How are you cooling your Asus router?

[Find the Door]

Upon downloading Merlins newest firmware (3.0.0.4.374.35_4) I realized that under tools I can now see the temperature that my Asus AC66R runs at.

My router has always been warm to the touch so I was curious.

The readings on average were around:

2.4 ghz band (51°C)

5.0 ghz band (62°C)


I felt that these readings along with the warm to the touch were kinda odd. I proceeded to inquire about notebook chill pads.

I ran into one in particular - this Antec listed on Amazon.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0000BVYTV/?tag=snbforums-20 ordered it, and my oh my.

Results...

2.4 ghz running at 39°C

5.0 running at 48°C

Huge decrease in temperature.

This is because of the aluminum surface the fan has, and it's not like your typical notebook cooler that just blows cold air onto your device. This actually sucks it away from the device, and sends it out the sides of the unit.

Works really well and is on sale right now.


Just thought I'd give ya a heads up.

 

[TimothyM96]

I actually asked my friend who works for ASUS, and he told me that absolutely hate when people use coolers. Cooling is one of the biggest things they focus on when designing the routers, and making sure the design is attractive. They feel hurt when customers go and smack $10 cheap plastic fans to the units since they spend so much time on the design of the product. Don't forgot, ASUS is a ODM, not OEM. They design their products.

I wouldn't worry about cooling it. Just make sure it has some room to breathe and you will be fine.

I can see your cooler temps, but what are you doing to make it that temperature in the first place? Is your living conditions? Router location?

 

[chunlianghere]

no point getting a cooler to cool the router, where the router can cool itself w/o getting overheated.

 

[Find the Door]

I actually asked my friend who works for ASUS, and he told me that absolutely hate when people use coolers. Cooling is one of the biggest things they focus on when designing the routers, and making sure the design is attractive. They feel hurt when customers go and smack $10 cheap plastic fans to the units since they spend so much time on the design of the product. Don't forgot, ASUS is a ODM, not OEM. They design their products.

I wouldn't worry about cooling it. Just make sure it has some room to breathe and you will be fine.

I can see your cooler temps, but what are you doing to make it that temperature in the first place? Is your living conditions? Router location?

I understand - it just ran a little warm.

Nothing in particular - regular placement.


Here's a photo:

 

[Find the Door]

no point getting a cooler to cool the router, where the router can cool itself w/o getting overheated.

I feel that it will help with longevity overtime as it is running at a lower temperature.

Those initial readings were too high for my tastes especially with how warm it was to the touch.

Not sure why it was warm really - it's in a room that's 44° F?

 

[TimothyM96]

Ah! I thought you had one of those coolers that clamp on. Guess it doesn't hurt to have some airflow underneath.

 

[Find the Door]

Ah! I thought you had one of those coolers that clamp on. Guess it doesn't hurt to have some airflow underneath.

My thinking exactly - especially if it cools the router even more than it can itself. I'm sure the aluminum surface itself helps a lot too.

 

[RMerlin]

Those initial readings were too high for my tastes especially with how warm it was to the touch.

Those chips are designed to run even past 70-80C. Broadcom has thermal protection in place in the router's bootloader, just don't worry about it - if it ever gets too hot, it will throttle performance to prevent damage.

 

[KGB7]

I actually asked my friend who works for ASUS, and he told me that absolutely hate when people use coolers. Cooling is one of the biggest things they focus on when designing the routers, and making sure the design is attractive. They feel hurt when customers go and smack $10 cheap plastic fans to the units since they spend so much time on the design of the product. Don't forgot, ASUS is a ODM, not OEM. They design their products.

I wouldn't worry about cooling it. Just make sure it has some room to breathe and you will be fine.

I can see your cooler temps, but what are you doing to make it that temperature in the first place? Is your living conditions? Router location?

Your friend must have not seen the new Netgear R7000. That router is a monster, with large openings for better cooling.

Asus routers run just fine and the temps arent too warm, but the design could have been better.

 

[sinshiva]

My router occupies the case of my former firewall box. Using older n routers as APs.

I took a case fan screw and added it to the top right of the inside face of the fan. That fan is in push configuration. Tried both ways. There is another fan on the other side of the case pulling from the dsl modem. both are powered by a single USB wall adapter by chaining connectors. The adapter pushes 1A instead of .7, dunno if it is making a difference, but why not. For the modem, i had to kinda rig it up because the fan is pulling air from the top. thinking about just modding it, but i've been lazy.

Everything is cat6, including the phone lines, up to the wall. Oh, except the grey wire, i haven't run that line though the raceways yet. It also will be cat6 when i do, just was too busy to make a cable at the time. I live in an apartment. Phone goes into the UPS before splitting to the modem and line filter+phone.

i turned on the 5ghz radio just to see what the temperature was and i got 46c.

 

[ikoul]

Sinshiva, does the router being inside a pc case impact your wifi performance at all? Or are you just using that one for routing and other APs connected with ethernet for all of your wireless?

 

[jim769]

I understand - it just ran a little warm.

Nothing in particular - regular placement.


Here's a photo:

Sure would work a lot better if you got the router higher its almost on the ground.

 

[messerchmidt]

Using a generic laptop cooler below it, running it off the usb2 port. Asus Merlin says my rt-68u via the merlin firmware is telling me:

Legend: 2.4 GHz - 5 GHz - CPU
Current Temperatures: 52 °C - 53 °C - 78 °C

CPU seems a bit hot, even with cooling..hmmm

 

[sinshiva]

Sinshiva, does the router being inside a pc case impact your wifi performance at all? Or are you just using that one for routing and other APs connected with ethernet for all of your wireless?

yessir. i imagine the case would act like a faraday cage if i tried to use wifi from it lol

 

[blueshark]

2.4G = 49
5G = 50
CPU = 65

 

[Equinox]

I put 3 CPU heatsinks on my ac3100.