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Router Cooling Mod


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So I bought this WRT310N a couple years ago. It's always been flaky, but I paid too much for it and I can't bring myself to get something different. It has always flaked out during periods of high load - torrenting and multiple simultaneous users always brought the wireless network to a standstill and caused dropped connections. Various manufacturer and 3rd party firmwares made no difference. Probably overheating, amirite?

 

I always meant to do something about it, but I have a habit of living in a dream world when I "mean to do things", so I never did. My goal this year has been to . or get off the pot.

 

After acquiring a free backup router in case of failure, I ripped the the WRT310N open. One tiny little heatsink on the switch, nothing on the CPU or wireless radio. Touching the heatsink was painful it was so hot, and the CPU was just as gnarly. The wireless radio chip was just warm. I chopped up an old Northbridge heatsink I had kicking around, and stuck them on the switch/CPU chips with some random Coolermaster paste and a little drop of superglue in the corners. I left the cover off, with a 80mm fan was used to blow air over the bare board. After a month of uptime and rock solid stability, I considered it a complete win.

 

Then I hacked up the case to make the cooling solution permanent. Pressure fit a quiet 40mm fan, soldered it to the board, and opened up holes for the heatsinks to poke through. Heatsinks are stay cool to the touch (They'd get quite warm without active airflow!). It ain't pretty, but it works. I love it. I'm so stoked.

 

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i have the WRT54G2, the moment i saw your mod made me think why not give it a try with my router :rolleyes:

 

these "little guys" is the only thing i cant think of for now to have my "improvised heatsinks", not bad with the clearance from the top covered back.

if too lazy to hunt for those 60mm fan, i'll just drill tons of holes with the top cover instead. :biggrin:

 

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I wonder if you can get away with a naked router?

At my old job we got our own wifi without monitoring by using a bare WRT54G board with the antenna and the power cord plugged directly in to it. It worked without issues the whole time I was there :)

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thanks with those comments guys! :teehee:

 

and i was too lazy yesterday going out to hunt for the 60mm fan, ended up rage punching these tons of holes with the cover instead, bit rough but the router will be just hiding somewhere anyways lol!

 

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now all we need is psywars penny sinks for his ram and boinkers copper sheeting sinks for his. but yes the staples are a nice touch but how well do they cool?

 

hmmm... good enough i believe, the cover now seems cold to touch even after hours running :thumbsup:

and i think those staples quite helped either.. having much more surface area now, better then bare chips imo ;)

 

 

to run my router bare/ board exposed was also what i thought in the first place but dust will be my problem i guess.

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I was thinking of shot gun with bird shot for you cover holes lol til I read your post :)

 

lol,you got it! but those holes made cooling wonders afterall ;) (doing the job along with those little mighty staples)

will ditch the 60mm fan now.

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  • 3 weeks later...

got bored and take a look what's inside my modem. hmmmm.... more chips in there and much bigger.

and yes this modem runs hot to touch either, way hotter then my router.

 

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stack em up with those staples as usual :biggrin:

 

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