Any chance you could mention where you got the pads and what pads you got? I’m just not sure about thickness, etc. I don’t really want to jump to any other platform just yet because I’m not ready to give up bluetooth.
Thanks in advance for your help!
Edit: I just want to mention again that for me I am having dropped connections when I am somewhat further from the AP. If the AP is close buy it doesn’t matter how long the device has been on. It will never drop the connection.
If heat does have a factor here, it could just be that as the chip heats up power to the chip is cut to control thermals, and this has a direct impact on signal strength.
The wifi connection stability is a_lot better, but still not perfect, since i installed the lastest OS image. (!! the previous version was 2 years old so this was a large jump)
Most of the time it works fine, then it goes on and off for some time, then fine again for the rest of the day.
I am not sure if the improved stability is caused by the newer OS or something else in my use case situation that i am not aware of. It just happend that way.
Now i switched to LAN (cable-bound):
faster surfing and sensors show temps going down from 52C (wifi) to ~47C (LAN) .
Sorry it took so long, I was having trouble finding the packaging and the remainder. Mine was a “minus pad 8” 2mm. I got it from a local Microcenter and the company name is thermal-grizzly.com
I did not take careful readings before and after, so I’m not able to quantify if it did much. I did the whole thing as sort of an impulse.
I got my Pocket on Halloween as one of the delayed crowdfund orders. My unit already had the additional thermal pad over the wifi chip, but it was still almost completely unusable on wifi unless sitting directly next to the access point.
After reading this thread, @AbortRetryFail and I opened the Pocket up. We put a rubber bumper under the SOM (since it was a little jiggly) to help the chips make better contact with the thermal pads by not allowing the board to sag.
More importantly, we moved the display cable away from the wifi antenna. It was curved over the antenna like in some other photos, and we suspected that the display cable directly on top of the antenna was causing interference. This seems to have done the trick. The wifi is working exactly as expected now with the display cable moved away from it. Hopefully this can help other Pocket owners who are still having trouble even after putting in an extra thermal pad and installing relevant updates.
More importantly, we moved the display cable away from the wifi antenna. It was curved over the antenna like in some other photos, and we suspected that the display cable directly on top of the antenna was causing interference.
This sounds very interesting!
Did you put the covers back yet before testing? I noticed there is a significant difference in having the cover on vs off.
My cover has been back on the Pocket since I moved the display cable, and the wifi has been working. The only issue I’ve had since then was where the signal was weak (i.e. sitting outside and attempting to connect to wifi inside of the house). I didn’t test open vs. closed case since it wasn’t necessary.
After a week of using it post cable relocation, I can safely say that moving the display cable away from the antenna has seemed to address the issue for me. It was looped directly on top of the wifi antenna. I think this might explain some of the inconsistency of the issue where some owners are having wifi trouble and some are not, depending on how their individual machine was assembled or if they opened it to do modifications that may have nudged the display cable one way or another. I may tape it down next time I open the Pocket.