Argon one V2 Vs ice tower cooler Test. Part 2

[@mariopojoy]

I'm glad my hunch about those cables was confirmed. I have both V1 and V2 versions of that case with the m.2 add-on on some of them and they work properly without issues, (I'm using an Argon USB-C 5.25V 3.5A PSU from their site) plus they look really nice and tidy on my desk.

[@virtuallifeform]

Since the top of the Argon One V2 is basically a big heat sink; I'm not surprised it keeps the RPi cooler. I've been very happy with the performance of mine (The M.2 version) over about a year and a half. It's a very nice and tidy piece of kit, too. 👍

[@jyvben1520]

sadly the top is sloping, adding a metal weight on top aids in further cooling ... the weight could hook into the removable gpio lid breach, a metal 3d print could be nice.

[@bo-bodad8253]

Glad to see you worked out the mystery. Always enjoy your videos.

[@LilRedDog]

Thank you for the thoroughness of the benchmarking/testing. I do agree with the comments that say "let's see how it does after the case becomes saturated with heat". My house is warm: thermostat is set to 74f at night and 76f during the day. My Pi4 idles ~50c. I do not agree with having 3 options for fan speed and not utilizing them all. If the ICE cooler has only one setting, that is on them. I do see 55c often; seldom more than that and I use the suggested values. I'm too old to hear the fan kick in at 10% rpms and I have never seen 60c in the case. But: this is a toy for me and I do not use it as my daily driver. Your temps may vary.

[@pendragonscode]

Hey its the guy that started this video

[@LilRedDog]

@@pendragonscode Maybe the impetuous? On a secondary note: I would like to see option3; 3 used and start cooling at room temperatures then Overclocked to 2300 with 100% fan... Keep the Pi as cool as possible for OOW experiments. If that does not work, dry ice it. Liquid nitrogen it... Exactly what can that thing do if JayzTwoCents it... Collaboration? That would be so cool (pun intended) Just curious...

[@patslee1394]

thank you for excellent part 2 ive been too chicken to try highest overclock as so dam hard to get a new pi and afraid to kill my kodi player,.also thanks to LilRedDog for making possible.. im going to move my 8gb pi to my argon case and use my ms2 with lees os as it just works so well after changing the kde connect + wallet settings. 10/10 both for info

[@stevepoling]

I love my Argon cases. However, I think it may have had an unfair advantage in your test. The Argon case has a lot more thermal mass to work with than the competition. Your case starts out at room temperature that's well below the PI operating temperature. It would be interesting to see whether the Argon still wins a much longer, say overnight, heat/stress test.

[@normanleblanc8113]

I can respect the effort to get the comparison right but it is funny to have you talking about a possible conspiracy theory then have you tease us and make us wait a day for part 2. From this video I swapped my 8 gig pi into the Argon case and put the cooler on the 4 gig pi I use as a bitcoin node so many thanks great videos

[@iam.jasonhoward]

Yeah, Argon cases are still my favorite.

[@kevinhughes9801]

Excellent vids love the argon not long had one and its amazing. Need to get the add on for m.2 drives would make great media server

[@aarons7135]

I have this argon case and ice tower cooler. My experience with cooling performance is the ice tower cooler performs better without a doubt. If I run for retro gaming or for a desktop pc, the argon case gets hotter.

[@SmithyScotland]

You had too many variables from the start. If you do similar again use the same pi, cables, PSU etc. Just swap whatever you're testing. Those PSUs were designed for older pi's. With all those adapters you will have a fair voltage drop.

[@dundeemt]

The case directs the airflow, where as the caseless one doesn't have the same heat flow causing air flow in a non-chaotic fashion.

[@alanb76]

My Argon one case has a lot of thermal mass, but the fan isn't too good at bringing the temperature down. So it has a very long averaging time compared to other coolers.

[@Phoenix0896]

For the ArgonOne case, how about doing temperature comparisons between fan configuration. Do one test with the fan blowing down on the Pi and the other with the fan blowing upward?

[@Henkie0011]

Thanks for that. I worried about my ssd temperature this (hot) summer also. I think i'm going to try one of those small heatsinks you can put on your m.2 with some elastic bands and the thermal tape. It worked for my PC. Maybe the temperature is also better because the Argon connects the GPU also to the case?

[@boudivv]

Brilliant idea! Cliffhanger YT.

[@Mr.Smith101]

If you happen to notice the Argon One case getting warm while taxing it, I've found that removing the gpio cover, it cools right off.

