[linux-dvb] Re: Cooling required for SykStar2 ?

[Wolfgang Fritz <wolfgang.fritz@gmx.net>]

Roberto Ragusa wrote:
> On Thu, 9 Sep 2004 13:53:46 +0200
> Martin Emrich <emme@emmes-world.de> wrote:
> 
> 
>>Today, I got my Technisat SkyStar 2 Card. I heard rumors that the receiver 
>>circuitry gets very hot.
> 
> 
> I heard these rumours too, but I'm not sure if the problem is only there
> for old cards (missing heatsink?) or for specific versions (2.3p only?).
> 
> There are people out there applying creative cooling solutions to the card,
> for example:
>   http://scaistar.altervista.org/cooling/cooling.htm
> 
> I would like to know from others on this list something accurate about
> this issue.
> 
> The Skystar2 has 3 main components:
> 1) the tuner (analog multiplier and filter), in the metallic shield
> 2) the demodulator (e.g. mt312), a small chip
> 3) the demultiplexer/PCI device (b2c2 chip), the big chip
> 
> On my board (2.3p) it seems that 3) has no heatsink and doesn't get very
> hot, while 2) has a heatsink.
> 
> Are there any boards with no heatsink on 2) ?
> Maybe the overheating affects 1) ?
> 

My revision 2.6c has no heatsinks at all.

I found the tuner (1) to get very hot. Because I have another DVB card
(Nexus-s) in my system and both are placed horizontally (EPIA board with
riser card) both cards got too hot for me and I installed an additional
fan to cool them. This fan is now the major source of noise in my VDR
system :-(

> It would be nice to know.
> 
> BTW, what kind of symptoms does the board manifest when overheating
> occurs?
> 

I got artefacts on the TV screen with good signal quality which
disappeared after the installation of the fan. I'm not quite sure, but I
think the Nexus-s got too hot after the installation of the Skystar
which is located below the Nexus.

Wolfgang