Description
| The heat spreader kit is included with apu boards, no need to order separately unless you have to migrate a board to a new enclosure. |
| Summary | The apu CPU and south bridge (apu1) or apu2 CPU (single chip) are passively cooled by heat conduction to the bottom of the enclosure. This assumes use of our enclosure. Third party enclosures should work if they are made from aluminium, and have a board standoff height of 5 mm.
Based on our measurements, at full load the CPU runs a few degrees cooler in the black (case1d2blku) or red (case1d2redu) enclosures, compared to the plain anodized enclosure (case1d2u). There is a reason why heat sinks are usually black – better emissivity. |
| Step 1 | Remove DB9 hex nuts. |
| Step 2 | Turn board upside down. Using a sharp tweezer or x-acto knife, peel the blue cover foil from the small blue thermal pads. Apply to CPU (both apu1 and apu2 series) and south bridge (apu1 series only). Photo shows the cover foil still present on the left side, must be removed !
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| Step 3 | Place the alu heat spreader (blank side down) over CPU and (apu1) south bridge. Be sure to avoid conflict with nearby through hole components. Peel the blue cover foil to expose the adhesive.
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| Step 4 | “Bottoms up” – hold the enclosure base upside down, feed the board DB9 and LAN connectors through the openings. Lightly press board and enclosure base together to stick the heat spreader in place.
Turn around and carefully press down around CPU and heat sink to get good contact between enclosure and heat spreader (best to use the pink bubble bag as a ESD safe cushion, rather than pushing directly with a finger). Then insert screws and hex nuts.
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| Alternative approach | Use our new apufix1a placement fixture for placing heat spreaders for apu2 and apu3 system boards. Sorry, the location will not fit apu1. |
| Spare parts | Please avoid unnecessary disassembly, the heat conductive pads are rather fragile. Please contact us if you need replacements – no charge for apupad thermal pads, about $1 + shipping for the complete heat spreader + thermal pad kit.
Spec for the thermal conductive pad: thickness 0.5 mm, thermal conductivity 6 W/mK or better. Due to the high power density of the CPU, pads with lower thermal conductivity will not work well. |
