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Cooling your Access Point?
CmdrChillupa asks: "Summer's here in the US. I don't really mind the heat and I've lived my whole life without AC. Just gotten used to having fresh air instead of pre-processed. There's only one problem with this whole theory. After a long day at work I get home and go to do a little surfing on my PowerBook and my WLAN is down. I have a Siemens Speedstream 2624 Wireless Router that from all appearances dislikes the heat more than I do. I've gotten into a habit of holding it in front of a fan for a few minutes everyday when I get home, I thought the fridge might be a bit too humid for it's electronics. Anybody have any solutions aside from a alum-alloy-peltier-inter-cooled-turbo-charged-9 monstrosity?"
I believe that the Siemens Speedstream is hardware equivalent of the SMC AWBR wireless router I have. Siemans runs their own version of firmware on it, and it's supposedly a lot more stable than SMC's firmware. The SMC firmware is so bad, in fact, that I gave up on the SMC as a router because it kept disconnecting my cable modem connection every few hours and required a reboot to reconnect. Not a Hardware problem, they swapped it out for me once. I got myself a Linksys (which runs perfectly) and I'm using the SMC as just a wireless access point. I just disable DHCP and assign it a static IP. Anyway...
The unit is very heat sensitive. When I first installed it, I had trouble getting a stable connection about 30 feet away through one floor and one wall. So, I set the unit up on styrofoam feet about one inch high and set up a 4" cooling fan to blow across the unit. Big difference! The signal in my kitchen is now five by five. I don't think you need to do any extreme cooling tricks to get the improvement.
Ralph
Move to Alaska, like I did. I live down the street from a glacier, and I let my superpowered gaming laptop heat my room at night.
no thanks
I read someone had done this for his desktop pc..
Take a long flat piece of aluminium bar. Bolt one end into the inside of the AP possibly on top of the hottest chips (will need to drill a hole or slot in the side) and the other end of the bar is bolted on a water pipeline or metal structure of the building that runs through the concrete. This makes your router VERY immobile.
I'm betting youll find an easier way like placing the router in a cooler place, but I just needed to throw in this possibility.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
You damn dirty hippy.
You could always go with oil cooling. Mmmm, mmmm, deep-fried packets.
Put the box in spot that gets no sunlight on the floor. this is in contrast to placing it near the ceiling where heat can gather.
consider a small fan to blow air over the box to get some ventilation.
also consider placing the box in your basement. for example: I live in a 3 story 100+ year old row home, no a/c. The floors lower to the ground are consistently cooler then upper floors. so keep this ap on a lower floor, maybe even the basement.
LEAVE THE FAN THERE instead of taking it away. Simple.
Why do people put up with flaky hardware instead of returning it for a replacement or refund? One of the most common signs of faulty electronics is heat sensitivity.
I live in Australia you insensitive clod!
Anybody have any solutions aside from a alum-alloy-peltier-inter-cooled-turbo-charged-9 monstrosity?
Buy a linksys. They have an operating temperature of -10C to 55C (14F to 131F).
Make sure there is enough vent area at the bottom and top of the case as mounted. Drill some if needed.
Spent $9.99 and get a cheap clamp-on desk fan. Clip it somewhere near your router and turn it to face the router. Turn it on low and leave it running. It's low enough wattage that it'll be more energy efficient than most other solutions.
Any reason you think the fridge will be humid? Everyone knows that air-conditioning removes humidity... and a fridge is just a big air conditioner. The hard part will be getting wires into the fridge for power/networking. Also, I'm not sure the wireless will work so well from within a fridge (think of shielding effects).
I thought the fridge might be a bit too humid for it's electronics.
If it's too humid in the fridge, it's waaay too humid in the heat. Cold air doesn't hold as much moisture as warm air; this is why a lot of people store ground coffee in the fridge or freezer. You can put it in the fridge without any problems, you just need to watch out for condensation when you take it out of its cool, dry place into the warm, moist ambient air.
On the other hand, your RF performance might suffer by putting your AP in a big metal box :)
He said he didn't have A/C. RTFQ.
1. take the drill to the top of the case. Make a 60 or 80 mm diameter hole.
2. Get a cheap 60 or 80 mm computer fan ($3 investment).
3. Mount with 2 or 4 screws to the top of the case.
4/a (some geekness, but mobile) Take your multimeter (everyone should have one lying around) and find a 5-12 V power to supply the fan. This should be not that hard for any geek. Look around the power supply. Solder fan wires.
4/b (less elegant, but no need to know EE) Take an old PC power supply, hardwire the ATX power signal. Connect fan.
