Motherboard Gigabyte B550I Aorus Pro AX issues with M.2 overheating (Chia plotting)

[AlexTSG]

I recently built a system for Chia plotting using the Gigabyte B550I motherboard in a Coolermaster NR200 case (with vented side panels).

The issues I've had with this motherboard, or more specifically, it's top mounted M.2 slot (the PCIe 4.0 one) may not effect people using the board in a gaming or a general purpose build, but the process of plotting Chia is particularly write intensive, and the M.2 slot (or rather it's heatsink) was not up to the task.

To put this in perspective, creating a single plot of the smallest valid size (32k) takes about 5 hours, and writes around 1.5TB (yes TB), during that time.

The SSD being used is a Sabrent Rocket NVMe 4.0 2TB drive, and when installed using the supplied thermal pad (with the protective plastic removed), and both layers of the M.2 heatsink assembly attached, the SSD would heat up to over 80 degrees within 15 minutes, and then disappear from Windows 10 completely. It only returned after shutting down the PC, and rebooting.

I have, after trying various things, found that removing the top section of the M.2 heatsink (the part without fins), and replacing the supplied thermal pad, have reduced temperatures by around 20 degrees, and the PC has now been plotting successfully for over 48 hours.

Removing the top section of the heatsink reduced the temperature by about 5 degrees, but it still throttled heavily.

Most of the improvement came from replacing the stock thermal pad with a Gelid GP-Extreme thermal pad.

Aside from that, the rest of the system is running rock solid, and the board is boosting the installed Ryzen 5 3600 right up to it's advertised 4.2GHz, probably helped by the massive Scythe Fuma 2 CPU cooler, which is a tight fit in the NR200, but I'd highly recommend.

I hope this helps others who may have similar problems in the future.

I'm planning on building my own system using an MSI B550I motherboard soon, and that has active cooling (a fan) for the M.2 slot. I'll be using the same Sabrent Rocket 2TB SSD too, so I'm interested to see what temps I get with that board when I do some Chia plotting with it.

 

[Phuncz]

Thanks for the info ! I've seen more than a few reports of those "heatsinks" that come standard with a motherboard. Often being more of an insulator than a heatsink. PCIe 4.0 NVMe M.2 SSDs can produce up to 10W of heat (I expect more in the future) which isn't much but caused active cooling being necessary for the AMD X570 chipset (15W).

If you're using water cooling and don't have a fan or reasonable airflow across the M.2, it's going to need active cooling for constant load on the M.2. It doesn't help the issue that most M.2 slots are located below or just above PCIe x16 slots. An actively cooled PCIe card will help in this regard considerably.

 

[AlexTSG]

If you're using water cooling and don't have a fan or reasonable airflow across the M.2, it's going to need active cooling for constant load on the M.2. It doesn't help the issue that most M.2 slots are located below or just above PCIe x16 slots. An actively cooled PCIe card will help in this regard considerably.

Although I've been very impressed with the performance of the Scythe Fuma 2 CPU Cooler, it draws in air from the rear and moves it towards the front of the case. I have the 120mm fan that was supplied with the NR200 drawing air out at the top (front).

I think the M.2 temps may have been better with a downdraft CPU cooler, but my choice there would have been the more expensive Noctua C14S, and that doesn't seem to be compatible with the Gigabyte B550I.

Unfortunately, Gigabyte's M.2 heatsink design also prevents an active aftermarket M.2 cooler from being used, as it has a heatsink (with no thermal pad) located underneath part of the M.2 slot, which is attached to the VRM heatsink via a heatpipe.

Although it's working now, I'm still planning to order some extra thermal pads, and other bits and pieces with my next Amazon order to see if I can improve it further. I'll update this post if I manage to make any significant improvements.

I'll also take some photos next time I'm working on it, so others can see the heatsink arrangement.

 

[birdsliveoutthere]

What thickness did you choose for the M.2 thermal pad? When I installed my drive, I noticed the supplied pad looked to be a little on the thin side.

 

[AlexTSG]

What thickness did you choose for the M.2 thermal pad? When I installed my drive, I noticed the supplied pad looked to be a little on the thin side.

As I didn't use the top section of the heatsink assembly, I was able to use a 0.5mm pad.

Where possible the thinnest possible pad should be used, as the thicker the pad is, the worse it's thermal performance is.

I didn't try it myself, but if you do want to use both sections of the heatsink (maybe for cosmetic reasons), you may be able to use a 0.5mm pad between the SSD and finned heatsink, and another 0.5mm pad between the finned and solid heatsink.

After plotting Chia 24 hours a day for just over a week now, and not having the SSD throttle, the owner of the system wants to leave it as it is, even though I've told him I may be able to improve the temps further.

 

[birdsliveoutthere]

As I didn't use the top section of the heatsink assembly, I was able to use a 0.5mm pad.

Where possible the thinnest possible pad should be used, as the thicker the pad is, the worse it's thermal performance is.

I didn't try it myself, but if you do want to use both sections of the heatsink (maybe for cosmetic reasons), you may be able to use a 0.5mm pad between the SSD and finned heatsink, and another 0.5mm pad between the finned and solid heatsink.

After plotting Chia 24 hours a day for just over a week now, and not having the SSD throttle, the owner of the system wants to leave it as it is, even though I've told him I may be able to improve the temps further.

Thanks for the information!

I may try using the outer portion as well and will report back in this thread if there is any improvement to be had.