Posted: Sun Sep 10, 2017 23:25 Post subject: WRT1900ACS Version 2 CPU HOT!!!
Can we talk cooling again for a second...
Running the latest DD-WRT 33342 my CPU temp
is currently at 83.2C and I'm not doing anything...
83.2C equals 181.76F...I'm no electronics engineer
but that seems awfully hot. The router is in the
wire room where all connections are made and it's
cooled to the same temp as the rest of the house 78F.
I put four little spacers under the router's feet to see if that might improve things (about 1/2 inch)...Didn't do anything...
What do you think...USB fan cooling required OR is this OK? All the USB fans seem to go for $12 to $15 on Amazon and I'm not a prime customer so don't want to waste money if I don't need to and the fan of course will pump dust inside the router cabinet so not sure what I should do...
I guess I had thought version 1 had the fan kick on at 65C and off at 60C...If it's 85C and 80C like you say then I guess they designed it for these temps. Thanks.
So being the lifelong geek that I am (Retired IT Mgr.)...I could not sleep well with the temps. I was seeing on my router's CPU...So I bought one of these...
USB 120mm 3 speed fan with rubber feet. Got it this morning and set it on top of my WRT1900ACSV2. I decided on the medium setting as it produced a good airflow and was still very quiet...
Waited for router to stabilize...
CPU Temps went from 83.2C (181.76F) to 60.3C (140.54F).
EDIT: I also forgot to mention that wireless temperatures also dropped 20C from 53/54C to 33/34C...
Just thought I would provide info for those interested. Not saying it's necessary...But it will help me sleep easier...
Last edited by DaveI on Thu Sep 14, 2017 21:38; edited 1 time in total
So being the lifelong geek that I am (Retired IT Mgr.)...I could not sleep well with the temps. I was seeing on my router's CPU...So I bought one of these...
USB 120mm 3 speed fan with rubber feet. Got it this morning and set it on top of my WRT1900ACSV2. I decided on the medium setting as it produced a good airflow and was still very quiet...
Waited for router to stabilize...
CPU Temps went from 83.2C (181.76F) to 60.3C (140.54F).
Just thought I would provide info for those interested. Not saying it's necessary...But it will help me sleep easier...
i realize your comfort level is improved now that u have the fan but it's highly unlikely u'll experience device failure even at 120 degrees f.
yes, heat is one of the worst enemies for silicone but there's a lot of resiliency built it.
linksys states the following:
Operating Temperature:
32 to 104 F (0 to 40 C)
Storage Temperature:
-4 to 140 F (-20 to 60 C)
mine is in a closed cabinet where it can easily reach mid 90s - 100's. especially in the summer when we go cheap on the a/c. no problems with the 3200acm or any previous router including the 1900ac. have the tp-link in a small room elsewhere and temps are brutal as no hvac gets there at all. no issues ever and that's been thumping for years now!
not sure how u roll, but in the typical home environ, it's hard to stress these pups with text or even audio streams. a hd vid stream on multiple tvs may get its attention but routers just ain't that bz for extended periods. personally, i'd save the fan. _________________ asus rt-ac86u stock: 3.0.0.4.384_45149
wrt3200acm: r34578 {sunset}
"why nibble when u can take a byte."
Dave1 etc,
Like you & others I DO NOT like these higher temperatures at all.
As a long time development & implementation engineer, I can say that higher temperatures are NOT your friend. While there are factors which can lead to higher temps, good designs can account for that = boxes, chips, chipsets & mountings as well as fans can be designed, selected, spec'd to achieve more reasonable temperatures. After all even with all the holes in the wrt boxes, there is not even much if any vertical air flow thru from bottom to top.
It looks like the mfgrs of these supposedly SOHO routers decided to make them with cost cutting designs that contribute to higher temperatures. And thus we end up with routers which will most likely have shorter lifespans & develop intermittent strange behavior. Maybe the mfgrs think they can make more money by cutting manufacturing & parts costs and just sell their newer routers based on glitz & features when these die.
While these higher temperatures are listed by some mfgr web sites as being acceptable that does not really address the conditions under which their designs have failed to maintain lower temperatures.
For the wrt3200, did LinkSys "achieve" the higher temps by overclocking the CPU, instead of using a cpu chip set designed to run cool at the 1.866 Ghz clock speed? And yes I do have experience with overclocking. And I have the super coolers that I used with those PC boxes.
I have to admit that it is a pain to have to use yet another 12v converter to run fans which should have been included with device.
grumble, grumble
Sam _________________ multi-tier router stack
wrt 3200's for speed & cpu power, NG R6300v2's for WiFi AP's,
wrt 1200v2 for one of my secure subnets.
wrt54GLs for ad'l 3rd tier machines.
I figure that even hot the wrt3200 will last 2 to 3 years as which point I will probably want that shinny new router, what ever that may be.
Yep ! That's probably about all you can do with these, but you may need a fan to get the "full" 3 years. I still have 2-3 wrt54GLs in use that do a fine job and are fast enough for what they do in my router stack. I don't think I'll get that kind of life from my wrt3200, even with fans. Note that WiFi is only a minor part of my systems use. And I have a separate router dedicated just to the WiFi. So the new fangled WiFi glitz is not important to my setup. I'm using dd-wrt for the better security and what I see as much better coding by BrainSlayer et al.
Ironically, we can get a CISCO router/firewall used for about the retail of these wrt3200's. The CISCOs are spec'd to operate at 40 C or below. But I think I can trust the dd-wrt FW more. Certainly dd-wrt is most of the time faster reacting to issues that get discovered than CISCO has been on their routers that I could afford. Plus I don't recall seeing recent vulnerabilities being discovered in dd-wrt like we've seen with CISCO. And that includes CISCO's stupid call home to stay updated fiasco ( or did they do that twice).
Which reminds me, is there a dd-wrt that can be run on PFSense?
Sam _________________ multi-tier router stack
wrt 3200's for speed & cpu power, NG R6300v2's for WiFi AP's,
wrt 1200v2 for one of my secure subnets.
wrt54GLs for ad'l 3rd tier machines.
Note that WiFi is only a minor part of my systems use. And I have a separate router dedicated just to the WiFi. So the new fangled WiFi glitz is not important to my setup. I'm using dd-wrt for the better security and what I see as much better coding by BrainSlayer et al.