mark lewis  wrote:

>  On 2017 Jan 30 00:27:40, you wrote to Jamie Kahn Genet:
>
>  >> Running the CPU of a Pi 3 maxed constantly, easily overheats it, forcing
>
>  bp> What OS and clock speed are you using? I'm using Raspbian Jessie.
>  bp> There is no visible option for overclocking. Under those conditions it
>  bp> just barely gets warm
>
> i don't think anyone said anything about overclocking... what was said was
> that running the CPU at full usage with no idle time brings the heat up to
> the point where a fan is needed...
>
> so here's the deal, CPUs spend roughly 90+% of their time waiting on
> something to do... tools like BOINC and distributed.net are designed
> specifically to take advantage of that idle time and to use it to the CPUs
> full power... in other words, there is zero idle time because they are
> using all of it...
>
> )\/(ark

Yes indeed.

It's unlikely anyone not running apps that push the CPU to high usage
for extended periods, would need active cooling on any model Pi. But
maxing CPU usage (and sometimes GPU too with certain console emulation)
for extended periods is precisely what I am doing :-)

Try it yourself with any Pi 3. You'll find within five to ten minutes or
so (depending on ambient temperature, passive cooling, and case airflow)
of max CPU usage, the CPU will heat to the point where it throttles, in
order to save itself from overheating damage.

In this situation only practical solutions, are to outfit the Pi 3 with
an oversize heat sink of the sort one might salvage from a desktop
computer, or (since I desire a small case) a fan.

--
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05