M.2 SSD cooling solution (PCB mounted on motherboard)

[The_Tester]

This is my first thread on TH so I won’t bore anyone with the life story or rig setup. Just though this was a simple solution to an inherent problem with PCB mounted M.2. This is especially true if you have a graphics card sitting directly over top of the thing (like I do).



Installed it and got it working (google and manufacture manuals are great for this). As expected the temps in static air where horrible. I don’t have a fancy FLIR but when any no-contact thermometer reads 103C on electronics you know you have to fix that.



I peeled the sticker off so I could start getting things done. The controller and the other little chip (I dunno what it is) were a thinner BGA package than the mem. Sooo, I cut some perforated spacer to level up things for the heatsink.



The stuff I used in the previous pic is really meant to be used as is without any kind of adhesive or compound but that didn’t stop me from using any. Ultra-fine copper mesh works just as well, but tends to have stray “fibers” if you’re not careful.



I rummaged around in the bin until I found a piece of heatsink that looked right and cut it to fit (2.75”L x 1”W x .225”H btw). Funny thing is I had gone this far with no thought whatsoever as to how I was going to keep the heatsink in place. A trip to the plumbing section at the hardware store took care of that (O-rings can you believe it? How freaking simple/easy can you get). I just made sure I had one over each chip/section so as not to put undue stress on the rather thin PCB and apply even pressure.



I will note that this heatsink has a non-conductive coating on it so I was not too worried about anything touching. An insulating film could easily be cut to fit if needed.



Can you guess what kind of motherboard I have?



Idle temps where about 38C~40C



Making it hot



Sweet!



Cool (literally compared to 100C+)



And here is the great part. Since PCIE and M.2 are fairly standard this methodology could be applied to any PCB mounted M.2.
I’m sure there is a snazzier way of doing this, but I didn’t want anything to be permanently attached on the off chance I felt like dealing with a warranty claim.

If anyone has a more "professional" and also still non-permanent way of doing this i'm all ears.

 

[The Original Ralph]

I like the idea of using O-rings to hold the heatsink on - that is thinking out of the box. I'm not sure i like hearing about copper filaments and the possibility of them working loose and shorting something out though, but you must know the life of the paste.

here's a slightly more "fred flintstone" approach using active cooling, but it let me keep the samsung applique on a xp941. Max temp dropped, while rendering video files, from 97-98C (read with a non-contact thermometer like yours) to 76-77C with the 40MM fan on it. Just under the max temp for the 951 samsung PCIe SSD. I've since moved to a 950 PRO and using HD Sentinel, Max temps i've seen, with a fan, were 57C running benchmarking tests. Rendering videos, i haven't seen it over 51C . Light duty, like browsing the web etc, i see temps in the 37-39C range.

that was on a addonics board, i've since moved to a 950 PRO on an ASUS hyper M.2 kit board as it allows much more of a gap behind the PCIe SSD for airflow

fairly simple fabrication -

by the way, if you want a program that displays the NVMe controller's temp, HD Sentinel - i'm using their freeware version, vs 4.60.13 PRO beta

here's a shot of their screen

 

[The_Tester]

I've actually seen this! I have also tried program.

Unfortunately I haven't found anything that will let me observe the temperature of the device. Fairly certain it's either socket interface or UEFI related (or I don't have something set right). The 950 pro doesn't even show up in either of the M.2 sockets, it only registers as a bootable device. It's mostly just for the OS, i've got a WD~FZEX as my wear and tear drive (surprisingly quick for a platter drive I might add).

 

[The_Tester]

Additionally to this build I combined the h105 fans into one connector (minus the tach wire for one of them.

I also had to do a little hacking and chopping on the ram heat spreaders to get the h105 to fit on the inside without contacting anything.

 

[The_Tester]

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[Toothless010]

What activity are you doing to get heat in your system?? Why I ask is, I have a second Samsung 951 sitting below my video card and during gaming the M.2 drive has normal temps. I have the OEM M.2 without any heat sinks.

Only thing I can think of is you have very bad air flow?

edit: I noticed your bottom case fan has about 1" filter or form. Are you really getting any air flow? why not the thin filter instead?

 

[The_Tester]

When I first installed it, I noticed that the controller section had rapid temperature fluctuations. It also got quite hot after only a 20 seconds or so of heavy activity. With the heat of my graphics card and recording uncompressed video for example I was concerned with longevity of the unit. I was originally just concerned about applying a heat spreader but figured i'd get some fins on it considering it's in a particularly warm area of the system.

It's got 3 140mm drawing air in and 2x120mm + 140mm pushing it out with the regular filter setup that came with he R4 case.

Have no idea what you mean by 1" filter. I did get bored and tried something with mounting one of my HDD's on a small block of antistatic foam but that didn't out well when I needed to add/subtract drives so I sacked the idea.

 

[The Original Ralph]

What activity are you doing to get heat in your system?? Why I ask is, I have a second Samsung 951 sitting below my video card and during gaming the M.2 drive has normal temps. I have the OEM M.2 without any heat sinks.

Only thing I can think of is you have very bad air flow?

edit: I noticed your bottom case fan has about 1" filter or form. Are you really getting any air flow? why not the thin filter instead?

These small form factor SSDs are known to run hot - and the mfgrs have installed thermal limiters which basically limit or throttle the SSD's performance when they hit the thermal limit. Even though they draw less power, they also are proportionately much much smaller which means less area to transfer heat out.