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Apple TV...How to cool it down!

T

The Birdfeede

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 18, 2012
9
0
Hello,

New user so hoping this forum will be of some help!

I recently bought a first gen Apple TV off the bay of flea. I didn't waste time in installing ATV Flash so I could use XMBC to play all my varying formats of video.

So all is good, but not long after having it notice it runs really quite hot. So was wondering whether there are any known mods I can do to have it running cooler!

Does anyone know what is the cause of its warmth?

Any help would be great!

Thanks.
Birdfeede
 
I have heard of people removing the rubber circle from the bottom, but never did it on mine. I actually tested running mine in a car in the glovebox and it got REAL hot and never shutdown.
 
I have taken off the rubber base, and used smaller rubber feet off a little network hub I have.

Hasn't made all that much difference!

Be great to know what causes it to run so hot, is it the hard drive or something else?
 
The first gen ATVs get ridiculously hot. I had to put mine on top of my media cabinet instead of inside it, and it was still hot to the touch. Setting it to sleep doesn't do much either except turn off the power LED. It didn't seem to affect the life of the disk or anything though.

The cause is basically a major design flaw IMO :) Too many power hungry chips and the hard disk plus the power transformer inside a small airless box with no ventilation = something that's always going to run hot. ATV1 is more like a shrunken Mac Mini, whereas ATV2/3 use a much more efficient processor and flash memory similar to a smartphone so the power supply can also be much smaller. Things have moved on so the graphics processing is also low power, and the operating system is designed for low power devices. And the newer ones don't even get warm, never mind hot. It would be interesting to replace the hard disk in ATV1 with an SSD to see if it made any difference, and it probably would, but I doubt it would fix the problem entirely.
 
Does anyone know of any improvements that could be made then?

Is it possible to use an external hard disk instead of the internal via the usb port? As I know hard drive do get reasonably hot when in use.
 
I replaced the HDD with an SSD in mine and it didn't make much difference. The heat seems to be located mostly in the back of the unit, at the power supply and logic board/around the fan. The fan seems to do nothing btw, it can just as well be removed, maybe it would run cooler if you replace the fan?
 
The Birdfeede said:
Does anyone know of any improvements that could be made then?

Is it possible to use an external hard disk instead of the internal via the usb port? As I know hard drive do get reasonably hot when in use.
Click to expand...

ATVFlash allows you to activate the USB Port. Not sure if you would be able to use the external exclusively - i think it still wants to boot from the internal.

Some people have done some pretty extensive mods to ATV1 - do some searching. I'm sure I remember seeing photos of a drive cable hanging out the back of the ATV with a drive attached to it.

You could try one of those laptop cooling pads (Basically a big heat sink, sometimes with a built-in fan). Anything you do is probably going to be rather unsightly. I would just make sure it is in an open location, not tucked away inside a cabinet. It runs hot, but not as hot as the original PS3 for example.
 
I did think maybe having a sata cable trailing out of it could be an option, would look a little rubbish tho :D but maybe reduce the heat a bit

Maybe looking into changing the fan for a differnt one if thats possible.

Guess i'll be taking it apart later to do some investigating :eek:
 
I used to worry about it, but I don't anymore. I've had the ATV1 since it came out (so 5 years now). For the first 3 years I ran it as an AppleTV and for the last two it has been a media server. It has been on 100% of that time, and most of that in a stereo cabinet. No issues at all.

It does run hot, but I'm sure they knew that when they built it and planned accordingly. I've often wondered if the reason it runs so hot is that they designed the body as a heat sink to eliminate the need for fans to keep it 100% quiet.

Either way, doesn't seem to effect reliability.

If the HD ever does go, I'll likely put an IDE SSD in mine.
 
Obioban said:
I've often wondered if the reason it runs so hot is that they designed the body as a heat sink to eliminate the need for fans to keep it 100% quiet.
Click to expand...

Exactly right. The top of the ATV 1 is in fact one giant heat sink (as is said by both iFixit and anandtech on their teardowns). hence it *should* get hot as thats how it dissipates heat. The fan inside is a joke. On one of my 3 atv 1s (the esata modded one) the fan started making noise. Having had it completely taken apart previously I knew the fan in fact really had no way to get air to the cpu and graphics chip so was basically I think an afterthought. I pulled it out about two years ago and never replaced it. Its still going strong. That atv was preordered when they were first announced so its been some 5 + years with daily use.
 
dynaflash said:
Exactly right. The top of the ATV 1 is in fact one giant heat sink (as is said by both iFixit and anandtech on their teardowns). hence it *should* get hot as thats how it dissipates heat. The fan inside is a joke. On one of my 3 atv 1s (the esata modded one) the fan started making noise. Having had it completely taken apart previously I knew the fan in fact really had no way to get air to the cpu and graphics chip so was basically I think an afterthought. I pulled it out about two years ago and never replaced it. Its still going strong. That atv was preordered when they were first announced so its been some 5 + years with daily use.
Click to expand...

details on the esata mod?
 
