Raspberry Pi 3: More Extreme Cooling

[@nikobellic570]

Can't wait for the episode when you launch it into space and conduct the test on Pluto's moon entitled "Extreme cooling in absolute zero vacuum of space". lol

[@ExplainingComputers]

+Niko Bellic !!!! :)

[@CaveyMoth]

+Niko Bellic Great idea, Niko! Say, how's the cousin?

[@massimookissed1023]

That creates a new problem of zero airflow for the heatsink. It could only lose heat via IR radiation...

[@Macvombat]

Thank you for the longer test, it didn't have nearly the impact I expected on the temperature. It would seem that you have mastered raspberry cooling!

[@MrMoonpie001]

Much fun watching these test and results!!! I was surprised how much the fan improved over the heat sink. Thank you for all you do Chris! Rich

[@ExplainingComputers]

Cheers Rich. :)

[@Kevin-wo3kp]

You really are incredibly indulgent to us demanding subscribers! Thank you for your time to produce a series of incredibly worthwhile videos. Without trying to be nit-picking, I do wonder by how much the heat difference might have been had the fan been powered by the RPi itself - as I'm sure that extra current would make the board work harder (and so would have a shorter working life). All-in-all, I'm guessing - as you said in your videos - we are entering the realm of diminishing returns. I'm guessing that cases and kits to house a small heatsink and fan can't be too far away. The Over-clocking will be amazing to see. Thanks again and we all wish you and yours a great week!

[@ExplainingComputers]

+Kevin H Thanks Kevin. If the fan had been powered from (say) pins 2 and 6 on the Pi, this would have supplied 5V before it went through the Pi's regulator (ie directtly from the 5V supplied to the Pi), and hence would not impact the Pi's performance. :)

[@jdmeaux]

Your code is made to STRESS the cpu, an occasion which may very seldom occur in real life. But the cooling does show its benefits. In an enclosure, the results will be different. I adapted a small box to enclose my Raspberry Pi 3. I added a small input fan (blowing air across the motherboard and cpu) to the side with the Micro SD card, and an output fan (similar to an exhaust fan on a PC) directly above the heat sink on my Pi. My results were similar to yours with the small fan and heat sink. I have NOT attempted to try this out of the enclosure to see what temperatures would result, but I am well satisfied with my set up as is. I accidentally ran across your videos a while back. As a result, I purchased a Pi 3 and tons of accessories. And am having fun with it. (Reminds me of the late 1960's/early 1970's when we were trying to design our own motherboards.)

[@odieodie8905]

I like the way you talk,it makes me feel more comfortable with computers. Thanks Odie

[@dragoncoders7267]

This guy is gangster. Pimping out his Pi

[@DLiberator78]

Another fantastic raspberry Pi CPU cooling video. Again very interesting results especially with the last fan blowing across the heat sink. Although I am keen to see some RPi3 overclocking videos but I am intrigued to see that final heat sink and fan that you mentioned at the end of the video. I look forward to the next video.

[@Tomazack]

Well, now I am very much anticipating the huge heatpipe cooler !

[@ExplainingComputers]

Soon . . .

[@spookje111]

Thank you in advance.

[@Tomazack]

Brilliant. I don't mean to sound demanding, I just find your videos very entertaining and inspiring. Great work so far, much appreciated. I bought a Pi3 this week myself, so I might consider increasing the CPU speed. I have a fairly large chipset heatpipe cooler laying around, which should fit nicely. Might end up making my own video some day to show how it works out.

[@MrWobble666]

Thank you. Your series on the Pi, and cooling it, has been inspiring. Your videos finally made me order a Pi 3 model B, which I've been playing with for a few days now. Eventually it will become the heart of a home file server system, using several external hard drives. But for now, I'm In it's standard case (the very attractive and easy to assemble official case) it reaches mid 70's running Minecraft Pi (that now comes with the latest Raspbian). So I took the top cover off. It could do with some extra cooling. So, I've been digging around in my old parts box and found some old heatsinks. I'm considering cutting down some old CPU heatsinks, one of which is all copper, and the other aluminum with a 5mm thick copper spacer (which could be cut/trimmed to keep it away from other components, as you have done). But I also found a couple of Zalmann flower coolers, fans, and speed controllers. One is the copper/ally hybrid, and the other all copper. It looks a challenge to fit one of them, so I'm eagerly awaiting your next video to see your solution. All I can think of is to use an aluminum or copper block to raise it up far enough. I'm also wondering about reusing a heat pipe cooler from one of my PC's when I upgrade it next year. That would look as bonkers as using the Zalmann coolers, with a 5-6 inch heat pipe cooler standing above the Pi. But those heat pipe coolers work wonders on my PC's, keeping them both cool and quiet (with slow speed fans, or no fans at all). The next thing that occurs to me is to use a peltier cooler too. Keep up the good work of inspiring us all.

