FAN WITH HEAT SINK

Fan with Heatsinks

Raspberry Pi are designed to run without the need for an additional cooling system. Heatsinks are not required, and it’s safe to use a Pi without them. They can, however, be beneficial for safety and performance in projects where more CPU power is used.

Raspberry Pi temperature management

Raspberry Pis are protected from overheating with thermal throttling. The Raspberry Pi will automatically reduce performance to cool down when the CPU reaches the threshold temperature.

Raspberry Pi Temperature: Limits

the Raspberry Pi CPU temperature must stay below 85 °C at all times. It will start throttling (reducing performance) as it approaches this threshold in order to prevent overheating. Cooling is not mandatory for normal usage but can help maintain top performance all the time.

When Raspberry Pi is power it on or idle, temperature will be around 40-50 °C and will slowly climb up when application start to use the CPU. With short tasks and idle time in between (as it is for normal usage), the CPU will have enough time to cool down with the fresh air circulation.

The CPU temperature can be an issue when tasks using the processor for a long period without downtime to cool down (streaming, gaming, etc.). In this case, having a basic cooling system to keep CPU temperature below 85 °C is recommended.

How to monitor the CPU temperature on a Raspberry Pi?

On Raspberry Pi OS with Desktop, the easiest way to see the CPU temperature is to add the Temperature Monitor widget in the top panel.

• Right-click on the blank spot in the top bar.

• Select “Panel Settings” in the drop-down menu.

• Select “Panel Applets” tab and click on “Add”

• Choose “Temperature Monitor” in the list and click on “Add”

• Close all window, and user can see the current CPU temperature in the top bar

Raspberry Pi temperature using command line

Select command line and enter below command to get the current temperature:

vcgencmd measure_temp

Raspberry Pi cooling -

There are several ways to keep a Raspberry Pi at the optimal temperature using heat sinks, passive case, fans, or even water cooling. Heat sinks or a passive case are generally enough for basic usage, but other solutions can help for CPU intensive use which generate more heat.