[@ivolol]

I am mildly unhappy with how Raspberry Foundation designed the power input for the Pi 4. 5V with absolutely no PD protocol to negotiate higher voltage / power output. For the Pi3, this was just bearable. However for Pi 4 it is quite capable of getting spikes of 3A which is completely outside the USB spec. You can even see that they designed their own power supplies to 5.1v, not 5v, because RPi is just hitting the limits of Vdroop and at its current draw and losing regulation, and for their official supplies they wanted the slight extra headroom so everything would work. For any normal 5V USB supply, acceptable voltage is 4.8-5.2V. 2A is max draw without further negotiation. In fact in many situations a strictly designed USB supply (they hardly ever are) would cut power to an RPi at 2.4A. If you get unlucky and have a perfectly capable (power-wise) USB charger that is sitting at 4.9V, within spec, just random luck on the variation resistors in the regulator, it's likely you'll have issues powering a Pi 4. So basically Pi 3 sits just inside the spec for vanilla USB power, and Pi 4 sits just outside, and hopes for the best. Ofc whenever anyone complains you'll get a bunch of people ask "are you using the official RPi PSU??" If it was necessary to use a proprietary single-vendor PSU for the RPi to get normal results, this should have been advertised with the product. And as you have found out, when you start drawing serious amps at only 5V, the quality of your usb cable starts mattering. The more resistance it has, the exponentially more likely you'll get power issues. A cable which works 100% fine for 99% of tasks might fail when the Pi 4 is relying on getting high enough 5V draw to regulate. Hence I also stay away from all the ones with charging leds and meters, that only makes the problem worse. A moderately cheap way to measure USB cable resistance is to get an UM meter from Ruideng, UM24/25/35 and one of their loads. They have a little wire impedance test built-in which is a bit finicky but very useful, to actually see the quality of your USB cables. Lower impedance = lower voltage drop over the cable when drawing high current = less power issues. When you add extra power draw from SSDs and fans it becomes extremely dicey indeed, as you have just found out. I know it would add to the BOM cost, but if the foundation had just designed in USB PD all this would be a non-issue. Buy any PD capable supply and any RPi could run 100% fine and dandy. As it is now you have to tip-toe around power requirements, what you're adding to the supply, buy only official supplies (which sucks because they only provide one output...), get short and/or highest quality cables (and hope cable manufacturer isn't lying...) and/or hope for the best. Even an absolutely premium USB charger rated to charge laptops at 80W is luck of the draw because Pi will only draw at the stock vanilla USB 5V2A limit and you have to hope you get lucky that Vdroop of the 5V rail won't kill it or underpower it. While overall argon one is a great product, the fact it's transferring power over yet another board and connectors (adding resistance) and powering a fan at boot-up adds that bit of extra % of power draw that can cause problems like these. And unfortunately due to the design of the pi there's not much to do about it. /rant

[@anon_y_mousse]

I've always had problems with powering my Pi's. I've had less problems with my 4, *but* the best thing to do and why I have less problems is that I use an external USB hub that is self-powered. Everything that gets plugged in gets its power mostly that way, so there's less effort on the Pi itself. Although, I don't have an Argon case, and I don't overclock it super high, just 1.8ghz. Hopefully the Pi5, if they ever make one will solve all of these issues.

[@leepspvideo]

The usb C cable is supports 100Watt. I think it may have been trying to protect the Pi.

[@Nobe_Oddy]

Okay so I just deleted my previous two comments about doing fre-- sh installs on identical SD card (again... like I was saying on the first Part) now that I'm about 11:30 into this vid and we see that it was your cables the whole time.... lol I think that if you were to have shown us your cables in the first video most of us would have said to make them just the power brick wire and only that. lol I too would have guess that the usb-A would have caused the issue over the usb-C for sure... but maybe usb-C is super sensitive to cheap manufacturing and so HAS TO be made to the highest quality where any ol usb-A wire just needs to have shielding and 4 wires and that's about it LOL - Finally finished the vide oand WOW this was REALLY FUN!!! I really wouldn't have thought it was a cable causing problems like this... but it did!!! :D

[@anon_y_mousse]

I wonder if anyone makes a copper case. Since it's a better conductor than aluminum I would think that it would wick the heat more. For that matter, it'd be neat to see heat pipes going through an otherwise solid copper block and have a full case designed around it to direct the airflow. Probably a better idea for cases like that to have an always on fan but set at a lower speed. Eventually the heat will build up too much, and if you keep it on 24/7 that could be an issue in a couple of days.