5. Profit. I mean surf.
Code poet, espresso fiend, starter upper.
cut a small hole in the enclousure (near or over the hot spot, if it can even be found), big enough for a small ish (think 5-9volt) fan and solder the power leds to the power connection in the AP then attach fan. or dont use a fan and just make some holes to help with the ventelation.
Thanks if you cant move it to a cooler area.
No matter where you are, it's still summer in the United States. If they just said "It's summer." then your comment would have some merit.
I have a Linksys WAP11, and had a similar problem when I moved the WAP11 to my attic. (The signal strength is much better when it is projecting downared.) I was getting inconsistent signal quality during the day (when the attic is hot).
I have a Linksys signal amplifier too, and had that originally on top of the WAP11. I separated the two of them, then proppsed each up so there was air flow above and below each unit. Since then, I have had no problems.
A typical refrigerator has high humidity. If they kept humidity down, your food would dry out.
my alum-alloy-peltier-inter-cooled-turbo-charged-10 does the trick and is actually 0.13% smaller than the alum-alloy-peltier-inter-cooled-turbo-charged-9 model
Sipping on Jolt and Dew. Laid back. With my mind of my cubicle and my cubicle on my mind.
assuming it is in a relatively dust free environment.
or you could do the dremel thing... but i would use a smaller fan (maybe chipset fan instead of a case fan).
I live in Austin, TX. Summers here are particularly hot.
I bought a dlink 714p (3 ethernet, 1 printer.. this was before they introduced "plus") a year and half ago, with plans of putting it in the attic so that my neighbor and I could share dsl. After a fairly mild (by Texas standards), everything still works like a charm. It is regularly over 130 (fahrenheit) up there.. BYVMV
You should be able to pick one of these up under $60 now.
Best of luck!
- Mount it or set it on small blocks so air can flow freely around the entire unit.
- Mount it to the wall.
- Use a vacuum and clean any dust and debris out.
- Remove some of the plastic casing over the warmest chip, and mount a tiny fan (such as those sold at radio shack) onto the case, blowing onto the chip
- Hang it from a string from the cieling or bookshelf
- Place it on a large aluminum (aluminium, for you other blokes) plate, or block of steel
- Attach it to the blade of your ceiling fan
- Go to Radio Shack and get a few aluminum heatsinks and use thermal adhesive to glue them to the tops of the chips (or pcmcia card) that are getting hot
- RTFM
- Put it in your neighbor's airconditioned house/apt/condo/cardboard box
- Learn not to buy cheap
- Use it in an interactive, wireless art exhibit - "Schrodinger's Net connection: You don't know if it's dead or alive until you open the laptop..."
-AdamI have never heard of this before with an AP. I have a dlink ap-1000 that doesnt even get to room temperature. Are these AP's really getting that hot or are they designed to operate in temps below 80F? Can someone post actual temps?
www.linux-skunkworks.com
like this "bloke"
http://www.asciimation.co.nz/beer
I'm not familiar with the specific unit, but assume it does not have forced convection, or you probably wouldn't be having this problem. Most of these units are rectangular, with one dimension much longer than the other two. Figure out which end is hotter while running laying flat. Open it up and drill a few air holes on each small end. Be careful with drill shavings. If you can get the case completely isolated from the electronics, that's best. Put the hot end down, or either one, if the hotspot is centered, and raise the end a bit to let air reach the holes.
This will maximize thermal convection. If that's still not enough, you'll have to arrange forced air... a little CPU fan stuck over the holes will suffice.
I have, in one pile on top of my main PC's case, a KVM, ADSL modem, and router, piled on top of each other. The modem and router were generating enough heat to kill the stability of the modem. Simple solution: I took the heatsink from my old, dead PC - standard heatsink from a 633MHz Celeron - and put it, vertically, between the modem and the router. It probably isn't very efficient, but it works.
crappy webcam photo of it: http://edwards.servehttp.com:969/heatsink.jpg
FYI, the modem is an Alcatel SpeedTouch Home, and the router is an SMC Barricade 7004ABR.
Not sure whether this will make you feel any better, but I have a Netgear ME-102 access point and it's never had any heat problems.
I live in Washington DC where the summers get pretty summery. I keep it hanging in an unobscured east-facing window where it gets several hours of direct sunlight per day. It's between the window and the blinds so it also gets the heat reflected back by the blinds. I don't use the A/C in my apartment (prefer the fan), so it's usually about 80 in the shade indoors. The thing's gone through one full summer and what we've had of this one, without a hiccup.