[@TheNightRichard]

That dry British sense of humor is fantastic.

[@jvdheyde]

Please more challenging topics. One topic of cooling a Raspberry pi is enough.

[@Vhbaske]

Thank you Sir. for these treasures of knowledge. I would like to neet you in person, but I am here very far in the Caribbean. Thanks

[@josephdelaporte3579]

Next stat :watercooling

[@adamkimmV]

then use dry ice attached to a heatsink.

[@ScullyBrewing]

I've seen a video here on KZbin of that, a guy built a custom loop and showed it running but not the temps that were achieved..now that video is over three months old I think and there hasn't been a follow up

[@tennicktenstyl]

+Jojo 67 LN2 submerged cooling.

[@pancudowny]

Recirculating Freon refrigerant cooling... I've seen it done before, with a custom plate atop the processor.

[@KrystoHartge]

For cheapest option just put in a Frazer. I always wanted to build a computer inside a bar fridge

[@osscar29]

Great work. can't wait to see that monster cooler on the pi in the next vid. hope you get as good results with your over clocking, fingers crossed mate.

[@RogerRHF]

Great video! I get excited every time you upload these videos :).

[@oliverwilson941]

I'm really looking forward to seeing you water cool the Pi as it seems like a natural progression from here.

[@pierre5325]

You, Sir, are a mad man, and I love you all the more for it! Can't wait for next cooler. Blessings, pierre from New Mexico

[@flubdawub1564]

Before you do watercooling with it, try covering the big fan setup in say a pringles tube, so it's in essentially a wind tunnel.

[@technickuk]

Great stuff as always, sir! May I suggest some kind of bespoke water cooling solution to try next? Also, would be good to see a visual representation of all of the results together on a line graph (different coloured lines to show the different setups).

[@themaconeau]

Can't wait for the over the top Zalman CPU cooler on the RPi! There is one last bastion of RPi cooling - water cooling. Why anyone would, I have no idea but anyways, it woudl be interesting :)

[@fuppetti]

How far can we take this? Cooling a Pi _lower_ than ambient temperature? I imagine a peltier device could do this.

[@JustIn-sr1xe]

I knew the old south bridge and micro cpu coolers would come in handy again, one day. I just never figured they'd end up on board that made them look like they were in full scale desktops with integrated graphics.

[@roelandriemens]

For a small and silent cooling perhaps a peltier element could do the job even better. Part 5 ? ☺

[@armanflint]

I would consider building a shroud around the heat sink blades and reverse the fan so that the fan would draw air up though the heat sink near the processor first. It might also be interesting to add a peltier chip with a voltage regulator to use super cold temperatures and either eliminate the heat sink or attach it to the back of the peltier chip.

[@MarkTheMorose]

Interesting and enjoyable. I'm somewhat tempted to quip 'cool', even. Looking forward to overclocking and the copper Zalman.

Now submerge it in liquid nitrogen.

[@Grafhun]

+Viktor Rucký Thinking about that!

[@Jupiter__001_]

Yes. I don't think liquid nitrogen is electrically conductive, so that could work (at least, in theory).

[@Henkeee]

+Io There's a certain point where processors just stop functioning. On most CPU's, it's above the boiling point of Nitrogen, so it will only work if you don't submerge it completely. That, and condensation is a huge problem.

[@Jupiter__001_]

+Champturn Yeah, you would probably have to dehumidify the room first and put it into a special sealed room.

[@VitekSTZero]

Good thought, but he could freeze his clock signal (so the Ethernet chip could stop working, or even CPU). I did it with compressed air can facing upwards.

