Random Volumio crash on Raspberry Pi 4, possibly related to cooling

Volumio Community Forums
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Hello,
I would like to share my experiences using Volumio running on Raspberry Pi 4…

For a number of weeks I have been experiencing random crashes where Volumio would stop in the middle of playing a track via Tidal Connect and Volumio disappearing from the list of devices from Tidal app on my android phone. Also, I was then unable to ping my Raspberry Pi or connect using ssh (yes, ssh was previously enabled in /dev)
I spent a lot of time switching between the latest and the previous versions of Voumio and came to the conclusion it was not version dependent. I also tried a different SD card in case one of them had an intermittent fault.
Nothing had any effect and the random crashes kept happening, usually once per day. This was getting very hard to pinpoint the cause.
Then I started wondering about the CPU temperature and installed a Volumio plugin to find it was getting up to 55c. Not too high, and within spec for sure but compared to another Raspberry Pi 4 I am running (not a Volumio machine), it runs at 35c. The main difference is that the one which runs cooler uses a small fan for cooling whereas the one I am using for Volumio is fan-less.
I have now replaced the fan-less one with one with a fan, the same brand as I am already using for my other Pi.
The result:
I have not seen a crash for over a week!
While this isn’t conclusive proof, it is very encouraging nevertheless.
With the new case it has heatsinks not just for the CPU but some other devices on the board, including the DDR memory. With the original fan-less one, it only cools the CPU.
For anyone having stability issues with their Raspberry Pi 4 based system, I hope this is helpful

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Your temperature seems well within safe limits. I have never encountered heat related issues with temperatures up to 70dC. My main setup with an RPi4 in an Argon case currently gets up to 46dC playing highres material, the built-in fan only kicks in at much higher temperatures (but has never done so yet, due to the excellent passive cooling of the case). On other system that is online but not playing anything right now (Audiophonics RaspDAC Mini with RPi3) indicates 60dC. This setup can become much hotter without any noticable issues other than showing the ‘high temperature’ icon on the little LCD screen. Both setups run the latest Volumio version.

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I agree, it should be well within safe limits. I wonder though what the components other than the CPU are getting up to? For my case ( CanaKit Raspberry Pi 4 Aluminum Case) it is only the CPU that comes into contact with the aluminum of the case (via a thermal pad). Whereas, for the Argon (I’m looking at the Argon ONE V2) the graphics on the web page indicate that more than just the CPU comes into contact with the case.
I never went out to buy the Canakit case, it was the only way I could get hold of a RPI4 given the supply issues (I had to buy their ‘Extreme’ kit as it was the only kit in stock). The other possibility is that my RPI4 has some sort of defect, but so long as its reliable with my fan cooled case ( Miuzei Raspberry Pi 4 Case with 35mm Cooling Fan) I’m not going to mess with it