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Home Internet Overheating
This is primarily a reference post related overheating. If you want to read my full background, see the link at the bottom.
The Nokia device seems to have an overheating issue. For me that mean things would run fine for a few hours or even days and then suddenly speeds would drop so low it appeared to be completely offline. Even though the ambient temperature in the room was in the 60s and the device itself never felt that warm, adding a couple cooling fans drastically improved air flow throughout the device and completely resolved my issues. Here's a link to the fans I purchased.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JLV4BWC
You may only need one but since these came as a set I put one beneath the device and the other one on top. This has ensured constant airflow throughout the device and kept my modem from having any issues. I am fairly certain that the tower I am connected to does not support 5G but I have been very happy with my consistent 4G speeds that average around 100 Mbps download and 50 Mbps upload.
https://community.t-mobile.com/tv-home-internet-7/weekly-reboot-35365
I just went the passive cooling route of elevating the trashcan from the shelf surface it sits on. My gaming laptops also gets hot when sitting squarely on top of a desk. A cooling technique for gaming laptops that get real hot, is just to raise the back of the gaming laptop to provide more airflow.
With this thought in mind, I just put the trashcan on top of a steel yakitori mesh grill that is raised ~1.5" on both sides by two wooden blocks. This, aside from turning off the trashcan's built-in WiFi, has resulted in lower temps for me. YMMV.
Jlillard, Thanks for your post, and all of those posting replies to this thread! Although my Nokia gateway always felt a little warm, at first I thought it was just operating normally within manufacturer specs and to be expected, especially when running a few devices over WiFi. However, even though my unit is not in a hot area, is out of sunlight, and has good space around it for air flow, I was also getting repeated dropped WiFi connections. Since adding an external USB powered cooling fan (mine is 120 mm in diameter, sits on top, and connects directly to the gateway via a USB A female/C male adapter) immediately eliminated the problem, I'm also convinced there is an overheating issue, representing an oversight by T-Mobile, who is providing hardware with significant design flaws. What especially troubles me is that during my three contacts with tech support, none of the reps acknowledged overheating even to be a possibility for impaired WiFi connectivity, let alone a known issue.
Bill14861 wrote:
I'm also convinced there is an overheating issue, representing an oversight by T-Mobile, who is providing hardware with significant design flaws.
T-Mobile may have addressed the overheating issue in newer gateways with an installation of an internal fan, as acknowledged by a tech support rep. So far, this has not been confirmed by any independent party.
Nice to hear there's a rumor someone at T Mobile is taking this overheating problem seriously. Still, especially since I've only had the service a few weeks (and assume I received the latest updated equipment), I'd be very surprised if T Mobile plans to ship exchange gateways with adequate internal cooling anytime soon.
I like the speeds and the price of T Mobile home internet, but wasn't expecting I'd have to research forums, and play MacGyver with things like external fans, just to keep the gateway running.
THIS IS HOW I FIXED THE SECONDARY Signal FROM CONSTANTLY DROPPING & ROUTER FREEZING UP.
I have been working with the T-mobile 5G router for 8 months, and have tested three of the Nokia 5G router/modem. All three tested were constantly losing the secondary connection and freezing up, but still showing on the router that it was connected. In your service area there will be T-mobile towers that do not have a 5G connection but do have an LTE. If the LTE connection is stronger on the tower that does not have a 5G connection, then your Nokia Gateway will connect to that tower and drop the secondary connection. Also, you will lose the secondary signal if you are too far from the tower.
HOW TO FIX THE ISSUE:
You will have to add external parabolic antennas to the Nokia Gateway. I added two parabolic antennas and two yagi antennas. Check cellmapper.net for towers in your area.
A simple 120 mm fan with a USB/USB-C adapter and my can is cooling itself. It no longer gets nearly as warm as it did. Although I didn't experience any dropouts I can attribute to heat, I think it's worth the $20 to improve airflow thru the unit.
jlillard wrote:
This is primarily a reference post related overheating. If you want to read my full background, see the link at the bottom.
The Nokia device seems to have an overheating issue. For me that mean things would run fine for a few hours or even days and then suddenly speeds would drop so low it appeared to be completely offline. Even though the ambient temperature in the room was in the 60s and the device itself never felt that warm, adding a couple cooling fans drastically improved air flow throughout the device and completely resolved my issues. Here's a link to the fans I purchased.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JLV4BWC
You may only need one but since these came as a set I put one beneath the device and the other one on top. This has ensured constant airflow throughout the device and kept my modem from having any issues. I am fairly certain that the tower I am connected to does not support 5G but I have been very happy with my consistent 4G speeds that average around 100 Mbps download and 50 Mbps upload.
https://community.t-mobile.com/tv-home-internet-7/weekly-reboot-35365
Good to see someone else verifying this issue. Just bought a 3-pin-to-usb to either plug into a socket with a brick or combine with a usb to usb-c cable to power right from the hub for a 140mm fan for the router to sit on.
c0rp53 wrote:
Good to see someone else verifying this issue. Just bought a 3-pin-to-usb to either plug into a socket with a brick or combine with a usb to usb-c cable to power right from the hub for a 140mm fan for the router to sit on.
Might want to consider using an USB power brick, rather than powering the fan from the gateway itself. The extra load can damage the gateway, as described in the following thread:
https://community.t-mobile.com/tv-home-internet-7/is-it-normal-5g-gateway-self-boots-40902
How do you turn off the wifi radio? I don't see that option in the Tmobile Home Internet app. My device started dropping every day, sometime 2 or 3 times a day and of course Tmobile tells me nothing is wrong.
Thanks for the advice and fan options. I was willing to try anything to be able to keep the T-mobile service, and not go crawling back to my cable internet provider, so I bought the $20 two-fan combo from Amazon and used a stand I got for $2.45 on clearance from Monoprice, that was made to hold an Amazon Echo, but makes a great platform for the Gateway device, and put on fan on top and one on the bottom, with plenty of air space underneath and above.
I did all that on 1/20 and now it's 2/2, so it's been nearly two weeks, and I haven't had any internet outages, or slow-downs as I was having before, so I hope this will continue. I don't know if it's the fans, or the "working on the nearby tower" that I was told by customer service that is being completed, but I will take all the help I can get.
