It has been noted that the Raspberry Pi 3 is prone to overheating, at which point it will freeze operation. The manufacturer claims that this only happens during extreme usage, such as high GPU processing.

Here at SDR, we have found that running any Java program with continuous GUI operation, however minimal, results in overheating.

Our Raspberry Pi 3 is installed in a case with stick-on heat sinks on the two main topside chips. Even out of the case, our Pi still overheats.

The adhesive film supplied with the heat sinks is probably less than optimal. Using high quality paste with a hold down bracket would improve the heat transfer, especially if a larger heat sink is employed. However, using a fan is probably the safest bet.

Solution

We directed a fan on the outside of the case, pointed at a slot over the expansion port and the Pi no longer overheats.

The Pi shuts down around 80° C. After adding a fan, our Pi stabilized at about 53° C while running the same programs which previously overheated it.

Monitoring the CPU Temperature

A function is provided which displays the Pi’s CPU temperature. You can use a simple bash script to constantly display the temperature:

#!/bin/bash

while true

do

/opt/vc/bin/vcgencmd measure_temp

Create a text file with the above commands. Name the file check-temp.sh or similar.

Make the file executable by using: chmod -x check-temp.sh

Run it in a shell window using: bash check-temp.sh

Or double click on it in File Manager in the GUI environment and choose: Execute in Terminal

Since this is a shell script, you can run it remotely using PuTTY and monitor your Pi from afar.

Try running different programs and you will note that the temperature changes depending on the workload. For instance, logging in with PuTTY and running the check-temp.sh program will raise the temperature a few degrees. With the fan, the temperature will stabilize…without it the temperature will rise until the Pi shuts down.

Several claims are made about the Pi “throttling” the processing speed to prevent shut down, but we have never noticed that happening.