Chinese heatsink for NVME drive

Soo, I was a bit worried about my NVME Toshiba drive in AW 15 R3, it could reach high 70s' by playing games.
I decided to buy this heatsink from Aliexpress https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Hig...arch0104.8.3.5b8e37bedR68KI&priceBeautifyAB=0
for 3 $ + shipment, why not? I was worried it wont fit. Because of this rubber grommets that in theory, should apply force and stick it nicely together.
In the end, package arrived, I got my screwdriver and made it work. Turns out I was wrong and although you kinda have to use some force to place drive, it's no big deal.
Here are the photos of assembly

Make sure to disconnect battery plug, we don't wanna some crazy shortage by playing with our aluminium heatsink.

Remove sticker from drive, and place it somewhere else, for example on the back of SSD, or on plastic shell around drive, your choice.

Remove first plastic sheet from thermal pad, and apply it on drive. Then remove second plastic layer.

Next take the rubber bands, and put them on drive so it wont fell appart (it's thermal pad, not thermal adhesive tape)

Another look from behind

And here is how much heatsink protrudes when assembled.
One word here. Drive is exacly underneath plastic clip, (i forgot to take the picture but this is what I mean

It creates some pressure in this area now, when you screw all together and aluminium cover have slighly bummer now.

What about temps? Well treat yourself

From high 70s to mid 60, for this price not that bad IMO. Sure you can improve it somehow (use better thermal pad? thinner for sure)

Tell me what you think, and maybe show us yours cooling system for this crazy fast SSDs

 

I have a nice 85c on my msata

 

85c is the top of the range for heating your Cocoa

Calculating the optimum temperature for serving hot beverages.
Brown F1, Diller KR.

"Hot beverages such as tea, hot chocolate, and coffee are frequently served at temperatures between 160 degrees F (71.1 degrees C) and 185 degrees F (85 degrees C). Brief exposures to liquids in this temperature range can cause significant scald burns."
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18226454

 

I know right? :'D

I need to fix this as well.

 

I think if you use thermal glue instead of thermal pads and the rubber bands to keep it in place would allow you to close the panel normally?

 

Depending on height restrictions, there are some active cooling solutions for M.2 drives, but I haven't seen one yet with side venting fans, which should be slimmer...

M.2 Cooling products on Ali Express
https://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?catId=0&initiative_id=&SearchText=m.2+cooling

67mmX20mmX4mm Pure Copper Heatsink for M.2 NGFF 2280 PCI-E NVME SSD with fan 4.0mm for Laird Adhesive Heat sink cooling vest
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/67m...80-PCI-E-NVME-SSD-with-fan-4/32834985127.html

 

I was thinking about it. But instead of glue use simply thermal paste but then again, cleaning this stuff would be horrible. But yes, I'd say it could work.
This is how it would look.
Here its only naked heatsink, without thermal pad

 

Thank You for post and details.
I had recent debate with some Clevo reseller representative about HS on M.2 drive.
That guy was so ridiculous saying thermal conductivity is irrelevant and it is better just to have thermal pads pressing on plastic housing, despite showing him similar results and trying to reason him with physics 101.

 

I was thinking about getting rid of that plastic part. But then, I doubt it's worth and, and second, I dont have spare cover if something would go wrong. Plus, >65 is not that bad too worry about. But idea is good. Putting HS on NVME, then putting thermal pad on heatsink again to make contact with aluminium lid.

 

I think I went overkill on this one, well I did have a GPU heatsink I could somehow get into my case on the msata :'D


I'll change it to something more light later on, because It really looks frankenstein.

 

I use thermal pads between the SSD/Heatsink and another between Heastink/Chassis. No wraps or ties. The pressure from the chassis holds it all in place while also providing more cooling by the use of thermal pads on each side (11w/mk). I'll provide pictures in about 9 hours when I get home. It really makes an amazing difference; if I use a laptop cooling pad underneath I can do multiple Crystal Mark benches back to back and never hit 60c with a 950 Pro.

