How to run 40°C cooler on your 8940G

Hi guys. I'm a proud owner of a 8940G-6865. Until VERY recently, I've had massive problems with the system overheating. Up until the last few days, I thought that it's Acer who screwed up and provided inadequate cooling. But in the back of my mind, I kept on thinking that the fan can push some air, comparable to the ones in the old G51 laptops. How come then my GPU reaches 95°C on Furmark and my CPU just flat out go over 100°C and shut the laptop down?

So I set out to do some modding on my machine, in an attempt to cool it down.
Warning: Attempting to do any of the things below will probably void your warranty.

Step one: get some decent thermal paste and some 90°+ alcohol. I used ethanol 90° and MX-2. And something to cut/drill the backplate.

Step two: steel yourself up and prepare to mutilate the machine's backplate.

Step three: find yourself a service manual of the 8935G that's floating around. You'll need it to disassemble the machine first time.

Step four: disassemble the machine. First remove the removable plate in the middle. Then remove the HDD, RAM and WiFi. Unscrew all the screws at the bottom. Then turn the machine around, remove the keyboard and the speaker cover. Unscrew all the screws you need to remove the cover and expose the mainboard. Then unscrew the 3 screws holding the mainboard to the backplate. Remove the cooling system from the mainboard.

Step 5: At this step, I had to remove all the black tape on the fan cover just to be able to get to the fan itself. I don't know what it is, but I think it can be safely removed. Separate the fan and the heat pipes. Clean the fan. The fan cannot be removed from the plastic housing, FYI. I found this out by breaking 2 fan fins .

Step 6: Clean the old paste using alcohol. You can safely remove the thermal pad from the northbridge chip, because when reassembled, there will be no gap.

Step 7: Reassemble the fan unit, and put some paste on the heatsink. Spread it with credit card, then proceed to clean out the paste. Don't use the alcohol. Then apply the paste.

Step 8: Drill holes/cut an opening directly under the fan. If you decide to cut an opening, you should find a metal mesh of some kind and stick it there, to make sure nothing large gets through. Although I don't think it's quite necessary, as the fan is quite weak and there is almost no space under the laptop.

Step 9: Reassemble everything.

Step 10: Get the ACFanControl utility and the ini for 8940G. I configured that ini to run the fan at max speed. Not very loud, but definitely very cool. Check my sig.

Step 11: Profit????

Here are some data for you to consider:

Before: CPU idle: 55°C, GPU idle: 50°C (CPU had one core disabled)
Before: CPU load: overheat, GPU load 95°C

After: CPU idle: 35°C, GPU idle:35°C (Ambient 22-23°C)
After: CPU load: 65°C, GPU load 60°C

After: CPU idle: 45-50°C, GPU idle:45°C (Ambient 28°C)
After: CPU load: 82°C, GPU load 76°C

Load was measured using OCCT's Power Supply test.

I managed to glue the 2 fins back to the fan using super glue. It's now running about 300 RPM slower than before, yet still giving these results.

I'm HAPPY .

EDIT: Pictures coming up:
These load temps are a little higher because I'm overclocking the GPU, from 450/1080/790 stock.

Idle:


Full load:


Backplate opening (Looks bad because I used a scissor, which doesn't count as a "tool" lol, took forever to cut it:laugh: ):

 

What CPU do you have in your 8940G?

 

I have the i7 720QM.