Cooler hit the back of the board and I couldn't insert it all the way.

If you look at it from the side, you can see that the back side of the board and the heat sink are interfering with each other.

Next, when I tried installing the HAT '

pHAT DAC ' attached to a component on the back of the board, the component and fan interfered.

There was also a gap in the GPIO header.

The Raspberry Pi Foundation is developing an M.2 HAT for the Raspberry Pi 5, but when the

overseas media 'Tom's Hardware' interviewed James Adam, COO of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, Adam said that .2 A prototype HAT was presented, and it was confirmed that the height of the GPIO header was achieved.

Although the Raspberry Pi 5 that arrived from the Raspberry Pi Foundation to the GIGAZINE editorial department has not received technical standard conformity certification, it has already been notified of the ``Special System for Experiments Using Equipment Not Obtained Technical Compliance.'' We are planning to publish a review article including benchmark results soon.

◆Forum now open
GIGAZINE's official Discord server has a forum related to Raspberry Pi 5. Anyone can write from the link below, so please write something like 'I'm curious about ○○'.

• Discord | 'Raspberry Pi 5 has arrived at the GIGAZINE editorial department, so I'm going to review it, but what do you want to know? ' | GIGAZINE
https://discord.com/channels/1037961069903216680/1166304963497041981