Fixed my CM5 overheating problem with a riser and a thin thermal pad

[trinity]

The snap-on cooler is a neat gadget and certainly worth mentioning in this thread. Heed this warning about Peltier cooling though:

@trinity

Peltier modules are semiconductors that, when powered, move thermal energy from one side to another, making one side cool and the other side hot, but when the hot side reaches its heat capacity it will overheat and melt internal components, effectively self-destructing. A Peltier module used in this fashion will have a significantly shortened life span.

The cooling module you have may well be a Peltier module, but it also has a good amount of active heat dissipation in the form of a fan so the module doesn’t overheat. Using the fan alone would be significantly more efficient than using it alongside a Peltier module because the electrical energy used to power the semiconductor to apply the Peltier effect would be dissipated from the circuitry in the form of heat energy, making the system as a whole hotter.