Aluminum heat sink for an overheating USB TV stick

[Bob Eisenman]

Well....I suppose I could mention a modification I made a few days ago to a USB dongle I use to watch TV on my desktop PC. In around 2015 I bought a USB gizmo (Diamond ATI) that amplifies free TV broadcast channels to watch on my desktop:

 

https://www.google.com/search?q=ati+usb+tv+tuner&client=ms-android-sprint-mvno-us&sa=X&biw=360&bih=511&tbs=vw:l,ss:44&tbm=shop&prmd=sivn&srpd=8387109145367666962&prds=num:1,of:1,epd:9015102990135518158,cid:9829875410571122069&ved=0ahUKEwi92MiPl-TUAhUEGj4KHU_xCh0QgjYI5wM

 

I found that each summer of use corresponded with frequent intermitent total loss of function of the USB TV gizmo to the desktop display. The gizmo was also hot to the touch after Windows and it stopped interchanging signals. After cooling down, unplugging and replugging and rebooting the software the device would work again until overheating.

Clearly the gizmo is required to amplify high frequency digitally encoded signals received by the antenna into a USB transferred signal to the desktops TV software and monitor. High frequency....amplification... excess heating...sounds like an overheating microcomputer chip on the gizmo.

I unscrewed the plastic housing and found a half inch square chip on the gizmos circuit board which has a USB plug on on end of the board and a coaxial signal plug on the opposite end of the board.

MicroCenter had a 99 cent aluminum 'heatsink' with double sided sticky tape already stuck to the aluminum side. Removing the protective paper from the second side of the tape allowed the heatsink to be stuck to the gizmos overheating chip on the integrated circuit board USB dongle.

 

My apartment  temperatures have reached into the upper ranges where the TV tuner (without a heatsink) would turn off due to overheating after a short period of use but the the gizmo plus a heatsink has yet to overheat and turn off

My ATI USB TV dongle (Windows Vista) seems to be working better and longer with the applied aluminum heatsink. The original plastic case is a tight squeeze and I left the plastic side panels off.

 

My USB TV (Windows Vista software) is a spin off idea after working in Ubuntu Linux (video4linux) to display TV from signal. Store bought (inside an aoartment) antennas I've tried work less acceptably than this home made antenna from a Google searched design.