ZIDOO NEO S - HEAT PROBLEMS SOLVED - How to play music continuosly 24 hours without interruption

Well, it may surprise many of you because I am a special case, so to speak, a music fan playing and living with music rather then taking care of a family and children, so I may be the only one playing music with Zidoo Neo S so much time ... actually I just wish to hear music no matter I doing work, job, eat or sleep ... I just wanted something, some player which can do that and Zidoo can do that but in certain conditions.

First let me explain what I found after 3 hours of uninterrupted play: high temperature on a nano-transistor (and also on the digital power supply).

In order to find out this information I had to do all the combinations of possible tests (with the top aluminium lid on), namely: activated and disabled save-screen, activated or disabled the VU-meters, remove and plugin the internet cable during the audition ... and absolutely nothing gave results except one thing: I set aside the upper aluminium lid. Once I did this, the device can play 12-24 hours or even non-stop.

From here it can only result in one conclusion: something on the motherboard is still heating. The processor does not, because it has a good radiator, ... other integrated circuits no, because there is no hot air from them, but, there is a set of nano-transistors that are in series with the audio signal and have the role to interrupt/switch at the command of the switch from Dac to HDMI (also supplemented with a micro-mechanical switch with gold contacts that are heard doing click click).

Nobody knows what those nano-transistor are and will never find them

And because they are so small the hot air flow cannot detected or measured with the IR thermometer, because the IR rase is thicker than the nanotransistor and gives errors. Given the results, my only possibility is to listen to music without the top cover aluminum lid. If I do not do this, then not only the interruptions will appear, but there is the risk that those nano-transistors, invisible with the naked eyes, may irreversible change parameters and permanently interrupt the signal and then that would mean the failure of the motherboard.

Only some laser IR thermometers, through extremely careful measurements of the heated air nanovolumes, can offer some clues. But still it will be useless, because the nanotransistors cannot be seen with the naked eye, besides the fact that they are directly embedded on the wiring ... so those can not be replaced but the entire motherboard.

However, considering that it goes absolutely without any interruption for over 12 hours, for me as a user I am super-satisfied.

Sometime next year I will be able to build another lid, through laser technology, at perfectly identical dimensions, and then make a set of parallel slots to eliminate hot air. I will make a technical drawing, an execution project and I will buy an iron sheet of the same thickness.

About 3 hours goes well and with the original aluminium lid, so users who are not fans like me, and who would not listen more than 2 hours without break, would never get to notice these problems. I, ... I could say, ... I am a unique case, but at the same time my expertise could be useful to both users and producers.

So the conclusion is that except for the heat problem, Zidoo Neo S is working excellent and if using without the top lid cover, then it plays 24 hours continuously without any problems.

 

@ChrisMu
My guess is you have a faulty unit. If it stops working after extended use under normal ambient temperatures (up to 35 degrees) then it is faulty. Taking the lid off is a bypass (proving a heat hotspot problem) but definitely is not a solution.

I would do a warranty claim for it. This is NOT normal for any player and have never seen it. My media players of various brands have been on for very long periods without similar problems with any of those.

If anybody else has observed this with the Neo S model please report here. A design problem can never be excluded (and may be only with early production series). The advice is the same: follow a RMA procedure.

 

I partially agree with you but this unit is the only one available in my entire country and there is no other unit for replacement available, either I could choose for "money back guarantee" but that did not helped me since there is no other better models in the world, and also affordable (keep in mind that living in Romania means low income, small salaries ... we can't buy here exagerated expensive stuff, such as Neo Alfa or others). However, I did not mention but my unit already passed some repairs recently and the entire power supply motherboard have been replaced, by the shop engineers in Bucharest using a direct link with the chinese experts who were willing to send some components. But since I am an engineer myself, I can adapt things to make them work, such as adding minicoolers, changing the top lid, creating air better circulation and so on. Another reason for that is I already received testimonials from other users of NEO S here on this forum, which were telling me that they too encountered heat problems ... but since they did not listened 20 hours a day, obviously the device could not achieve higher internal temperatures. So, even if I may change the unit with a new one, after carefully analising the technical data, I am 99% sure it will still have heat problems ... but I repeat, not on normal 3 hours use continuosly but only after 4 hours or so. People like me are very very few, because I don't have kids and family, therefore the music is my only family here ... so this is why I am using this in an unusual manner. Other fans do not ... they have jobs, families, responsabilities ... cannot afford to listen 10 hours music in one single day, but I can.

 

@ChrisMu
I see. But still it is not normal and unacceptable if it is a box design flaw.

For your case. I never looked at the PSU details of Neo S but powering it externally would reduce heat inside the box to almost zero.
Adding a big fan (at low speed) and drilling holes in the top will do the trick too for sure.

 

Yes, exactly, that is the idea ... but I won't modify too much neither I'll touch the motherboard until one full year which is the warranty because if maybe other very bad problems could or would arise then at least I could benefit the "money back guaranty" and for the moment I'll only keep the top lid off and also keep my appartment clean as possible for reducing the amount of dust particles falling down into the opened unit.

But I'll design a new iron top lid at a factory nearby and on that one I can make any modifications I want, adding coolers with dust filters and sacrifice a USB 2.0 input for powering them from there ... that would be the plan and I am already working on it.

By the way, keeping the unit powered on indefinitely but without playing music, did not created so much heat ... so obviously this phenomenon is correlated with the degree of actually using the motherboard with huge complex signals 20Hz-20kHz instead just staying there powered on and watching the screen saver clock (very nice actually). The problems appears only after actually PLAYING MUSIC ... not just keeping the unit powered on without doing anything.

 

My educated guess is the unit does not really overheat in general. There is more likely a badly dimensioned component that fails.
After overheating many times these components normally have a short time to live and will fail at any moment.

Just my 2 cents of thoughts.

 

I totally agree with you ... therefore I have one year at my disposal in order to either see it happening (and money back guarantee) or not happening if I am lucky and the colder environment may avoid failing those transistors or whatever is there in the sound pathways

 

In addition to music to express your feelings, but the songtexte kostenlos in the poems are intended to convey important messages of political and social topics from many angles, you should take advantage of that.

 

Here is my cooling solution for continuous audio playing 24 hours, without heating and without any problems, tested several times.

 

Utterly mad, but I love it!!

 

What puzzles me "are there no other with that same problem?".

 

Yes, you are correct. Because there is noone using the player for playing 24 hours non stop ... so I am the only one