[@leepspvideo]

The copper Desalvo is my favourite but pricey Pi news episode 13. Deluxe Copper Pi case, Dosbox Pure & Water cooled Pi 4. kzbin.info/www/bejne/b3esnHuEeNSfn6M Pure Copper Heatsink Test. Raspberry Pi 4 kzbin.info/www/bejne/gaPGZ4qwlr9sjJo

[@egbront1506]

Copper tarnishes so easily. You'll spend all your time polishing it. If you're not bothered by how it looks, then it will be right up your street.

[@GeoStreber]

Hi. Are you going to cover the official Raspberry Pi version of Fedora 37 once it gets out of beta? So far, nobody has covered it running from a SATA SSD via the USB port of the Pi, and I think that will require a shitton of tweaks in the configuration file in the boot folder.

[@anthonyrussano]

I can try...

[@anthonyrussano]

Should work without tweaks no?

[@leepspvideo]

Yes I will try it. Most Linux operating systems don’t need tweaking for usb boot

[@GeoStreber]

@@leepspvideo in this case it's a known issue with the raspberry pi 4 firmware and some adapters causing trouble because they don't adhere to some standard. See my comments and the link here: /r/raspberry_pi/comments/xfv9fv/comment/ioopxt5/?context=3

[@leepspvideo]

@@GeoStreber yes older Pi’s had trouble with newer spec USB adapters like the ones supplied with macs at the time Raspberry Pi 4 Rev 1.2. How to tell the difference kzbin.info/www/bejne/lajXaoGKlpaIhKc

[@terryboyle]

Can you post a link to your config.txt file. I'm trying to overclock my pi and your file looks more straightforward than the stock one

[@leepspvideo]

It’s in my KDE OS download see this playlist for all the changes I have made KDE Plasma, 64bit Raspberry Pi OS. custom build downloads available. kzbin.info/aero/PLMJAjiTgBtFlz0j9xdQwNmLgqmaBscT1T This is set to 2100 as I have it now # For more options and information see # rpf.io/configtxt # Some settings may impact device functionality. See link above for details # uncomment if you get no picture on HDMI for a default "safe" mode #hdmi_safe=1 # uncomment the following to adjust overscan. Use positive numbers if console # goes off screen, and negative if there is too much border #overscan_left=16 #overscan_right=16 #overscan_top=16 #overscan_bottom=16 # uncomment to force a console size. By default it will be display's size minus # overscan. #framebuffer_width=1280 #framebuffer_height=720 # uncomment if hdmi display is not detected and composite is being output hdmi_force_hotplug=1 # uncomment to force a specific HDMI mode (this will force VGA) #hdmi_group=1 #hdmi_mode=1 # uncomment to force a HDMI mode rather than DVI. This can make audio work in # DMT (computer monitor) modes #hdmi_drive=2 # uncomment to increase signal to HDMI, if you have interference, blanking, or # no display #config_hdmi_boost=4 # uncomment for composite PAL #sdtv_mode=2 #OVERCLOCK settings safe *(overclock at you own risk) #arm_freq=1800 #over_voltage=6 #gpu_freq=650 #Higher overclock settings requires cooling see above* arm_freq=2100 over_voltage=6 gpu_freq=650 #invalidate your warranty settings #force_turbo=1 #current_limit_override=1 #arm_freq=2300 #over_voltage=12 #gpu_freq=800 #hdmi_enable_4kp60 # Uncomment some or all of these to enable the optional hardware interfaces #dtparam=i2c_arm=on #dtparam=i2s=on #dtparam=spi=on # Uncomment this to enable infrared communication. #dtoverlay=gpio-ir,gpio_pin=17 #dtoverlay=gpio-ir-tx,gpio_pin=18 # Additional overlays and parameters are documented /boot/overlays/README # Enable audio (loads snd_bcm2835) dtparam=audio=on # Automatically load overlays for detected cameras camera_auto_detect=1 # Automatically load overlays for detected DSI displays display_auto_detect=1 # Enable DRM VC4 V3D driver dtoverlay=vc4-kms-v3d max_framebuffers=2 # Run in 64-bit mode arm_64bit=1 # Disable compensation for displays with overscan disable_overscan=1 [cm4] # Enable host mode on the 2711 built-in XHCI USB controller. # This line should be removed if the legacy DWC2 controller is required # (e.g. for USB device mode) or if USB support is not required. otg_mode=1 [all] [pi4] # Run as fast as firmware / board allows # arm_boost=1 [all] dtoverlay=gpio-fan,gpiopin=14,temp=80000

[@beauslim]

Some manufacturers definitely fake stuff. I have an NVMe SSD from Kingspec that drops its reported temperature by 20C when it hits a certain value. So under load it seems fine but it is really running very very hot.