 

If you have the ssd heatsinks with fins/nubs I don't think you should cover it with pads. I actually had worst thermal performance when I tried that. I think it just smothers the thermal dissipation. The chassis is aluminum only on the outside, the inner layer is plastic so I wouldn't want heat being transferred to that.

Also, go with the 2mm copper heatsinks... the aluminum ones are 3mm+ and a bit too high to close the bottom panel properly. I don't use the bands they come with, just thin high rated 3m tape.

 

I thought the same thing but I tested both ways and it's much better with the extra pad making contact on the chassis. If there was more airflow in the case perhaps then just the exposed fins would be better but in my case it was night and day with the extra 0.5mm making contact.



This is right after a Crystal Mark. It already dropped 8c just in the time it took me to do a snapshot and within another minute it dropped back down to 43c.

Without the 0.5mm pad it would go above 60c and take longer to drop. It also would only drop to 47c, not 43c.

I also use a laptop cooler so it cools the chassis and it acts as another heatsink. The plastic parts have to be exposed to the 100c heat being put off by the majority of these systems anyway so I'm not too worried about that

Right now I've been using it on a flat surface (no cooling pad) for 20min and it's idling at 41c. If you are telling me I can get a 950 Pro to be cooler in this machine I would pay money to see it.

Heatsink: https://www.amazon.ca/Heatsinks-Laptop-Cooling-Radiation-Dissipate/dp/B01MY2NQ8S with Fujipoly 11w/mk pads (did not use their cheap silicon pads)

 

Driven by curiosity, I bought sheet, 100x100x0.5mm. I will try and put result here as soon as package from China arrive. Maybe not the best thermal pads available, but I'm not gonna spend too much cash on it.

 

Package arrived. I have to admit, I'm kinda pleased with the results, and must confirm @Zerpy method.
Pics below
I aligned thermal pad, in a way, not to obstruct with big piece of plastic. "KB" is your pinpoint, if you move further than this then aluminium cover will elevate.



Make it look like this below

Ok, but what about benchmarks?
Well...

From 64 to 52? Thanks for aluminium bottom cover, it works like a big heatsink and dissipate heat rapidly after bencharmks as @Zerpy mentioned...
Totally worth it.

 

Nice!! Happy to hear it helped. I was honestly shocked too when I tried it considering so many people tried to say it would do the opposite.

Did you use a whole pad??? I only used a strip wide enough for the SSD. You're getting better temps than myself, I wonder if it's from using a wide pad?

Thanks so much for following up!

 

Nope, the blue piece on pic is about 8 cm x 3 cm? something like that. Could be, but also we have different drives, my Toshiba might be slower = cooler, also keep in mind that although its not fujipoly but some random chineese pad, its still 50% thinner than last one (1mm vs 0,5mm) with this low grade pads this could make a difference.

 

Yes very good points! My 950 Pro is known to be an egg frier.

 

One last pic.
Results after playing games for 1 hour

 

I bought the same heatsink to use on my samsung 960 pro inside Asus FX502VM... alas, It didn't fit. I'm bummed.

 

I had the toshiba XG4 with toshiba controller ssd naked on a 17R4, it would always go to 85c then throttle really bad

Then dell replaced it with the toshiba XG4 with samsung controller, it consistently went to 95c then bsod

Then I got the SM961 (not similar, but close to a 960), same peaks at around 83-85c but is very close to throttle point of the drive


All was used with the Dell JV98R ssd heatsink



I think the 950 pro is even worse for laptop use, hotter than the 960 series

 

With current systems Dell have switched to the XG5 and I have to say that performance is better, it doesn't heat up nearly as much as the XG4 and doesn't require a heatsink to stay cool.

 

interesting

 

Oh no! No fun. I have no idea what the chassis is like. It didn't fit even without the rings?

 

yes, since the thermal pads is sticky, i thought maybe it would be secure enough if i remove the rings, it did stick and hold in place, but the laptop back cover still bulging and wouldn't snap back in.
after a few minutes of dilemma i decided to remove the heatsink til i have found another solution like thinner thermal pads.