[@mhayward8876]

Contain your Excitement! (5:06) Brilliant :)

[@alfonssiggler6652]

Very nice, I watch and like all your videos, but this series about cooling a raspi is just awesome! I will use this for keeping my next raspis cool :) ... All the time I used passive heatsinks from old motherboard northbridges sawn them to the rigth size and glued them on the SoC with expensive thermal adhesive (edit: arctic silver alumina), so its nearly impossible to remove the heatsink again :s ... the temperatures are about 65°C with stressing the pi for 30minutes, so yours are much cooler hehe :) ... thanks for sharing! ... and sorry for my bad english :p

[@mike49682]

Water cooling is fine but why not put the Raspberry Pi 3 in the deep freeze?

[@twilmer34]

OK you explained us, that with bigger Fan and Heatsink one can get more heat away from the Pi. obvious. Then we have now reached temperatures which are just near the Room temperature. but what is the point? The silicon is designed to be happy at 85°C and this is why the VideoCore is clocking down when it's too hot. The more important question is - how much does it cost you performance? So how many instructions can be executed. And here the actual benchmark is interesting. if the CPU is executing nearly all from the cache - it's mainly linked to the frequency. but if the benchmark will use ram and doesn't use the cache well, the impact will be less as the ram is still running at the original speed. The CPU waits less when clocked slower. So if you use the cooler temperatures to over clock, don't just look at the frequency, but also on the benchmark, cache performance and the work done.

[@0007Shawn]

I'm really loving these videos thanks mate

[@blackdragonx1186]

I have the board that cooler came off! I haven't seen it on years!

[@GF_Burke]

lol. I love that zalman. Back in the day, I used to lap my copper to a mirror shine.

[@petacores]

I love the Zalman's line! I still have 3 power supplies in production WorkStations, ALL with Zalman coolers (that flowery one in the VID) !

[@tednoob]

What about running it with a peltier element?

[@dragonkxvids]

Now i want to see it water cooled :P

[@NeiroAtOpelCC]

Next up, build a shroud around the pi, so you can ensure maximum air volume across the cooler. Also a cooler type with almost flat aluminum fins (like most pc tower coolers) would benefit from such a setup.

[@AndrewBetts]

Using your method from "Extreme Passive Cooling" to mount a larger heat sink I mounted a much larger heatsink from an old desktop, with a fan connected to the 5v/grnd pins. Using your script I ended up with: 31.1C 36.5C 35.9C 35.9C 35.4C 35.9C And back down to 31.1 within 1 minute of it stopping. Thank you for the inspiration. This is quite nice.

[@ExplainingComputers]

Wow, those are good temperatures in that test -- excellent! :)

[@nddulac]

Okay - this series of videos was pretty damned awesome. Not only did we get to see some crazy cooling strategies, we got to learn the proper syntax for a bash script for loop! (Now how much would you pay?)

[@thatsnotthepoint-__-2666]

Once again, an excellent video!!!

[@xr6694]

Small question my friend, if I only use my pi 3 to run KODI on it, will it be ok with only a passive small heatsink and no fan? Awsome channed by the way!

[@ExplainingComputers]

Yes, you should be fine with no fan. :)

[@owenjbrady]

I enjoy your videos, Keep them coming!

[@asagk]

A pity you did not try any Peltier-Elements for increasing the temperature difference between processor heat sink and passive cooler with a small fan on it.

[@rapscallion3506]

I have recently found your postings and find them engaging, educational and informative. Is there a chance you might extend a cooling technique for the LattePanda? Cheers.

[@ExplainingComputers]

Thanks for this. Cooling for the LattePanda is certainly on my list! :)

[@JarmoHakala]

Add a peltier element to get it into the negatives :)

[@roelskiunplugged1134]

Peltier cooling comes to mind, which also would create some hight to mount a different cooler on top of the peltier. Excellent for overclocking, but it will draw a huge current to cool and will need a big heatsink+cooler to get the excess heat out. Can't wait for the video though :)

[@Inaflap]

+Roelski unPlugge d Yeah that would be truly bonkers. 5 amp at 12 volt... 60 watts.

[@timothyeaton2129]

Thinking back about 10 Years, I can think of two examples that could further this. The First is a 'Blower' Style Fan as opposed to an Axial one, to avoid the 'Dead' Zone you get at the Centre. The Cooler Master 'Aero' was quite popular amongst the Overclocking Fraternity at the time. The Second example I can think of is the one where someone filled their case with Mineral Oil. I think I prefer my Raspberry Pie with an Airy Non-Greasy Texture, so the Cooler Master Aero is the one I would try.

