Just received my CRS310-8G+2S+, switched over to SwOS 2.17 since I just need it for basic vlan stuff and threw in a noctua fan.
All ports are populated.
CPU Temp: 60C
Board Temp 1: 51C
PHY Temp: 80C
FAN1: 5475 RPM
2 Intel SFP+ are at 46C and 48C respectively.
Should I be concerned about the PHY temp?
I swapped back to the stock fan and it is running at 13.5k rpm. That’s insane.
So I changed back to Noctua but turned the fan around to blow air in to the chassis instead of out, and now temps are at 52C, 48C, 73C. That seems a lot better than 80C.
I can twist the heatsinks around a bit. They aren’t glued firmly or anything but they don’t fall off either.
And one of them is very hot. I suppose that is the one at 70C+.
Columns: NAME, VALUE, TYPE
# NAME VALUE TYPE
0 cpu-temperature 49 C
1 sfp-temperature 45 C
2 phy-temperature 58 C
3 fan-state ok
4 fan1-speed 3960 RPM
5 board-temperature1 46 C
What the hell? Why is it so much cooler in routerOS?
I had to change the heat sink of the Marvell chip on my unit since it ran very hot and the fan was very noisy. What I did voided the product warranty but I can live with this.
To remove the old heat sink, use a hair dryer to heat it to the point that the adhesive tape becomes soft. Twist it gently until it comes off. Clean the residue from the chip heat spreader with isopropyl alcohol.
You need to cut the new heat sink to a special shape to use the max possible cooling surface. Mine looks like this:
You must put supports on the PCB with double sided tape to keep the heat sink in place. Do not rely only on the 3M 8810 to hold the heavy piece of metal. I measured 2.56 mm from the PCB to the top of the Marvell chip heat spreader. Luckily, I had some plastic pieces with a very close thickness. Additionally, I added a rubber pad, attached with two layers of double-sided Moment FIX tape to the case cover, to press gently the heat sink against the chip.
The end result is satisfactory as my unit resides in a room where the ambient temperature is normally between 27 °C and 29 °C:
Columns: NAME, VALUE, TYPE
# NAME VALUE TYPE
0 cpu-temperature 51 C
1 phy-temperature 58 C
2 fan-state ok
3 fan1-speed 3660 RPM
4 board-temperature1 42 C
As a final step, I am thinking of turning the fan 180° so it sucks air from the back and blows it to the front to avoid heating the aluminum electrolytic capacitors, which will reduce their lifespan eventually.
This is crazy effort for a device that should have been properly designed by Mikrotik in the first place.
I also noticed that the CRS310 has pretty high energy consumption. I really wanted to like the device, but in the end I sold it, since there are so many compromises.
Agreed. It should have been designed better from the thermal management perspective. Still, the engineering knack is incurable! I had to try and see if the device could be improved with this relatively cheap DIY rework.
