RT-AC66U - Thermal Paste upgrade?

[connorm]

when i first got the unit it ran at like 48-49 on the 2.4GHz and like 55-56 on the 5GHz. now its running at 54 on the 2.4GHz and 61 on the 5GHz, its been slowly getting a bit hotter since i got it. the unit is wallmounted and in a room with temps ranging from 17-20C. plenty of airflow. for my laptop i use a very high quality arctic silver mx4 thermal paste and it makes a massive difference on anything i have used it on. would be awesome if i could get it in my router! if anyone has any tips, pointers, steps or tricks to doing this i would love to learn how. thx

 

[Sky1111]

Have a look at this thread:
http://forums.smallnetbuilder.com/showthread.php?t=13347

I have not open my AC56U, but then I replace it with AC68U, definitely planning to do the surgery. I recently did such surgery on my dual-GPU graphics card using GELID GC Extreme (look it up, strongly recommending), and unbelievable improvement. Note that I had to shave the height of heatsink mounts on GPU to reduce the gap between GPU and heatsink.

Why I am talking about GPU surgery here? I am absolutely sure that ASUS used the same crappy thermal pads instead of proper paste - so I think you will improve thermals for sure.

Please share your results and pictures . Warning: this will void your warranty if they can tell that you opened the case

 

[tonysamson]

I'm interested with this one. I haven't tweaked my AC66u in any way and I don't know why my temps are 56 °C - 61 °C for 2.4 GHz - 5 GHz respectively...

 

[Sky1111]

I'm interested with this one. I haven't tweaked my AC66u in any way and I don't know why my temps are 56 °C - 61 °C for 2.4 GHz - 5 GHz respectively...

Does your router have good airflow around it? 56-61 degrees does seem a bit on a high side. have you checked your CPU temps?

CPU Temperature check:

go back to http://192.168.1.1/Tools_RunCmd.asp

run: cat /proc/dmu/temperature