I'd like to share why most M.2 nvme drives are "hot"?

[xDiVolatilX]

So upon investigating today I noticed that the motherboard heatsink cover is not actually really contacting the controller on the m.2 drive. I attached a picture for you to see for yourself only the two memory modules are making actual good contact as shown in the pressure depressing the thermal pad down. So I added a brand new little thermal pad on top of the controller to even it out and guess what? The temperature is dropped by about 5° easily maybe up to 10 I'm not even sure but definitely significant enough to notice a decent improvement. I didn't write down all the numbers and spend a bunch of time doing thorough investigations to post up here, but I will tell you for a fact there was an improvement and anyone else can do it and achieve better results than what you are currently getting. Looking at the image I posted the next time I open that up which I won't need to ever again will show a big square impression on the controller this time which is the more important portion to be cooled.

 

[bluestang]

Yep. All depends on the NVMe drive. Some of them have the memory and controller very close to the same height so the thermal pad will make contact with both. And then some are all over the place making the heatsink installed on them do more harm then good.

 

[daglesj]

I keep a stock of thermal pads from 0.5mm to 2mm just for this.

 

[xDiVolatilX]

Yep. All depends on the NVMe drive. Some of them have the memory and controller very close to the same height so the thermal pad will make contact with both. And then some are all over the place making the heatsink installed on them do more harm then good.

Yes exactly. On the extremely popular 980 pro gen 4 from Samsung this modification I suggested works 100% I did it in 5 mins are received a 5-10* reduction in temperature for minimal effort.

 

[xDiVolatilX]

I keep a stock of thermal pads from 0.5mm to 2mm just for this.

Me too! You never know when you need thermal pads! Mine aren't even thermalright pads they are just generic and they still work better than not having any contact at all or very poor contact in my situation.