Here's a preview of what it looks like on a thermal camera. It would definitely be better to have actual vents, but the airflow is adequate using this technique to keep the Pi cool using the fan. Read Gordon Hollingworth's explanation about why this was ultimately chosen. The fan intake and exhaust are the gaps around the USB and network jacks, and the gap around the microSD card slot and the other ports on the side of the Pi 4, respectively. Pop the top cover on the case, and the Pi is good to go! If you don't, the Case Fan alone still keeps the Pi from throttling, but spreading the heat using this heat sink makes the fan's job a little easier, so I stuck mine on. The Case Fan also includes a little heatsink you can stick on top of the system on a chip. Plug the red, black, and blue wires into the Pi's GPIO header like it shows on the side of the box.

To install the fan, pop off the top of the Pi case, line up the Case fan inside the top of the case, and push it in until the tabs click into place. Regardless of how well the fan works, the box designer deserves a shout-out: I love how the box has the installation instructions right on the outside. It is the 7000 rpm, which according to the spec sheet is the quietest version of that fan model. It looks like this is the AD0205MX-K50 2.5cm 2506 25x25圆mm DC5V 0.13A fan, and from AliExpress, at least, it costs ~$4. Some people are interested in knowing exactly what fan is used, and how big it is, so here's an up-close picture: Raspberry Pi Case Fan - How Loud is it?! Fan Specs Video: Check out the video that goes along with this blog post: The fact that the Pi 400 I tore down last month has a massive heat sink built in means the Pi engineers know how important it is to dissipate heat from the Pi's main processor. Well, the folks over at Raspberry Pi Trading-in this particular case, engineer Gordon Hollingworth, as detailed in his post about Designing the Case Fan-must agree with me that the Pi 4 case needs a fan, because they just started selling the five dollar Pi Case Fan. And who wants to damage the nice-looking Pi Case by putting a hole right in the top? The fan was a little loud and annoying, and would stay on constantly. Last year, I wrote a blog post titled The Raspberry Pi 4 needs a fan.Īnd in a video to go along with that post, I detailed the process of drilling out a hole in the top of the official Pi 4 case and installing a 5v fan inside.īut that solution wasn't great.

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