Keeping ancient kit running - Acer Revo r3610

petertr2000 · 23 May 2016 at 21:10

Hi folks,

Wondering if anyone can help me with my very old Acer Revo - its running Openelec for Kodi, purely as a HTPC.

Its got an Atom 330 CPU and an NVidea ION GPU

A week ago, it just stopped working - wouldn't boot - error message that I didn't understand.
So I thought I'd take a look at the box - after years and years, of course it was a disaster zone inside. So I cleaned it out and removed the totally-dried thermal pastes and replaced with AS5 (I've got a tube I've been using for years now, will get something better next time, but its good enough for me).
The heatsink by the way, is a one-piece metal block that goes over the CPU and GPU, with a fan mounted on it.

Booted up - same error. Pretty gutted, but that's computing for you. Googled a bit more, and eventually found out that Openelec had removed support for my ION GPU, and that's why I wouldn't boot.
So I fixed the software issue, and all is well. Apart from no, its not. The fan is going crazy.

SSH'd to the box, and sitting idle, the CPU is 83C and GPU 67C. Waaaaay too high.

I googled a bit more, and found that our friends at Acer had a thermal PAD for the GPU, not just paste. Yet, its the CPU that's running hot.

Still, having some experience of replacing pads with copper shims from a previous Acer laptop - I went about doing the same. Installed the shim.

Fixed? Nope.

So for kicks and giggled, I've added a shim on the CPU too.
Nothing is working - temps are still crackers. No difference is being made whatever I do.

Anyone got any suggestions for me? I'd love to fix the thing, rather than replace it with a £30 RPi. Just because I like fixing things, mostly. (The RPi is probably a far better device for me, but still!)

Thanks in advance.

Doogles · 23 May 2016 at 22:33

Get a RPI and save on the electric

If you want to fix it why not do that and donate to a charity of choice?

petertr2000 · 24 May 2016 at 09:21

Doogles said:
Get a RPI and save on the electric

If you want to fix it why not do that and donate to a charity of choice?

Not a terrible idea. I just want to get it working really, as a technical challenge.

The RPI is probably more powerful and loads cheaper to run, now you mention it

phazari180 · 24 May 2016 at 14:35

I had a couple of these running OpenELEC a few years back and from what I remember they always ran that hot, especially with the fan speed set to a quieter profile. All replaced with RPI 2's now, they're not quite as snappy in the menus but well worth it for the lower noise and heat.

petertr2000 · 24 May 2016 at 21:36

phazari180 said:
I had a couple of these running OpenELEC a few years back and from what I remember they always ran that hot, especially with the fan speed set to a quieter profile. All replaced with RPI 2's now, they're not quite as snappy in the menus but well worth it for the lower noise and heat.

I had a thought earlier today, whilst sitting in traffic.

When I took the heatsink apart last night, it was very very hot. If the chip wasn't in good thermal contact with the heatsink, that wouldn't be the case
Correct?

Which leads me to another conclusion - is the fan knackered?
I cleaned it at the same time, and its quite rattly now. Maybe its simply not pushing enough over the exit-fins?

Would that make sense?

petertr2000 · 5 Sep 2016 at 20:24

Just to update - fitted the new fan, don't even remember if I turned the system on again after that - but it got sold on ebay.

Replaced with a far better RPi3. What an amazing bit of kit for £50 all in. Faster, smaller, cheaper to run, better-supported. Perfect.