- Joined
- Dec 28, 2009
- Location
- under a heatsink
As you can see by the title, I am making a thread about a cooling mod I did to my aging (almost 5 years old!) Linksys WRT54G wireless router. This is by far the most popular router ever, it seems like everyone and their grandma has one of these (or did...) This little guy has been serving me WiFi signals for my entire street since I switched from dial-up to cable.
Here you have a fine WRT54G specimen.
But, as many of you may know, they have a signal loss problem that stems from no cooling whatsoever on the Broadcom signal chip. This is why many people had one these instead of having one. For the past week or two my little guy started getting pretty damn hot, like close to 60C with the cover off. So instead of tossing it, I decided to mod it.
So with out further ado, here's the steps I took for this mod:
Here you can see the router minus the front and top covers. That square is the Broadcom chip that's getting so hot.
First, I removed the antenna and then popped the front off, and removed the top cover. Surprisingly you can take the covers off with only two screws that hold the main board to the bottom cover.
This is the full copper heatsink I stole off the CPU from an old laptop that died. This will be put over the multiple chips in the router that are getting toasty.
This is the fan assembly taken from the laptop that goes with the CPU cooler pictured above.
Next, I scavenged for any heatsinks that would fit and that I could mount a fan to. At first, I thought I was gonna have to buy your typical 40mm chipset and fan heatsink like this CM one I've used before. But, I didn't want to cut a big obnoxious hole in the top and have a blue LED fan going all the time. Then I realized I had an old laptop that died and was gutted for the ODD, HDD, RAM, WLAN, and screen. So I took the CPU fan (which was molded into half of the chassis) and the CPU heatsink.
You can see that I had to cut one of the tabs off the HS to make it fit over the 3 chips that were getting hot.
Fitting the HS was fairly easy as it just happened to be the perfect size. It was low enough to not obstruct the cover and it was large enough to cover all three chips. At first I only cut one tab that way it would fit, since a transistor cap was in the way. But, I eventually realized that I would have to use thermal adhesive and not a mounting system, so I cut the other tabs off too.
Here is the first test fit of the fan housing. I cut the rest of the laptop chassis off that was molded around it, so all that was left was the housing and air "duct". You can see 3 bolts that attach the housing to the bottom cover using spacers and washers.
The next problem was both mounting the fan in place securely and mounting the HS. I decided the easiest way would be to use a thermal adhesive to mount the HS. That left the fan housing still. I decided that three bolts with spacers would be sufficient. So I drilled three holes in the housing and on the back of the case. It took only a few minutes and it was attached perfectly. If you can't tell already, this fan housing actually sucks air in through a bottom hole and top hole then shots it across the CPU HS, which is perfect for tight spaces.
Here is the "goop" I whipped up using a 1:1 ratio of Silicon adhesive and Arctic Silver 5.
After I had the fan mounted nicely, I moved on to mounting the HS. I didn't feel like waiting for some adhesive to be shipped so I decided to make my own. (Warning: I take no responsibility for anything, if you decide to use my method for making thermal adhesive.) I looked up online a while ago that you can mix regular TIM (like MX-2 or AS5) with super glue, JB weld, or epoxy. I only had some general purpose silicon adhesive laying around, so I decided to use that. I pretty much just winged it and used a 1:1 ratio. I tested my mix by sticking two pieces of scrap metal together and heating one side and testing if the other piece got as hot, which it did!
A perfect fit! As you can see the fan will blow air into the HS which will provide plenty of cooling.
Here is the first test run, and it works great! As you can see, the 5V fan isn't hooked up yet and the fan cover isn't there yet.
After only a few minutes of running, the new HS rose to an astounding 52C! I am not sure if this is normal for routers, but the nerd in me is telling me that that is wayyyyy too hot.
Now the fan cover is attached and I made an air shroud to better direct air flow into the HS using tape. After I got the fan running, the HS temp dropped to 2C above ambient!
I then wired the fan to an universal AC adapter that has a sliding switch to change the voltage from 3V - 4.5V - 6V - 7.5V - 9V - 12.5V - and Off. Since it is a 5V fan, 4.5V is considered full speed although I can always switch the voltage higher and have even more cooling power! 3V is where I will leave it however, since this makes the fan inaudible, and the HS still stays VERY cold.
Here you can see how perfectly this mod fits back in the case! There's still plenty of room left for air to circulate.
Now the whole thing is all back together, and working perfectly. It still looks completely stock from the top.