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
A more mundane example: you can make an ordinary PC in an AT-style case overheat by leaving the cover off. The fan in a conventional PC power supply doesn't supply cool air -- the PS itself is a major source of heat -- but just having the air flow properly past the components makes a lot of difference.
Who the heck publishes this Ask Slashdot drivel!?!?
I am getting tired of really lame questions all the time. This one is just plain dumb!
COME ON! THINK DAMN YOU! IF YOUR ROUTER DOESN'T LIKE THE HEAT AND THE ROOM TEMPERATURE IS NOT THAT HIGH (under 110 Deg. F.), THEN YOU HAVE FAULTY EQUIPMENT! (over 110 Deg. F. - then you need to cool it down because most electronics will not like that, not one bit).
I know, I know you replaced it once. Well then it's a defective design! Buy a new router. Can't afford it? Bitch to the manufacturer or the store where you bought it, put up a big freaking stink if you have to. Get your money back then drag your butt down the local Walmart and buy a Linksys. Heck, it's so darn good that Cisco bought the company!
I've never had a problem, errrh short of a thunder strike close to the house and the EMP blew the power supply but that was one hell of a magnetic wave of energy passing over that transformer! Lit up my LCD displays as well! So darn cheap I just bought a replacement for under $100.
Ain't got a $100? Get a freaking job! There's no excuse for that...
That sounds like the book "Venus Prime". One of the characters had a CPU bolted to the cold water tap in the kitchen.
When they wanted to do some extremely fast processing - turn on the tap... turn on the CPU... and hot water comes out.
(Later on in the story, someone is forced to remotely access the CPU without turning on the water and it burns out after a few minutes.)
it is non-conductive
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and there are people who have done it already to whom you can direct performance and other questions to.
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/03/16/202
While I can't stand their software, MS typically does make decent hardware (Intellimouse Explorer anyone?)
The MN-500 is no exception - Everywhere I saw, it got quite good reviews. So far, my experience is that it is MUCH more stable than my POS Belkin wireless router that started crashing routinely and then died permanently.
One thing about the MN500 - It stands vertically. I haven't checked it for heat, but that could be one reason it has proven to be more reliable than the Belkin, which always ran quite hot.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
I nearly did this to my overheating Belkin router.
It killed itself before i got around to it though.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
I've got the same unit in a closet in my "office."
The house has AC, but the "office" has at least 4 computers running full time in there, so it stays several degees warmer than the rest of the hosue.
The closet where the AP lives has the doors closed all of the time, and there's a notebook running in the closet, too. (My webserver.)
I had some range issues with it until I added the directional antenna. Now I get strong signal everywhere in the house.
Hmmm. now that I think about it, I wonder what kind of signal I'd get if I looked at the operating temp of the unit.....
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
Go to your local over-priced electronic component monopoly and buy yourself a component fan. Cut a small hole in the case and tack a couple beads of solder on to a 6v-12v line and tape or glue the fan to the case.
I used to have a crap load of components in my entertainent center and the audio processor/Dolby amplifier would always overheat causing my speakers to produce a nice square wave. That is, until I did this. I just sat the fan down on the top since it had convinent air slits anyway.
When you touch metal it tends to feel cool, because it conducts heat well enough that it is moving heat out and away from your skin. Having a thick piece of metal to carry the heat to something big and cool can help.
Then it's a matter of whether anything big and cool exists nearby. Do your water pipes feel cool? Is your building built of wood or concrete, and does concrete or the floor feel cool?
Or do you have some steel shelves and do they feel cool?
I suppose you could dig a hole 20 or 30 feet down. Cooler down there. Just don't go a mile or two down, where instead it gets warmer.
As others pointed out, you can use oil or water circulating to transfer heat. There also are "heat pipes" which are sealed metal tubes with a liquid or gas which easily moves heat.
The most certain solution is to run a heat pipe or circulating liquid from your machine to the inside of the refrigerator.
Or just put your modem inside the refrigerator.
Either that or cool your apartment. It's not just the AP that's suffering from the heat, every component, and especially PSU's and HDD's HATE heat. That's why datacenters are cooled to the point where it's uncomfortable to be in them with short sleves. Btw Cisco makes a rugedized AP, when I worked with the guys at Aironet they had a report of a rudigized AP that was in a NEMA enclosure on the top of a flat tar roof in Saudi Arabia! I doubt your flat gets hotter than that =)
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Sit on a popsicle goatse-boy!
Just leave the cover open. Not so esthetic but easy and very often it is enough.
// diidu