[@samuelhernandez4310]

i now that argon need a argon power supply for better performance or a good one

[@daanota]

Request: Can you make an EndeavourOS (Arch) KDE OS for RPi next?

[@leepspvideo]

I might try it. 👍🏻 the reason I use KDE with Raspberry Pi os is for maximum compatibility. The Pi running Linux is less supported than X64 processors. If the community adapt something to work it’s overwhelming made for Raspberry Pi OS.

[@daanota]

@@leepspvideo Agree. But if one uses Pi as daily desktop, and not gaming, Arch-based OS is ok. I just wonder if there is any difference between the two builds in terms of performance, and not compatibility.

[@112Famine]

I've had short profile USB drives get almost burning to the touch hot, & where the usb drives were plugged into a usb hub, and at the most get warm to the touch, the usb drives, & cable connect point to the Pi only worm? Any idea why? (I cook, so what I call hot to the touch is like 140F, 60C)

[@leepspvideo]

I haven’t noticed that with mine. I have always found the temperatures to be similar in a hub or a pi. Could be hotter because you are running an os when used in the Pi.

[@112Famine]

@@leepspvideo yes, both times running the Pi off the same usb flash drive, maybe my metal cased hub is working as a heat sync ... most likely

[@break8869]

The power cable is built with too thin of wires inside. It has too much internal resistance, thus unable to deliver the power your pi wanted

[@none941]

Why would the Pi throttle itself below 80C?

[@kotyz85]

not enough power I guess

[@leepspvideo]

Not sure if the cable was unsure about the Adapter. I could try my M1 MacBook power adapter.

[@minigpracing3068]

Wasn't there also a revised CPU in the Pi4 which could be part of the differences?

[@leepspvideo]

It seems more an incompatibility with the Argon case and my 100w cable

[@ralphmcmahan2139]

Even on my screen I can tell that portable monitor has a good panel.

[@leepspvideo]

I really like it. 14” Raspberry Pi 4 Tablet. Runs Android, Linux Windows 10 and more kzbin.info/www/bejne/moHMg4yEmcqloac Raspberry Pi Touch screen Operating Systems and More. Wimaxit 14” Touchscreen Portable Monitor. kzbin.info/www/bejne/hKPIenyurKdjotU

[@112Famine]

Can you get two run 100% the same with the same everything? case/fan, cords, drives, etc. So you can test diff roms, OSes, cords, drives, power supplies, etc. going forward?

[@leepspvideo]

Yes, I have the setup. Raspberry Pi OS 64bit vs 32bit take 2. kzbin.info/www/bejne/m6O8e62Xiq6ej5I For the Argon video I wasn’t expecting it to be the cable. Although there may be a part 3 to this.

[@MrJaz8088]

Argon One case is a Passive Cooler without Fan

[@zyghom]

Argon M2 from manual: "Aluminium alloy top case acts as a giant heatsink connected to the CPU of the Raspberry Pi 4." - why are you surprised? it is much bigger than the tower (surface wise)

[@leepspvideo]

Turns out from the comments the Argon case gets hotter over a longer period of time and can need the fan a lot. It seems to store the heat less if you remove the magnetic lid.

[@scollyb]

The result isn't that surprising. Finned coolers are that good a passive cooling, look at the changes noctua made to their passive cooler, and you have a fan blocking most of the potential passive air flow. So not only does the case have a larger thermal mass it also has a larger effective area able to passively cool

[@Raymond6494]

your c to c link where the problem

[@leepspvideo]

Yes even though it supports 100w it didn’t like my Pi or official pi adapter

[@StuElliott1980]

@@leepspvideo My Argon One case refused to play ball with a 4 port 3 amp per port USB power supply, got a red light but would not power on, Argon One even sent me a new control board and it had the same problem, switched to a phone charger and it fired up straight away. im still convinced its something to do with the Control Board circuitry.

[@112Famine]

aren't the CPU's ran at a super low heat levels so kids in schools don't burn their finger tips? ... on the temps the CPU's can handle?

[@leepspvideo]

They can be never_over_voltage Test Raspberry Pi 4 1GB kzbin.info/www/bejne/rp2tkoikf9WBb68 By default the cpu throttles at 80-85c

[@Chexsum]

disk taking too much power probably

[@leepspvideo]

It was some sort of incompatibility with the cable

[@zyghom]

say again why you did not use stress-ng to make it 100% of the CPU and to see the temperature changes? when you test 1 thing you should eliminate all the possible variables, no? ;-)