Router Cooling and Temps

[Hulk]

I own a ASUS RT-AC87U Wireless-AC2400 Dual Band Gigabit Router. I put a 4" block on each corner underneath it and then placed a Cooler Master MegaFlow 200 - Sleeve Bearing 200mm Silent Fan on 1" blocks directly underneath it. The fan is plugged into the USB 2.0 port on the back using a USB/fan cord.

My question is how do I see what the temps are? What software do I need?

Also, it seems like the bottom of the router is indeed cool but the top is still a bit warm. Should I drill some holes on the top of it?

Before this router I had some Netgear POS router that died all the time and I had to keep rebooting almost weekly.

 

[brett89]

MerlinWRT firmware has that functionality built into it. I'm looking at my AC68 AP under Advanced Settings, Administration and then the Performance Tuning tab.

You can also remove the heatsink, I'm assuming it has one, my E6400 does, and apply better thermal paste. I did that and made sure the heatsink sat more closely against the heatsink, it dropped temperatures dramatically.

I did apply a heatsink to my E4200, but that was when I was overclocking it.

 

[SticKx911]

Image stolen from Google, imageshack lost the picture of one I did years ago. Opening and adding heat sinks or even little fans aren't too difficult. Seems unnecessary until you push your router to its limit a lot. Like right now my mid range consumer router has 15 wireless devices (cameras) and a couple wired. Thing is scorching hot. This thread makes me want to do that again.