New mini PC gets really hot to touch

zigojacko

Member
Recently purchased a mini PC from here (spec below) and the top of it gets extremely hot to touch.

Is this to be expected/normal?

I generally leave machines and devices on 24/7 pretty much in our office.

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Oussebon

Multiverse Poster
If it's this thing https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/computers/intel-silent-pc/ or something a lot like it, then it's fanless and so doesn't have a fan blowing heat out of the case.

I expect this makes the chassis around the CPU/heatsink get relatively warm; I'm not sure how these things are designed but I think in this instance the case itself is part of the cooling solution dissipating the heat.

Therefore if it weren't getting warm, there could be a problem...

Check the CPU temperature with something like HWinfo. Could be worth checking the HDD temps too, in case the CPU is warming that up too much. If you're not sure what 'good' temps for the hardware are, post what you see here and people can advise.

Actually I've just found a review of (a slightly older model of?) that chassis with some thermal images:

Note that the orientation affects temps.
The review shows that the components were generally at their coolest with the PC oriented "vertically, in width" (as they describe it), while the chassis was very warm. Whereas orienting the system differently could result in increased temps for the components, with varying effects on the temperature of the PC to the touch.

Unless you're holding the thing all day long, you probably want to favour whatever arrangement helps minimise the heat for the components, even if the case is a bit warmer as a result. As long as you're not hurting yourself touching it ofc.

Orienting the case differently may help a bit. But that article does suggest it gets fairly warm, presumably by design.

As above, check the temps of the components inside to make sure that the PC is warm because it's transferring the heat away from the components sufficiently, rather than warm because it's just cooking itself :)
 
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