how hot does the processor on your beaglebone black get? How hot should it get?

[Eric Fort]

I've had some issues recently with my beagle bone black going stupid, dropping from the network and at times being flaky and unresponsive.  when I picked up the board it felt substantially warmer than my beaglebone white.  Both are running on 5VDC input power (measured at 5.00V with a VOM).  the processor on the Beaglebone White I can place my finger on top of and leave it there indefinitely.  The processor on the Beaglebone Black, is hot enough that after 5-10 seconds I can no longer hold my finger on it.  Is this normal?  How long can you hold your finger on the processor of your Beaglebone Black before it becomes uncomfortably warm?  Please nobody try this to the point of burning your (or someone else's) fingers.

Eric

[John Syn]

From: Eric Fort <eric...@gmail.com>
Reply-To: <beagl...@googlegroups.com>
Date: Saturday, May 31, 2014 at 2:54 PM
To: beagleboard <beagl...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [beagleboard] how hot does the processor on your beaglebone black get? How hot should it get?

I've had some issues recently with my beagle bone black going stupid, dropping from the network and at times being flaky and unresponsive.  when I picked up the board it felt substantially warmer than my beaglebone white.  Both are running on 5VDC input power (measured at 5.00V with a VOM).  the processor on the Beaglebone White I can place my finger on top of and leave it there indefinitely.  The processor on the Beaglebone Black, is hot enough that after 5-10 seconds I can no longer hold my finger on it.  Is this normal?  How long can you hold your finger on the processor of your Beaglebone Black before it becomes uncomfortably warm?  Please nobody try this to the point of burning your (or someone else's) fingers.

It depends on the CPU frequency and CPU load. If you are running at 1GHz and near 100% CPU load, then the processor gets quite hot (5-10 seconds is about right). If your CPU load is low, then this is not normal. At 300MHz and less than 10% CPU load, the CPU should be just warm.

Regards,

John 

Eric

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[Gerald Coley]

The longer you hold your finger on the processor, the hotter the your finger gets. It should run right around 50 C when running at 1GHz. Beaglebone white default was 750MHz.

Gerald

[Eric Fort]

The point of using a finger as a measure of tempreature is it's something easy to do and subjectively compare within a group as at least most of us have fingers but not many of us will have an IR thermometer handy.  generally one can't remain in contact with things of higher temp for as long as those of cooler temp thus it makes a nice subjective test.  50C is a good number to know though.  how warm should a chip running at 750MHZ get?

Eric

[Gerald Coley]

If my memory serves me, it has been a while, I think it was in the low to mid 40 range.

Gerald