Model 4B Running Hot

Question

Here is my hardware/software setup:

1. Model 4B with 4GB of RAM.
2. Official 5V power supply (North American socket)
3. Official case with provided heatsinks
4. Ubuntu 20.04 (Most recent LTS, came out April 2020)

When I log into my machine remotely, I am greeted with this disturbing output (notice temperature):

Welcome to Ubuntu 20.04 LTS (GNU/Linux 5.4.0-1008-raspi aarch64)

  System load:            0.06
  Usage of /:             31.0% of 14.29GB
  Memory usage:           11%
  Swap usage:             0%
  Temperature:            75.0 C
  Processes:              186
  Users logged in:        0

I am running no processes other than those which are started at boot time, not even a graphical environment, and yet I am seeing (and feeling) insane temperatures.

So my question is, is this an anomaly, or are these CPU temps the price you have to pay for the latest model?

Answer 1

I can't comment on whether Ubuntu makes things worse, but the P4 is subject to overheating.

Firmware upgrades ameliorated some of the problems but many users have resorted to proper heatsinks, fans and/or cases.

The official case is unusable - it has no ventilation and those tiny heatsinks make little difference. My official case is in my junk box along with an official Pi3 case.

For what it is worth I ran Ubuntu 20.04 on my Pi4 (in its heatsink case) and GUI without issue.

If you run any serious code the Pi will throttle back to avoid damage, but this kind of defeats the point of a faster processor.

The case I used is https://core-electronics.com.au/search/?q=ce06407 - I believe these are available from other vendors. I do not think the fan is totally necessary - it only comes on at 60℃ after running the stress test for > 10 minutes.