[@ahmseb]

Although I have know your channel for short time it becomes one of my favorite channels on youtube thank you for your hard work to bring good content

[@ExplainingComputers]

+‫أحمد السباعي‬‎ Many thanks. :)

[@kkirschkk]

+ExplainingComputers can you start doing projects with the pi 3? small and large?

[@kkirschkk]

+ExplainingComputers the bonkers test is not crazy, I am planning on making a huge pi super computer [7 [PIs to a btye, 16 btyes to a block and 10 blocks to a cluster, 3-5 clusters]. so for cooling I could get a huge fan and just let it blow tons of air over it

[@ExplainingComputers]

+The Reeper I've various robotics projects in the pipeline -- and a mega video on GPIO inputs, coding and various input devices posting on, I think, 12th June. :)

[@ExplainingComputers]

+The Reeper Now this sounds great! :)

[@tobi3038]

very good job on the cooling.

[@rubyTee1920]

excellent series, very clear- thankyou so very much-

[@cake5000]

I can't wait for the overclocking videos and see how far you can push it!! :D

[@ConstantlyDamaged]

A few things to point out. a. The 40mm fan you used is upside down, it should be blowing air down and into the heatsink b. Did you look up the specs on the heatsink to work out its thermal properties? It looks like it is pulling a lot of the heat away from that thing, but 10+ degrees at idle is quite a delta for such a small chip. c. Some ducting would be in order. You could have made a simple cowl out of paper to funnel all the air that big fan was pushing, down and through the heatsink. d. Adding a bigger heatsink will do very little for your cooling if the heatsink you already are using is already able to channel all the heat used, effectively. e. Find out the wattage of heat being produced, add a larger copper plate to the top of your shim and get a peltier in there ;)

[@aarron1234567]

the zalman cooler is gooing to be neat cant wait to see the temps from it

[@Samarpanrai94]

Amazing video. Not a problem but a potential improvement I noticed is that the speed of the fan cannot be controlled automatically. Raspberry has tremendous power and if you want with your hardware, I can write some PWM script to control the speed of the fan. What do you think?

[@ExplainingComputers]

Thanks for this. To control the fan speed it would need to be connected via some kind of controller connected to a GPIO output. Here the fan is connected to the 5V pin, which provides 5V before the Pi's voltage regulator. The GPIO pins can only supply 3.3V at very low current, so cannot directly power a fan.

[@Boosted98gsx]

Do you have any links to the hardware used to modify your pi? The large heatsink, a fan that will work with it? I really want to active cool a pi for a small retro gaming rig. Dimensions of the fan and the heatsink would also be awesome. Thanks!

[@Boosted98gsx]

Also, would you please share the OS / programs you were using to thermal benchmark these setups?

[@KillerShark73]

I fully expect you to continue your cooling adventures by exploring water cooling, immersion (mineral oil), phase change, and LN2.

[@kadukadaver]

Hey very good man ! but a few questions : In the previous video you put a small copper plate on top and then put the copper heatsink on top , Copper absorbs heat faster , and takes longer to dissipate , the aluminum takes longer to absorb heat however dessipate faster the heat , would not be batter replace the plate under the heatsink copper by aluminum so the heat transfer would be faster? and the other chip? not worth putting a heatsink ?

[@MrRyanroberson1]

a little before 8:00, whatever direction the overhead fan was blowing, did you try the opposite direction?

[@dieterrommerskirchen8990]

Thank you very much for several fantastic videos about the raspberry pi, the're really helpfull for me! :o)

[@StevenJPiper]

I think the most bonkers test of them all would be (as others have said), to put a water cooling setup on this thing... At this point I know we're getting a bit silly, but still, would be interesting to see where the limits of temp reduction would be!

[@SimonRichardMasters]

Uh 0K lol

[@cee128d]

I'm thinking you mount the Pi to that Zalman heatsink, not the other way around like you would a standard motherboard cpu. I have a Zalman similar to that one and will be getting a Pi in the near future. It's going to be dangerous around here as I have lot's of ideas to test out, many of them came from watching your videos. Foremost to me will be best cooling compromise for a Pi mounted to the back of a TV to use as an announcement player in my church's lobby.

[@rickmelto6750]

i love this guy ..i cant afford all the stuff you buy but i piss my wife off trying

[@julhund]

it would be nice to see a video about how to best cool the Pi 3 while it's in it's standard case

[@SteelSkin667]

In a more permanent setup you could run that 80 mm fan at 5v directly from the pi. That's not a bad solution if you don't mind the space it takes!

