I sat down and plugged in my upgrade module tonight. It seems to work really well and it picked up my wifi without incident despite my all-aluminum case.
That said, the module is quite tall and contacts the lid even without the thermal pad. When I set the lid on, it doesn’t sit flush with the recess in the top, but it will when I tighten the screws. I’m concerned about the amount of pressure this is placing on both the module and the motherboard.
Has anyone else had this problem? What solutions have you come up with? Can the spacers on the board be changed?
It’s properly seated. Both little spring arms are engaged and I even tried using an extra screw to secure it to the nut on the motherboard, but the processor still protrudes just a fraction of a millimeter above the edge of the frame. I can close it and secure the lid, I’m just worried about the stress it puts on the boards.
It also fits snugly in my case (I also have the metal backplate), but I haven’t noticed any bulging, so I’m not that concerned. I have considered using thermal paste instead of the thermal pad, although this will make it more annoying to open the case, so I’ll probably wait until I’m done messing with the internals. It should improve the thermals a little more, but they are already great with the metal backplate.
Here are some photos. I had a tough time getting my phone to focus on the little clip/arm in the last photo.
I thought about thermal paste too, but taking the pad off doesn’t seem to make much difference.
In the Reform forum, there’s a thread about a similar problem with the RK3588 where it came up that the spacers between the two boards were a little too tall in the earlier batches. There’s a sticker on mine with a hand-written “32” on it, so maybe I have an early production board?
Yours looks different than mine, on mine the lid won’t fully recess until the screws are tightened, but it doesn’t stand out as much without screws. Maybe you have a different, earlier mainboard revision. I ordered mine rather late compared to most people. The difference can’t be more than a mm, so it could also just be an issue of engineering tolerances.
I see that too, but it looks like that because the upper board of the module is blocking the view of the pins, making it look like the board is in at a weird angle. It’s just out of focus, so the separation is indistinct.
I had the same issue on the pocket. I ditched the thermal pad and put some ptm7950 on. Seems to lay perfectly flat now. It also holds up okay even taking the lid off and putting it back on multiple times since I applied it.
Mine is bulging also. But I have still have the PCB cover so I could still screw it on. Thought of using the original thermal pad since but used the provided one instead.
If I put a ruler on top of the lid, against the light I could see about 1mm light on both sides with ruler still touching the middle of the cover.
