Basic Questions - New Here.

[FennecTheFox]

Ok, this forum is hella confusing to use I must say. Needs a redesign imo.

New here, just have some questions.

Thinking on getting a Pi3 with Recalbox.

1.) Will overclocking void the warranty?
2.) If I do OC, do I need 3 heatsinks? 2 for the top and 1 on the bottom?
3.) Should I add a fan as well?
4.) Any case suggestions?
5.) Best way to OC is from within Recalbox?
6.) Easy to use different themes? Next Level looks pretty sweet...Do these themes work for your own local library or only for specific images?

Thanks.

[RustyMG]

Hi,
Opening line criticising the forum probably isn’t the best way to introduce yourself to the community, lol.....

Most of your questions could be answered by spending a couple of minutes on google as they are just general questions. However...

1 The Pi, just like a phone or tablet will "throttle back" when it reaches its built in thermal limits - it’s literally impossible to damage due to overclocking.

2 99.9% of the heatsinks sold are useless - they come with normal double sided tape to attach to the chips, which actually creates a barrier and stops heat escaping!
Unless they come with 3m thermally conductive double sided tape (3M part number 8810 I believe) then they are utterly useless - the reviews on Amazon are laughable - most people are convinced they work, probably due to the "placebo effect”, yet anyone who does actual temperature tests will confirm they don’t.

The trick is to zoom in on the pics of the heatsinks for sale- the pic s usually show a bit of the 3m tape and the 3m number on it - Google that 3m product code and if it isn't thermally conducting double sided tape, avoid!

3 No need for a fan unless you are overclocking into the 1350 range. the only emu's you would need to overclock to get a BIT of extra grunt would be the N64, PSP and Dreamcast ones, but, the max anyone will get is 1400, which is only 15% or so extra, meaning say 25fps will be increased by 15% to say 29fps ish - hardly worth it, and the extra heat generated will make the thermal cut off kick in and the Pi will start to throttle back anyway.....

4 The cheap £4.50 ish see thru case on Amazon I’ve used on 5 so far - build quality is fantastic - just bin the heatsinks he gives you due to above.....

5 Yes

6 The standard one is actually really good

[FennecTheFox]

@rustymg

Hi Rusty, thanks for the response. Yeah, the opening comment was in poor taste, I'm just a bit frustrated.

I've done a fair bit of research over the past few days on this topic, but the more I look into this the more questions I have.

1.) I'm aware that the SOC will "throttle back" but there does seem to be people who've bricked their Pi 3's while OC'ing. (Of course I have no way to verify whether this is true, I can only take their word on it.)

2.) Yeah, I've heard that the double-sided sticky pads can actually create more heat or at best, do nothing at all to reduce heat, but after watching numerous videos of people using heat sinks while stress testing and OC'ing, it seems that in general their temperature drops and it drops by a significant amount. I've yet to see a temperature increase and most of these people are using the heat sinks that came with their cases, which probably aren't of the highest quality (regarding the pads). Maybe instead of using the pads I can instead buy some Arctic Thermal Compound? Or what would you suggest?
*There's also passive cooling cases which are aluminum such as the FLIRC Pi 3 2nd Gen or the Wicked Aluminum that are better for cooling than a dual fan heat sink combination with a third heat sink covering the bottom RAM chip. This would be ideal for me as it seems a lot of the fans that come with cases are LOUD/high pitched/fail frequently and they don't offer better cooling. The downside of the aluminum cases are WiFi and BT interference. However, the FLIRC case has a plastic bottom portion so that may be ok. Still, from reading numerous comments some people do experience WIFI/BT issues and some don't. I really don't want to spend money ordering stuff that won't work, which is why I'm digging into this topic as much as I can. I'll take a look at 3m thermally conductive double sided tape per your suggestion.

3.) Well, if my Pi 3 can handle it, I'd want an OC of 1400. But not all Pi's are created equal and I might not be able to accomplish an OC that high. And if that's the case, I'm mostly fine with that. For me this is about experimentation and increasing my own understanding of electronics--however, I clearly don't want to spend money on something that won't work. Yes, I'm aware of various emulators like N64 are very taxing on the Pi. Also aware that Recalbox handles N64 games better than RetroPie for whatever reason. Even if I don't plan to OC shouldn't I be invested in some sort of cooling solution anyway? I think once the temperature reaches 80 or slightly over the SOC begins to throttle back? So as long as I keep the temp lower than that the OC should improve my game performance and perhaps even GUI performance? Without cooling solutions I imagine some of these games push the temps up quite high (higher than what they should ideally be).

4.) I'm from Canada, so unfortunately I don't have access to a lot of the Pi 3 cases that are advertised on Amazon.com
I'd prefer a simple easy to put together case though - The Smraza Case for Raspberry Pi 3 is getting rave reviews but seems like a real pain in the ass to put together and that fan would be annoying. It was either this or FLIRC or something more minimal with easy access...

-Do you have any good reading recommendations for me? I want to learn more about Recalbox, how to OC from within Recalbox, themes, how to set up my ROMs/CHDs etc. The reason I ask is because you clearly know what you're talking about and when it comes to my MAME Windows 10 setup, I've encountered A LOT of outdated/irrelevant information and that really stifled my learning process when I was beginning. I don't want to make the same unavoidable mistake with Recalbox/Pi.

[voljega]

@fennecthefox said in Basic Questions - New Here.:

Do you have any good reading recommendations for me? I want to learn more about Recalbox, how to OC from within Recalbox, themes, how to set up my ROMs/CHDs etc. The reason I ask is because you clearly know what you're talking about and when it comes to my MAME Windows 10 setup, I've encountered A LOT of outdated/irrelevant information and that really stifled my learning process when I was beginning. I don't want to make the same unavoidable mistake with Recalbox/Pi.

In addition to the forum, there's a wiki full of informations (MOSTLY up-to-date :D) and video tutorials