DIY Homemade Cooling ideas

Hi guys, nice to meet you

After overclocking my laptop (Acer Aspire 5103WLMI), temperatures have reached in the 60s...and things are getting quite hot...

So anyone got any good homemade D.I.Y ideas?

 

put your laptop in your fridge. or on a solid piece of ice.

 

Well, you could try thermal grease and some new heatsinks. Or undervolt your CPU. It doesn't change the speed, just how much power it uses up, and therefore how much heat. But if you undervolt it too much then your computer might crash.

EDIT: 60 isn't that hot. I would say that 80 is the danger zone.

Also, welcome to the forums

 

Thank you so much romanian

 

buy a chilling pad

 

but the chilling pad will run out after like 10 mins..and where do i keep it...it will condense and stuff...big iseues dealing with those

 

i have this and it works perfectly:

 

cool...what are your temperatures...with load, and idle

and...will it fit on my aspire 5100

and...well, not very DIY

 

if it is 15.4 inches sure. it is nice coz it's cheap, it cools the notebook and when it's hot it cools the hands too

 

grrr i had one of those and it broke

 

remove the cover on the bottom of the unit and remove the thermal module from the unit (once you've taken the fan off) and clean off the stock thermal material but leave the thermal pad in place if you have the unit with the x1300 graphics and put acrtic silver 5 on the cpu.

 

Ok...erm, what do you mean, take the fan of...literally, and cover it with bloody silver?..lol

thats ...cool

 

no.... you misunderstand me... you obviously have to put it back together again once you've replaced the stock thermal interface material with acrtic silver 5 (a much better thermal paste than the stock stuff)

 

and how do i do that?,...its free right...finding bloody arctic silver lol

 

nothing is free in this world... i get the feeling you're not entirely sure what i'm talking about

http://www.arcticsilver.com/as5.htm

 

Oh ok.... well, i meant something really homemade...like, a hoover and hairdryer lol

 

undervolting reduces heat too, its worth a loooooook
http://www.nordichardware.com/Articles/?skrivelse=465

maybe only a modest reduction in heat ... but tis free and no need to take apart your lappy

for better results, couple undervolting with a good clean of the wee cpu fan/heatsink and use a high quality thermal paste such as artic silver on the cpu when ye are putting the machine back together as outlined by our noble friend hairy_lee

for a more "cool" and genuine diy approach try
http://folk.ntnu.no/bardlund/howtoextract.jsp

 

I know this thread is a little old, but it's better than opening my own since there's already opinions on here.

I live in Australia and am unable to buy notebook coolers locally, so I'd have to ship them form outside the country, thus paying more for shipping than the item costs. So I decided to go the DIY route.

I have always found a standard 3 ring binder to be the perfect prop to prop my laptop up. I like my laptop at a slant. I find it easier to type that way. If you want a sturdy binder, there's websites and shops that sell (police issue) steel 3-ring binders.

Once you get the binder, you need a fan. Any type of desktop CPU cooling fan will work, but the more silent the better. Since this is DIY, you have many options for attaching the fan. I'd personally use a dab of epoxy on four corners.

You can either drill a lot of holes in the binder where the fan is located to suck hot air away from the cpu, or you can just cut out a circular or square piece the size of the fan. Either way, you have to leave room to mount the CPU on the underside of the binder.

Next, you have another option. USB powered or battery? A stanard 9v battery should work very well, but a lot of people probably have spare USB cables lying around the house, and thus you won't need to buy batteries every month.

DIY coolingpads are pretty easy and straightforward. It's just material ideas I had problems with. I couldnt think of any good replacements for a binder.

 

What did you use t overclock your laptop in the first place?

 

I didn't overclock it. Mine is just having heat issues because it's old, i guess. It works just fine, but I figured if I was going to have it propped up with a binder I might as well just make a cooling pad for fun. I havent made the cooling pad out of this binder, but I have made one in the past using the same method as above. I tossed the other one because I was minimizing my posessions for my move out here to Australia.

 

if your laptop is old, i'd suggest cleaning the cooling fins just in behind the fan. My laptop is like 4 months old, and temps were 60c idle, and 75+ under heavy load. I took bottom cover off, removed fan, cleaned the cooling fins behind the fan, and now it's back to 42c idle, 55 under load. i was amazed how much dust this thing sucked up in 4 months.

Hope this helps,

bigozone

 

yes
its home made, it looks ugly, but it works
i have aspire, 17.5 screen xp.pro 2gig ram.
all i use it for is the web and some office work apart from that its at home 24/7.

stuff you need
10mm mdf 18x14 inch
foam sponge 2" deep
glue.
7.5 volt cooling fan. old cpu fan is best due to it thickness.
a power supply
cardboard tube to vent heat.
i sit on my sofa with my laptop and the foam makes it comfortable for long periods of use and no heat issues with sweaty legs.cpu fan never runs highest recorded temp with cooling pad 50c (flight sim).
no heat issues with HDD or ram now.
the v cut out top right is for the CPU fan just in case.
the air is drawn through the the ram vents then over the MOBO past the CPU cooling fins.the fan is placed under the the vent holes.
been using it for a year now and have now made three.one for wife and one for my son

Here's the ugly pic.



PS it took ten mins to make and cost nothing all old bits just laying about the house

 

top man

im with you on the home made.
just started a usb powered but power is limited to 5v