This week, one of our Sales Engineers, Michael Newsham, conducted a thermal test of a Habey BIS-6764 Fanless System. This test determined the temperature of key system components within the system when using the proprietary Habey thermal solution for fanless i3 and i5 systems, measuring Chassis surface temperatures on the top, left, and right side of the system.
What We Used
The system used for this test was a BIS-6764 Fanless System running a Intel i3-3217U Processor with Max TDP of 17W. Included in the test were memory and a standard Western Digital Hard Drive. Additionally, the WD hard drive supports S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring, Analysis and Reporting Technology ). The hard drive was chosen to simulate a “worst case” scenario for the system. Spinning at 5400RPM, the HD has an operating temperature between 0° C and 60° C. Ideally, a Solid State Drive (SSD) would be used for a industrial system which usually has an operating temperature between 0° C and 70° C.
Testing was conducted by running Passmark BurnIn software with the CPU at 75% capacity for approximately 16 hours. During the test, the temperatures of the CPU cores and the Hard Drive were monitored using two software titles. Passmark DiskCheckup reports the internal temperature of the drive as reported by the S.M.A.R.T information. SpeedFan (Copyright 2000-2013 by Alfredo Milani Comparetti) was used to retrieve surface temperature data on the 2 CPU Cores and the HDD.
Setup
The system was set to run at 75% capacity to generate more heat than would be used under normal circumstances. The system was run at this load without interruption for 16 hours.
Temperature Readings
Chassis Temperature Readings
Temp at Start: 4:30pm on 9/16/13
Top Cover: 36 degrees Celsius
Left Side: 30 degrees Celsius
Right Side: 31 degrees Celsius
Temp at End: Approx 8:45 am 9/17/13
Top Cover: 41 degrees Celsius
Left Side: 34 degrees Celsius
Right Side: 33 degrees Celsius
During our investigation, we also tested the Intel NUC with i3-3317U CPU for our comparison. Our SpeedFan findings showed the CPU core and SSD all ran about 10 degrees Celsius higher than the Habey fanless solution. We note these readings are near the high end of the safe operating temperatures for the components. While BIOS setting are available to decrease the temperature by increasing the fan speed, the faster rotation created a considerable increase in fan noise and did not reduce temperatures to the level of the Habey fanless solution.
Conclusion
The recorded temperatures using SpeedFan indicate the surface temperature of the tested components remained well below operational specifications for the 16 hour duration of the test. The S.M.A.R.T. information, retrieved by DiskCheckup, indicates the core temperature of the drive also remained well below the operational specifications.
The temperature readings remained stable throughout the test indicating the thermal design of the Habey solution will perform similarly during longer operation. This information is also pertinent to Habey model BIS-6765, using i5-3317U processor. The thermal solution for the system using the i5 processor will provide similar thermal performance because the MaxTDP of the i5 and i3 processors are the same; 17W.
The Habey fanless solution provides a cooler operating environment and a dust-free environment thus increasing the life of the system and decreasing total cost of ownership. The quiet operation of the fanless solution is also a benefit.