[@TheDesertsweeper]

Is the fan blowing cool-air down or pulling warm-air up I wonder....

[@fjr4997]

I'm in the process of creating my own cooling solution. Any suggestions as to which heatsink would be ideal for this project?

[@PacoOtaktay]

I would love to see what temps you would get with the Zalman heatsink/fan on the Raspberry Pi 3. The over clocking would also be nice to see how much more heat the Raspberry Pi 3 would generate with each of these heatsink layouts as well. :)

[@FatBlokeDoingStuff]

I would love to see a LN cooling setup on the Pi 3 for some extreme overclocking!

[@jjindk1655]

When you have added this Heatsink...would you ever be able to 'unmount' the heatsink and choose something else?? or is it stuck forever?? BTW...thx for ur gr8 videos on Raspberry Pi's!

[@ExplainingComputers]

An unmount is easy -- this heatsink came off for my Kodi case video, and the same Pi 3 has appeared in several other videos since without any heatsink. Even the lettering on the processor is undamaged. :)

[@kazriko]

Pretty good. I imagine the only real ways to improve it with that heatsink would be to shroud the airflow down to as small as possible around the board.

[@ExplainingComputers]

+Kazriko Redclaw True.

[@TheOriginalEviltech]

Get a laptop cooler. They are quite small, very powerful and have a 5V turbine style fan.

[@EnhancedNightmare]

The one I got has a very anemic fan.

[@frostmourn6260]

The Gigabyte P4 Titan fan is drawing air away from the heatsink, not down on to it. Would it would make much difference either way?

[@FrancGorenc]

Does it make any difference if the fan is blowing air into the heatsink or away from it?

[@daedra40]

From being able to slightly fry and egg, to basically making it only (edit: not even warm enough, I think now) warm enough to hatch an egg: well done. Thermodynamics be among this little series of videos veins!

[@ExplainingComputers]

+daedra40 Yes, there is a lot that can be learnt here that is not just about a Raspberry Pi. It provides a test bed and demo for things that can be far more widely applied. :)

[@binnsbrian]

What if you mount the smaller fan in the side of the heat sink? Smaller, quieter and probably the same as the large fan?

[@bartproszowski8508]

I was wondering if cooling the SOC from the bottom will have similar results or will it be insufficient to bother? I plan to use and old PS3 FATcase, psu and fan with a Pi3B as a retro gaming console. I wish to use the massive integrated heat sinks and mounting right side up seems simplest as they are at the bottom of the case. I can either mount upside down or rig some sort of overlay bracket but laying straight down onto the heat sinks seems very simple.

[@ExplainingComputers]

I am sure that upside down on the heatsink will work well.

[@myday6074]

Why not using cpuburn-a53? Your pi will be so much hotter with it. Sysbench is not stress enough.

[@EvilJonas]

This guy is really the most extreme casemodder ever.

[@motronicsproductions2310]

yeah

[@pratimaghosh6804]

Sir can I connect two different xpu fan in raspberry pi 4

[@DanielTojcic]

Would have been interesting to see the difference between fan blowing on the heat sink and the fan pulling air away from the heat sink, as well as both the larger and smaller fans together!

[@HALEdigitalARTS]

Blow it diagonally across the heat sink for more turbulent flow = greater Reynolds number?

[@simplelifediy1772]

What? Your not going to place it inside an A/C vent? Great series of videos, and I think the larger passive vents are quite enough for my pi.

[@seans1102]

I have an idea on how to add a heatsink and be able to use the gpio pins as well 100%. Thanks for the quick reply.