These three bolts sticking out from the bottom are the only thing that makes this router look non-stock.
And that's all folks! Thanks for reading this little mod I did, post any comments or questions.
Here you have a fine WRT54G specimen.
But, as many of you may know, they have a signal loss problem that stems from no cooling whatsoever on the Broadcom signal chip. This is why many people had one these instead of having one. For the past week or two my little guy started getting pretty damn hot, like close to 60C with the cover off. So instead of tossing it, I decided to mod it.
So with out further ado, here's the steps I took for this mod:
Here you can see the router minus the front and top covers. That square is the Broadcom chip that's getting so hot.
First, I removed the antenna and then popped the front off, and removed the top cover. Surprisingly you can take the covers off with only two screws that hold the main board to the bottom cover.
This is the full copper heatsink I stole off the CPU from an old laptop that died. This will be put over the multiple chips in the router that are getting toasty.
This is the fan assembly taken from the laptop that goes with the CPU cooler pictured above.
Next, I scavenged for any heatsinks that would fit and that I could mount a fan to. At first, I thought I was gonna have to buy your typical 40mm chipset and fan heatsink like this CM one I've used before. But, I didn't want to cut a big obnoxious hole in the top and have a blue LED fan going all the time. Then I realized I had an old laptop that died and was gutted for the ODD, HDD, RAM, WLAN, and screen. So I took the CPU fan (which was molded into half of the chassis) and the CPU heatsink.
You can see that I had to cut one of the tabs off the HS to make it fit over the 3 chips that were getting hot.
Fitting the HS was fairly easy as it just happened to be the perfect size. It was low enough to not obstruct the cover and it was large enough to cover all three chips. At first I only cut one tab that way it would fit, since a transistor cap was in the way. But, I eventually realized that I would have to use thermal adhesive and not a mounting system, so I cut the other tabs off too.
Here is the first test fit of the fan housing. I cut the rest of the laptop chassis off that was molded around it, so all that was left was the housing and air "duct". You can see 3 bolts that attach the housing to the bottom cover using spacers and washers.
The next problem was both mounting the fan in place securely and mounting the HS. I decided the easiest way would be to use a thermal adhesive to mount the HS. That left the fan housing still. I decided that three bolts with spacers would be sufficient. So I drilled three holes in the housing and on the back of the case. It took only a few minutes and it was attached perfectly. If you can't tell already, this fan housing actually sucks air in through a bottom hole and top hole then shots it across the CPU HS, which is perfect for tight spaces.
Here is the "goop" I whipped up using a 1:1 ratio of Silicon adhesive and Arctic Silver 5.
After I had the fan mounted nicely, I moved on to mounting the HS. I didn't feel like waiting for some adhesive to be shipped so I decided to make my own. (Warning: I take no responsibility for anything, if you decide to use my method for making thermal adhesive.) I looked up online a while ago that you can mix regular TIM (like MX-2 or AS5) with super glue, JB weld, or epoxy. I only had some general purpose silicon adhesive laying around, so I decided to use that. I pretty much just winged it and used a 1:1 ratio. I tested my mix by sticking two pieces of scrap metal together and heating one side and testing if the other piece got as hot, which it did!
A perfect fit! As you can see the fan will blow air into the HS which will provide plenty of cooling.
Here is the first test run, and it works great! As you can see, the 5V fan isn't hooked up yet and the fan cover isn't there yet.
After only a few minutes of running, the new HS rose to an astounding 52C! I am not sure if this is normal for routers, but the nerd in me is telling me that that is wayyyyy too hot.
Now the fan cover is attached and I made an air shroud to better direct air flow into the HS using tape. After I got the fan running, the HS temp dropped to 2C above ambient!
I then wired the fan to an universal AC adapter that has a sliding switch to change the voltage from 3V - 4.5V - 6V - 7.5V - 9V - 12.5V - and Off. Since it is a 5V fan, 4.5V is considered full speed although I can always switch the voltage higher and have even more cooling power! 3V is where I will leave it however, since this makes the fan inaudible, and the HS still stays VERY cold.
Here you can see how perfectly this mod fits back in the case! There's still plenty of room left for air to circulate.
Now the whole thing is all back together, and working perfectly. It still looks completely stock from the top.
These three bolts sticking out from the bottom are the only thing that makes this router look non-stock.
And that's all folks! Thanks for reading this little mod I did, post any comments or questions.
