Tag: zero

Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W: slides and thermals

2 out of 4 cores burning, 32-bit mode: time to overheat = basically never

Slides from last night’s talk:

Meet_the_Raspberry_Pi_Zero_2_W.odpDownload

It’s impossible to have a Raspberry Pi Zero overheat unless you overclock it. That’s why you don’t get any cases for it with fans or heat sinks. The quad-core Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W, though, has the potential to do so. Here are some numbers:

  • Used official case with lid fitted: increases SoC temperature +3 °C over free air
  • Test – CPUBurn: https://github.com/pmylund/cpuburn
  • Tested 4, 3 and 2 cores burning in 32-bit and 64-bit modes: time from idle to throttling (80 °C) measured
  • GPU overheat not tested.
line graph of cpu temperature against time. Temperature rises sharply from about 47 degrees C to 82 degrees C in around four minutes
All 4 cores burning, 64-bit mode: time to overheat = under 3½ minutes
line graph of cpu temperature against time. Temperature rises sharply from about 47 degrees C to 82 degrees C in just over four minutes
All 4 cores burning, 32-bit mode: time to overheat = just over 4 minutes
line graph of cpu temperature against time. Temperature rises moderately from about 47 degrees C to 81 degrees C in around seven minutes
3 out of 4 cores burning, 64-bit mode: time to overheat = just over 7 minutes
line graph of cpu temperature against time. Temperature rises slowly from about 47 degrees C to 81 degrees C in around ten minutes
3 out of 4 cores burning, 32-bit mode: time to overheat = 9½ minutes
line graph of cpu temperature against time. Temperature rises very slowly, reach 70 degrees C in 40 minutes and then only rising very slightly to about 73 degrees C in the entire run time of 3 hours 20 minutes
2 out of 4 cores burning, 32-bit mode: time to overheat = basically never

Unless you’re doing things that might indicate you should be using a bigger computer, a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W won’t overheat and doesn’t need any form of cooling. If you’re overclocking, well … it’s your choice to have cooling equipment worth more than the computer it’s trying to cool.

Eugene’s fishing line header hack for Raspberry Pi Zero

0.38 mm / 5.4 kg test Trilene threaded through Raspberry Pi Zero header holes
0.38 mm / 5.4 kg test Trilene threaded through Raspberry Pi Zero header holes holds jumper wires snugly without soldering

Eugene “thirtytwoteeth” Andruszczenko (of Game Boy Zero – Handheld Edition fame) posted a neat idea to help your Raspberry Pi Zero take jumper wires without soldering. He threaded fishing line through the 40 hole header, making an interference fit for header pins. I tried it with 0.38 mm Trilene, which worked rather well.

those are no murder ballads, son

I was hoping to like Nick Cave’s Murder Ballads a lot more than I do. He treated the standards as if saying, “wow, lookit me, I’m real bad!”.

What gives real murder ballads their impact is the gentle, matter-of-fact delivery: listen to Henry Lee on Harry Smith and they might as well be singing a lullaby. Cave murders them with zero subtlety. Doesn’t help that he has tiny squeakerette Kylie (pr. Minog-YEW) on the crew.

Stewart’s long walk

After picking up my UK passport form at Bay & College, I walked to Spadina Subway. Not far, you’d say. It is if you go via College all the way to Dufferin, and back. 7.3 km, I make it, from the amazing Gmaps Pedometer. I went via Canada Computers (where I got a fantastically quiet Vantec case fan) and Soundscapes (where, of course, I bought too many CDs).

And you know why it was such a long walk? I was looking for a Timmy’s. Sad, isn’t it? It would seem that Little Italy is almost totally free of Tim’s. Yes, I know I could have had fantastic espresso and some kind of pastry there, but I wanted Tim’s, and I was prepared to walk for over an hour in sub-zero temperatures to get it, dammit.