Monday, September 23, 2013

Fixing heat issue on x1000

For the last week or so I noticed that the x1ktemp docky was reporting my CPU temperature over 55 degrees C, and it is not even summer yet in Australia!

Looking around the internet some people reported the same issue - fortunately the cause and solution turned out to be quite simple, and was explained by klx300r in a Amigaworld.net forum post here. Thanks for the tip mate!

Keen to try it out also, I got started...

As delivered, the x1000 has vents in the case for cooling, but most of them are covered up with foam and a hard plastic edge, presumably the foam is for sound insulation. 

I wanted to leave the top vents covered as dust would otherwise easily get inside the case. The side panel also has a covered vent with four screws holding the foam in place. Simply unscrew them and voila! - You have a vent for the hot air to escape more easily.

Below is a photo of the foam covering the vent once removed:

 
And below you can see the side panel with the foam removed:


I then reassembled my X1000, ready to try out:



You can now see into the case:



On booting AmigaOS 4 I found the x1ktemp docky had stabilised the CPU temp under 55 degrees!

Thanks to x1ktemp docky I was able to pickup this problem before it did any permanent damage to the X1000. I looked at this software in more detail in a separate blog entry here.

I thought this information would be helpful for those X1000 owners who leave their computer running for any length of time and are having temperature issues!