Fixing Rear MB M.2 Heat Issues in Dan A4 V4.1

[lagauche]

Does anyone here have Dan A4 V4.1 they could peak inside? I'm still working with rear M.2 MB heat. I had an idea I was wondering if anyone could confirm: I know that the pci riser ribbon is broken up into three strands on V4.1, so... I'm wondering if I could route one or more of those strands between the M.2 drive and the MB so that the M.2 with a thermal pad could make contact with the backplate?

I also noticed that the riser cable bends under the backplate much lower than in previous generations of the Dan A4 so I'm wondering if it's still no problem to put a NF9-14 down there? Looks too tight to me.

 

[funklizard]

I have a v3 and I just rerouted those cables to the other side of the backplate (so that they're now behind the GPU) to solve precisely this problem. Is that not workable on the v4.1?

What you're describing sounds like quite a tangle.

 

[lpd2]

Interested in this topic as well. Only one m.2 on rear - ASrock x570i phantom. Any other rear M.2 heat issues or fixes would appreciate, not sure if riser cable adjustment is the way to go. Compatible heatsinks info also appreciated.

 

[dondan]

What temps are you get? These M.2 are designed to work in hot invoriment like Ultrabooks. The only real solution is to route the GPU riser in the GPU chamber and make direkt contact with a thermal pad between M.2 and middle plate (mb-tray). Add a case fan under the board to lower it even more.

 

[lpd2]

What temps are you get? These M.2 are designed to work in hot invoriment like Ultrabooks. The only real solution is to route the GPU riser in the GPU chamber and make direkt contact with a thermal pad between M.2 and middle plate (mb-tray). Add a case fan under the board to lower it even more.

No case yet so no temps but the CPU carry over from last build is a 2700x (hot). Node 202 is my temporary case until Dan A4 available - so all parts are for the Dan. I opted for a non heat-sinked version of my WD Black because of its 10mm height. How much total clearance is there for rear M.2 heat-sinks? How about to make thermal pad contact? Would you recommend switching to 3700x CPU?

 

[dondan]

2mm space for a heatsink on backside of motherboard

 

[mangusid]

Let's don't forget about thickness of thermal pad between ssd and radator (about 1mm). So roughly said the radiator must be 1mm too

 

[Groschen]

This thermal pad works for me in a Dan A4-SFX v1:

SilverStone SST-TP01-M2

 

[Groschen]

Ouch, wrong pad, not the Silverstone, but this one:

Cooling Junkies Wärmeleitpad Thermal Pad Industriequalität 120x20x3mm 7W/mK Wärmeleitfähigkeit

German text, because I bought it on Amazon.de.

I did not use the Silverstone pad yet.

 

[funklizard]

Interested in this topic as well. Only one m.2 on rear - ASrock x570i phantom. Any other rear M.2 heat issues or fixes would appreciate, not sure if riser cable adjustment is the way to go. Compatible heatsinks info also appreciated.

I really don't see any downsides to routing the riser cable behind the GPU.

Once you've rerouted the cable, there's only 2-3mm of clearance between the surface of the M.2 card and the motherboard plate. This isn't enough room for an additional radiative heatsink (i.e., a piece of metal with fins); and though you can find M.2-size copper plates, I'm skeptical one would help. (You still have to transfer the heat to the copper, and from the copper to elsewhere.) Even if you could get a radiative heatsink back there, you'd need airflow between the motherboard and the mounting plate to make it effective.

Let's don't forget about thickness of thermal pad between ssd and radator (about 1mm). So roughly said the radiator must be 1mm too

I think the idea here is to use the motherboard mounting plate as the radiator. A thermal pad just needs to bridge the gap between the M.2 card surface and the plate.

These M.2 are designed to work in hot invoriment like Ultrabooks.

FWIW, it's not unusual to find a thermal pad between an M.2 card and the metal case of a laptop (when the laptop has a metal case).

2mm space for a heatsink on backside of motherboard

Hm... I thought I measured 3mm. Welp, we'll see if the pad I ordered fits.

Ouch, wrong pad, not the Silverstone, but this one:

Cooling Junkies Wärmeleitpad Thermal Pad Industriequalität 120x20x3mm 7W/mK Wärmeleitfähigkeit

German text, because I bought it on Amazon.de.

I did not use the Silverstone pad yet.

Ah, that's reassuring; that looks very similar to the pad I've ordered.

The Silverstone kit looks like it includes two pads: a 0.5mm and a 1.5mm. I don't think those are thick enough to bridge the gap; though they might make it if you stacked them. (Also, the thermal conductivity rating for these pads is just okay, not great. You can probably find better, cheaper generic pads without the Silverstone branding.)

 

[Groschen]

Please excuse my late reply.

As I wrote, I did not use the Silverstone set. It is supposed to go between M.2 and the mainboard. The thick pad is for single sided M.2 without chips on the back side, the slim pad is for the double sided ones.

Since my mainboard gets pretty warm anyway in the A4 I thought it better to get the M.2 heat off to the case structure instead (with riser cable routed between gpu backplate and the mainboard tray).

The Cooling Junkies pad is doing a nice job, took quite a bit of peak heat away for me. And at least when new it was easy to get off and reapply.

 

[JoyJump]

Greetings all.

I am currently waiting for the Dan A4 to arrive. M.2 heat solution was one of my main concerns, as I need to process a lot of small files as fast as possible. I am planning to use 2 Evo 970 2TB NVME front and back, and cooling is a concern as they seem to be susceptible to heat and their performance suffer.

Not having the case in front of me, it's difficult for me to see if this is going to work or not, but has anyone considered an extension cable for the M.2 slot and mount the card somewhere with better air flow? I know this case will be as cramped as it can be, but M.2 cards being so slim, I was wondering if this could be a possibility? I've seen this on eBay.

M.2 NVMe SSD SSD Extension Cable M2 Supports PCI-E 3.0 x4 Full Speed 32G\bps | eBay

Find great deals for M.2 NVMe SSD SSD Extension Cable M2 Supports PCI-E 3.0 x4 Full Speed 32G\bps. Shop with confidence on eBay!

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Thanks.

 

[JoyJump]

For anyone who is interested in this topic, I solved this issue by placing a thermal pad between the NVME card and the divider plate, so the plate would act as a heat sink. You will need to reroute the riser cable through the other side of the plate for this to work. The result is excellent, about 10 to 15 degrees lower than the front NVME card.

 

[Jawbreaker]

For anyone who is interested in this topic, I solved this issue by placing a thermal pad between the NVME card and the divider plate, so the plate would act as a heat sink. You will need to reroute the riser cable through the other side of the plate for this to work. The result is excellent, about 10 to 15 degrees lower than the front NVME card.

Thanks for following up.

I'm having a hard time picturing what you're describing. So using the extension cable you linked, you placed a thermal pad on the m.2 drive and fastened it on, sticking the other side of the pad onto the plate?

 

[JoyJump]

Oh, I am sorry. Please disregard the extension cable I mentioned in my previous post. I did try that and while it worked, it was not a good final solution. I could not find a good place to mount the card slot extension (20mm), the cable used is quite flimsy, and the end result was nowhere near the method the OP and others have been discussing. Thermal pad between the 2nd card and the divider plate works.

FYI, I installed a 120mm side fan to exhaust hot air as I use an Asetek AIO to cool the CPU, and I think the fan helps a lot to cool down the plate and the case. Ryzen 3900X, RTX 2070 Super, 2 NVME cards, the noise and heat is much better than I anticipated. Quite happy overall.