Thermal Imaging PC

[pcman2000]

I posted this a while ago on reddit, but I thought I would post it here.
 
Having recently bought a high res thermal imager for other purposes, I realised that it was actually a great tool for PC building - you can spot what components on your GPU or motherboard are getting hot, which is especially important if you're doing a watercooling build or similar where there may be limited airflow to components like VRMs.
 
Perhaps Linus should buy once for LinusMediaGroup to use in various reviews (ie. Case, GPU, Fan, Cooler) or when covering some exotic builds.
 
The specific camera I used is the Opgal Therm-App which is 384x288 resolution and retails for $939. As far as thermal imaging goes that's actually a really, really cheap price for a 384x288 device. Most imagers of that resolution are $3000+.
 
Enjoy the photos, and let me know if you have any requests to image anything.

 

 
Front of the BitFenix Prodigy M case. You can see the hotspot from where the graphics card is located.
 

 
A overview of the entire setup. As you can see, the portrait monitor gets pretty toasty - this is because in portrait there are no vents at the top (and hot air rises obviously).
 

 
Top without dust filter. You can see the graphics card in there.
 

 
Back. Again, GPU exhaust. You can see the warm air coming out of the back exhaust fan too.
 

 
Side panel off, drive cage in the way
 

 
840 EVO. You can barely read the Samsung branding on it.
 

 
Two 2TB WD Green drives. The label appears much hotter than the shiny metal top place because the metal plate has a much lower emissivity than the paper label.
 

 
The label. You can read it because of the very slight differences in emissivity between black & white surfaces.
 

 
SATA Connectors.
 

 
Inside again. What's that hot spot at the top of the motherboard?
 

 
Why it's the chipset of course (Z87).
 

 
Nice detail of the chipset heatsink. You can actually see the cooler PCB traces (as the copper traces dissapate heat more than the fiberglass PCB).
 

 
Some voltage regulator is getting hot.
 

 
No idea what this chip is, but it's hot. There's no airflow around here so that's why.
 

 
Sapphire R9 290 Tri-X
 

 
The PCB is 56.5 degrees C...
 

 
92 on the VRMs at the back of the board. Sorry for the bad angle, the case is very small and the camera has a slight telephoto lens attatched.
 

 
After running furmark for a few minutes.... Over 100C!
 

 
RAM staying very cool... why do they need heatsinks again? 
 

 
Some shiny objects reflect long wave IR just like they do to visible light.
 

 
CPU heatsink fins.
 

 
A toasty chip between two PCI(e) slots.
 

 
Another toasty chip near the CPU 8 pin.
 

 
Hot chip near the 24pin. Also a hot thing in the fan cable... probably a resistor in the low RPM adapter.

[ozziestig]

Noice.

Yeah @LinusTech Get one of these.

[ChasingPluto]

Thats actually really cool

[SPAS-ID]

we pay 939 dollar for this ? nah i'll just take a Graphics Card

[Zeke]

I could swear I saw a proper FLIR camera in one of their vids...

 

 

E4, somewhere around 2:20 mark

[techguru]

linus should get one of these

[Curufinwe_wins]

Sick pictures, I wish I could do that with my case.

[pcman2000]

Also great for laptop reviews... certainly far better than taping a thermocouple to a laptop.
 

 

Versus...

 

 

 

 

 

Does video with sexy graphs too. Here's the inside of my laptop.

 

[Rolling Potatoe]

Yes, another expensive toy on Linuses tech pile.

But why go with the budged version? Couldnt 10k buy him a 720p version?

Shold be quite nice for in depth cooler and gpu reviews.

 

 

 

 

 

"101.6 degrees on the VRM's"

 

i nearly choked.

Those are rated for 125 °C, so its fine.

[Bl00dgod]

nice pictures 

Those are rated for 125 °C, so its fine.

you could boil water for a nice cup of tea

 

would less heat with some additional fans increase vrams lifetime? even if its rated 125°c

[pcman2000]

But why go with the budged version? Couldnt 10k buy him a 720p version?

 

Unfortunately not - for three reasons.

1. The lenses required for larger sensors get exponentially bigger. Since the lenses for higher res sensors (as they need to resolve more detail) need to be made out of Germanium, they get very expensive, very quickly. The fact that optical grade Germanium cannot be formed like glass and must be cut from crystals increases the price too.
2. Economies of scale are working against you. Even though thermal imagers are a very niche product, at least there is a fair bit of demand (relatively) for ~320x240 for building inspections, high end car night vision, hunting scopes etc. There is far less demand for 640x480, let along 1024x768 or above sensors, meaning their prices are very expensive.
3. Many people who demand higher resolutions also demand higher frame rates and sensitivities at the same time. For the higher framerates and sensitivity, a cooled sensor is required, as opposed to the uncooled sensors found in cheaper (<$50k) products. These cooled sensors work on a completely different physics principle to uncooled sensors and are far more expensive both because they are very, very niche products and also because they need to be cooled well below -200°C with a cryogenic cooler (that needs to be refilled with helium occasionally)

A cheaper 640x480 camera is the FLIR T620, which goes for ~$20,000 USD, or the Testo 890 for ~$18,000

 

FLIR also recently released their T1020, which is a 1024x768 unit. This is one of very few 1024x768 uncooled cameras available, and you can find it for ~$39,000 USD.

 

For true 720p resolution, the FLIR SC8300 would do. It has 1344×784 resolution (basically 1280x720 surrounded by 32 pixel border). However, this is a cooled camera and as a result retails for a cool $140,000 USD. However, being a cooled camera, it is capable of 130fps capture (uncooled cameras usually are 30fps or less) and a thermal sensitivity of well below 0.02°C (compared to, say, ~0.07°C for the camera I used). That said, you can get a open box one for a "bargain" right now for only $94,500 here.

 

Oh, and don't forget the lenses for that thing. They'll probably be $10,000+ 

[ExcitezR]

wow thermal cameras are soo cool

[LogicalDrm]

And those temps are just what surface is like. Like I just last weekend measured how how my laptops power brick gets. Whole 43C. Insides are hotter. But hey, the pics look great.

[Vivilacqua1]

Wish I had one of those....

 

Where my dad works I might be able to get my hands on one though...

[Vivilacqua1]

"101.6 degrees on the VRM's"

 

i nearly choked.

How my 290 used to be. Then I pointed a fan right at the VRM's, not they only hit around 75c.

[pcman2000]

And those temps are just what surface is like. Like I just last weekend measured how how my laptops power brick gets. Whole 43C. Insides are hotter. But hey, the pics look great.

 

Surface of my Korean Monitor power brick hits 50C+ 

[GoldSrc]

Awesome pictures, thermal cameras are one of those toys most of us nerds want.