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Apr 13 / Greg

*Fix* for Mikrotik Routerboard Heat Issue

I say *fix*, because it does kind of cripple your RB. While doing some digging last night I saw where some people were complaining of heat issues with RBs in outdoor enclosures. Their RBs would get extremely hot under high load and reboot. To repair the problem, you can underclock the CPU on your RB. I had no idea you could do such a thing, but here is the command.

Set frequency to something less than max.

1
/system routerboard settings change-frequency frequency=266

3 Comments

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  1. Holden / Apr 13 2009

    Good info- look forward to future posts on Mikrotik!

  2. Jacob Bertling / Apr 13 2009

    This may sound like a dumb question and I apologize for wasting your time if so, but if I purchase a Mikrotik router board, what does that come with? Is it just the board itself or does it include an enclosure?

    The reason I ask is to determine if you can alleviate this issue by purchasing a better chassis up front that provides for better cooling, or are you limited to what they ship you.

    Also would a better enclosure help or is it the heat distribution issue a result of poor heat distribution on the board alone?

    I guess what I am getting at is, is there another way that you can think of to resolve this issue creatively without sacrificing performance?

  3. Greg / Apr 13 2009

    Holden, thanks! Questions and comments are always welcome.

    Jacob,

    Mikrotiks generally come board only, though some distributers sell “kits”. There are plenty of different designes, some I’m sure are better at heat dissipation.

    The boards, as far as I have experienced, are pretty decent at handling high heats. Every piece of gear has its limits, though 🙂

    I would always avoid active cooling; it is just another component to break. Also, if you put in a fan, you will generally be making holes in an otherwise weather proof enclosure. I would say, keep your enclosures either bare aluminum/steel or paint them as brilliant a white as you can find…heh.

    You could always attempt some kind of peltier cooling on the CPU, but I would just recommend to K.I.S.S.

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