[@andreblanchard8372]

Here is my addition to these heat tests. This is my first Python program so it is not as elegant as it could be but it works. Need to make 2 files, the first is a bash script I named "load-cpu.sh" which runs the sysbench load test, and the second is the Python program "test-temp.py". It takes 10 temp readings at 1 second intervals to get a base line. Then starts the sysbench script and while that is running takes more temp readings again at 1 second intervals. You can watch it heat up and cool down as sysbench run and is completed. The output could easily be sent to a file that could be imported to a spread sheet (or some other program) where the data could be displayed in a graph. 1st File name "load-cpu.sh" #!/bin/bash sysbench --test=cpu --cpu-max-prime=20000 --num-threads=4 run > /dev/n$ 2nd File name "test-temp.py" import os from subprocess import Popen from time import sleep, strftime from datetime import datetime count=10 while (count>0): now = datetime.now() time = now.strftime('%s.%f') temp = '/opt/vc/bin/vcgencmd measure_temp' temp = os.popen(temp).readline().strip() print time,",",temp[5:9] sleep(.986) count-=1 p = Popen("./load-cpu.sh") count=60*2.5 while (count>0): now = datetime.now() time = now.strftime('%s.%f') temp = '/opt/vc/bin/vcgencmd measure_temp' temp = os.popen(temp).readline().strip() print time,",",temp[5:9] sleep(.986) count-=1

[@v1Broadcaster]

wouldn't it be benificial to cover it up for a wind tunnel effect with that? or maybe a push-pull?

[@alienalxclone]

Awesome experimentation!

[@lexologics]

Whow thanx for sharing EC friends, this is briljant... I want it and go build it

another test could be to setup 2 side by side and leave on for a day and check the results the next day, 1 being cooled and 1 being left as standard!

[@squanchy474]

Just repeat all your tests, but overclocked each time. I want to see that flower style cooler on top of a pi while it's massively overclocked. I also wouldn't mind seeing a vacuum head connected to that large heat sync, I'ld be very interested to know how that performed.

[@dugcanlift]

what is that heat sink, a link to find one similar online would be helpful

[@ExplainingComputers]

It came off an old motherboard I'm afraid, and is about 36mm cube.

[@gavin-pp5di]

I've got the same bigger fan but I have no idea how to power it up, any tips?

[@johnhodg8400]

is the fan pushing air down onto the pi or sucking it up out of the pi??

[@ExplainingComputers]

Down onto the heatsink here.

[@MrProooosit]

I test my today without heatsink and a old 80mm computer fan, i get 37 celsius max but it was extremely loud noise, i wait to recive heatsink on my post office but can´t wait so that´s why i take that i have home :) but fun to test.

[@Boosted98gsx]

With this cooling done, would you do a video on working up an overclock for the pi to a safe but faster than OEM speed?

[@ExplainingComputers]

I have a Pi 3 overclocking video here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/aXOWcqGrhNKFmbM And next Sunday (17 June 2018) I will be uploading a Pi 3 B+ overclocking video! :)

[@Boosted98gsx]

With the active cooling sink? I'd like to see "what's possible" with a cooling system capable of keeping core temps in the 35-37C range (nothing insane like H2O or LN2) and what I should expect. That previous video you did was on the weaker fan / sink combo.

[@badieguwaisem4345]

Great experiments. They really gave me an idea of how the pi 3 would peform outdoors on a hot summer day (which was my original plan). Now I think I will go back to the pi 2 instead. So now the question is: how does the pi 2 compare to pi 3 in terms of thermal performance?

[@ExplainingComputers]

The Pi 2 runs quite a bit cooler.

[@illerchiller491]

Hello :) I copied the loopylooptest.sh file from your video, but how can I execute it in the terminal? Excuse me for being a noob as I come from Win XP and Win 7 :)

[@michaelvanderbeek6869]

Thanks for your videos. I'll be getting the Lattepanda soon. But it has big heat problems. Going to mod my case a bit to put in a big ass heat sink like you did. Good inspiration! The only problem is that the CPU is on the bottom, so I have to have the heatsink sticking out of the bottom, but thinking of making a funnel like blow through with a couple of small 5v fans.

[@flintstone1409]

I see it coming: Overclocking Events for Raspberry Pi... Think I would find it nice xD

[@ricky_pigeon]

Awesome video again. Thanks!

[@videokompuuter]

Hi. If you would use metal plate instead of transparent plastic it could be like an extension of heatsink. Probably not much difference in temeperatures but more practical solution.

[@ExplainingComputers]

+videokompuuter A very nice idea. :)

[@videokompuuter]

Thank you :) I'm what some might call a silencefreak. I guess thats where those ideas come. I have been dreaming about computer that would use entire case as heatsink.

[@TheOriginalNeomix]

how about putting the big fan on the underside of the board while having the smaller one on top of the heatsink? does the underside get very hot at all with no coolling at all on the pi3?

[@ExplainingComputers]

+Neomix A good idea! :)