Heatsink and thermal tape on the CM5
Two layers of 0.5 mm thermal pad and a small aluminium heatsink on the CM5 SoC, held with thermal tape — about 10 °C cooler under load.
What it takes
- Disassembly
- Purchase required
Difficulty 2 of 3 — moderate.
Details
bgav's recipe: two layers of ARCTIC TP-3 (0.5 mm) on the CM5's SoC, then a cut-down Easycargo 100 × 25 × 10 mm aluminium heatsink attached with 1-inch double-sided thermal tape. Nothing else changes and it fits under the stock back cover.
Reported result: roughly 60 °C under load before, low 40s at idle and about 51 °C under load afterwards.
Links
Open at Forum threadRelated mods
A CM4 socket protection adapter lifts the CM5 so a 0.5 mm pad reaches the back shell instead of the thick stock pad.
hack2you's machined cooling pad for the compute module, sold on Tindie alongside the trackpad keyboard and NVMe modules.
Replace the ~4 mm stock pad, which is sized for the A-06, with a thinner high-quality pad or paste that matches the real CM4/CM5 gap.
A ~3 mm copper block bonded to the BCM2711 so a 0.5 mm pad can bridge the remaining gap, adding thermal mass.
The adapter board's PWM fan header runs a Raspberry Pi, Waveshare or EDATEC CM5 cooler; printed back covers make the room.
A cheap magnetic gaming-phone cooler clipped to the aluminium back pulls heat out of the whole console when a CM5 is working hard.