The Birdfeede said:
I think its just where you upgrade the original ide hard drive for a sata on, using a ide to sata converter thing. Basically you can put a much larger hard drive in it!

Tried googling esata mod for apple tv but no guide came up

Edit: Nope actually found it here: http://www.macworld.com/article/1057079/appletvharddrive.html
Click to expand...

Ah, got it. I was hoping somehow the airport card was being replaced by an esata card to allow for faster external disks (in addition to the boot volume).
 
Obioban said:
Ah, got it. I was hoping somehow the airport card was being replaced by an esata card to allow for faster external disks (in addition to the boot volume).
Click to expand...

Hey could be! but that's all the info I could find after 30 seconds on it. haha :D
 
The Birdfeede said:
I have taken off the rubber base, and used smaller rubber feet off a little network hub I have.

Hasn't made all that much difference!

Be great to know what causes it to run so hot, is it the hard drive or something else?
Click to expand...

Removing the rubber backing didn't make much difference for mine either. But turning it on its side did. It lets the heat escape through the perforated bottom.

I also thought the hard drive was a big reason but after modding it with a CF memory card i noticed little change in the amount of heat generated.
 
marzer said:
Removing the rubber backing didn't make much difference for mine either. But turning it on its side did. It lets the heat escape through the perforated bottom.

I also thought the hard drive was a big reason but after modding it with a CF memory card i noticed little change in the amount of heat generated.
Click to expand...

Any notable change after going to solid state?
 
The giant heat sink comment is correct- it's supposed to be hot to the touch. Find some Jiffy Pop and cook your popcorn right on top of it ;)

I do suspect the heat does work against the hard drive life. I went through a few of those hard drives before finally giving up and switching to an :apple:TV3 (I do miss the- IMO- better UI and certain very nice features of the "1" though- I wish Apple wouldn't jettison popular features that worked well).

For the last 6-12 months I owned the "1" I just removed the top of the case, exposing the guts of the device to the open air. My A/V rack has adjustable shelves so I put one shelf in very close proximity to the shelf above it with just enough room to fit in the "naked" :apple:TV and a few other slim devices. The thinking was to use the upper shelf as the new "top" so that nobody could touch exposed circuits.

I never noticed much heat in the vicinity again. My shelving has an array of holes for ventilation and I couldn't sense much heat coming through the holes directly about the :apple:TV. There's likely some electrical shock danger in doing this so user beware. Else, enjoy the handy Jiffy Popper as part of the movie experience.
 
Last edited:
I love my gen1 ATV. I just went to RadioShack and purchased 1" rubber feet for it and my time capsule. There was a slight decrease in ambient heat, but as others have said, the top should feel like a fresh mug of coffee.
 
The Birdfeede said:
Does anyone know of any improvements that could be made then?

I searched earlier for a SHORT while got ADD and decided to just mess with mine to see if I can make it run cooler... Here is what I did and mine runs at what I would consider a normal electronics temperature ...
1) peel back all for corners of the rubber piece on the bottom and expose the four torx screws (one on each corner)

2) remove all four torx screws and keep in a safe place away from kids that will send them flying!

3) the bottom (metal plate with rubber) will now lift right off the top half HOWEVER be careful the ribbon for the HDD runs from the board mounted on the top to the HDD mounted on the bottom plate you are taking off. Once it is up high enough to get your hand inside pull straight up on the ribbon connector on the board to remove the bottom completely.

4) set the bottom aside for now. Locate the fan (small black box with a red and black wire running out and to a small connector on the board. Disconnect this connector and the black tape holding the wires down so you have more room to work.

5) separate the red and black wires and using a scalpel/razor/exacto knife strip about 1/4 inch of each wire about 1/2 inch from the white connector. Make sure to remove the outer coat of both wires on all sides so each has about 1/4 inch of BARE wire showing all the way around. Set the top aside.

6) now grab the bottom that holds the HDD. Here you will need your razor/scalpel/exacto knife and your additional fan to be "installed".

7) place your new fan on the rubber and place an outline in fine sharpie marker/pen. The fan should sit about 1/8 inch off the hard serial number and information tag that is darker than the rubber, and lined up with the end of the same tag furthest from the bar code. Please see picture below.

8) using your cutting tool of choice cut JUST inside the outline to ensure a tight fit. Peel this square of rubber off. Now look cut another square off to the left top of the square you just cut to expose two additional holes in the metal plate. (Adhesive will most likely cover all the holes)

9) Take a pen/small Phillips head screwdriver and clean EVERY hole out in bout the large square and also the two holes in the small square to ensure air flow through them and no adhesive chunks are in them.

10) place new fan in the large square you just cut out to ensure that it fits snugly with no excessive movement. Now run your red and black lead wires from your new fan and stick them through the two extra holes in the small square. Now is the perfect Tim to swap the Hargrove off you want.
Is it possible to use an external hard disk instead of the internal via the usb port? As I know hard drive do get reasonably hot when in use.
Click to expand...
 
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