Solving the 5672 Heat Issue

Introduction

Hello everyone, this is my first post here on notebook review. I am trying to cool down this now infamous laptop. I will post here when I do more things to cool my laptop. I just got this a week ago.


The Conundrum

When I first got this laptop a week ago, it was un-godly hot. The other day I was opening the laptop up and saw that stupid "dust cover" on my fan grill. In a fit of rage against the machine I tore it off. After that the laptop cooled down considerably. In my quest for more temperature reduction, I just completed a major cooling job on my laptop.

The Deciding Factor

About an hour ago I decided to see why the plastic on the side of my laptop was so hot. After about ten minutes carefully removing the fan/cooling unit, I saw why. The Acer robots in the factories place this horrible thermal pad for the Northbridge, vga chip, and I think a voltage regulator. In addition, there is almost no thermal paste on the processor and another chip (vga?). So I decided to commence operation Cool-alot.

The Process

To begin with I donned some latex gloves and acquired some paper towels, Q-tips, and Isopropyl rubbing alcohol. So to start I removed the stupid thermal pads on every cooler contact point but the voltage regulator (a random gray box on the mobo). Then I used the paper towels to remove the excess (not much) thermal paste on the rest of the contacts points. After that was done I used isopropyl dipped Q-tips to remove the fine stuff from the chips and the copper contacts. After a thorough dry time, (3 minutes), I opened up my tube of artic silver 5. I then placed small gobs in the center of every contact point on the copper heatsink. Then I used a razor blade and smeared out the paste to cover all the area that would actually contact the chips.

Reassembly

After this process was repeated for every chip contact point except the voltage regulator, I carefully placed the fan/cooler back in place. I screwed it back into place and waited for about 30 seconds. Then I removed the cooler unit again and placed more Artic Silver where there was no goop on the chips. After that was done I placed the unit back in its home and screwed it down. Finally I placed the big plastic cover on the bottom and screwed it back down.

Finale

After a hesitant moment I booted up the machine. It booted up without a hitch. The laptop booted into windows and was working fine. UNTIL......, no just kidding it only gets better from here. So I started to multitask, downloaded half-life 2, ran a virus scan, and joined up on notebookreview.com. Now as I am finished writing this article it has been about an hour of constant use and to my surprise, the plastic on top of the heatsink is COOLER than the touchpad, the plastic above the hard-drive, AND the plastic above the nothing area on the right side of the touch-pad.

Final thoughts

I am not recommending this to anyone nor am I sure if my laptop even is covered under warranty anymore. I am simply stating that this process worked for me. If you guys want pictures just ask and Ill post them. This was really easy for me to do, and the outcome was way more than I expected.

Return of the Cooler

Next week I will post what I have done in my investigations to cool that darned touchpad.

-Chris.

P.S. pictures and temperature readings are coming...

 

Cool definately post some pics and temps. I been lookin at the 5672 and would be great to know some ways to cool it down w/o a pad or stuff like that. Keep us posted.

 

So the plastic above the actual heatsink (ie: where the heat should be) was cool, and all the other areas were still hot, like the touchpad, nothing area on the right of the touchpad, and the hard drive?

I am sorry for asking but your english got a bit weird in that sentence when you attempted to make a joke(?).

Oh, and YES OF COURSE WE WANT PICTURES =D .. and benchmarks too

 

Would like to see some pics, I got a tube of AS here and wouldn't mind trying to cool down my own laptop a bit with it.

 

You dont want to put too much as5 on or it will negate the purpose it serves. The issue with pads, other then the crappy material it is, is that it is way too thick in most cases and doesnt properly dissapaite heat to the heat sink.

With a prorper installment of as5 the film over the vent and a cooler pad should make these 5672's run ICE cold. I will see by november when I hopefully get a 2.0-2.16ghz core duo upgrade. Until then thermal pads away!

 

Okay here are the pictures of what I did. By the way, it was 1 AM when I typed the original thread... So yea that sentance doesnt make sense.


Here are the materials laid out:




Here is after i removed all the thermal pad residue, notice the reflection on the chip:




And here is the Cooler side where the CPU is, all the old pad is gone:




I used the razor blade as shown to carefully smooth out the artic silver 5 (note: only put the artic silver on the copper cooling unit):




After I smoothed out the artic silver on the copper cooling unit, I placed the unit back in place and screwed it down, then removed it again. Then I looked where there was no artic silver on the chips and then applied extra on the copper cooler:




Here is a close-up of the 'Grey box on the mobo':




REMEMBER!!!!!!! RE-CONNECT THE FAN TO THE MOBO!!!:




Here is a picture of the tape that held in the stupid "dust cover" over my cpu fan:




This is the application I have been using to see my temps (SpeedFan), the ACPI sensor before read 50C, and now as you can see only 40C.

 

Lol, yea all the other areas are still warm to the touch. However the plastic area above the heatisnk is COOL now, unless I am gaming in HL2.

Oh and one more thing, dont worry about excess ArticSIlver 5 around the chipsets, they have the black plastic covers to protect from this sort of thing.

 

Well, I think tommorow I will be removing the "stupid dust cover" from my Acer laptop. I've never understood why it was there to be honest. It just screams "I'm restricting airflow and shortenening the life of your laptop, so that in 12 months time you'll be buying another" rather than "I stop dust". If I do remove it then I'll post up before and after temps to supplement the post.

 

sionyboy, that "stupid dust cover" DOES have a reason. Id toes exactly what it says: it prevents dust from entering and stopping in the heatsink. Now, people should be warned that simply opening their laptop will most probably VOID THEIR WARRANTY. So the decision is yours: void your warranty or accept a higher working temperature of their pally. A real alternative is to get a cooler pad. It DOES drop temperatures by 5 .. 10 degrees celsius and does NOT void your warranty.

 

Thats completely and utterly untrue, no offense. Pple open up their laptops to replace ram and the hard drive all the time, and manufacturers do deem such items as "user replaceable". So why on earth would opeing up the laptop to upgrade parts that are meant to be upgraded by the owner void ur warranty?

Esti in romania, deci nu cred ca poti sa vorbesti despre ce reguli sunt in toata lumea, special in america si europa de vest.

 

nicolin he is correct on this one. How do you think pc repair shops are able to repair pc's without going to dell and asking for "permission" to replace basic components.

Adding a DVD-RW drive to a desktop does not void the warranty.

Adding Memory

Adding a HDD

etc.

Replacing larger components such as a CPU might be not be in bounds and will definatly not be supported by the manufacturer. however this is within bounds. I've replaced heatsinks after a failing fan on hp's / compaq's / Dells / OEM's etc. All did not void the warranty. All you did was replace the compound on the underside of the heatpipe.

Now if the user F*cked up and didn't install it correctly, or if something is visibaly damaged or not configured properly then yea your warranty is basically hosed.

 

I believe that when I put in a Merom Core 2 duo in my laptop, THAT will void my warranty. Especially because I need a firmware flash to do it. However as far as openening up the laptop and replacing ram, the hard-drive, etc., will not void the warranty. Thats as far as I know from experience. My next task is cooling what I think is the southbridge of the motherboard.

Also, that "dust" over left me wondering how the fan can possibly pull enough air through a gap only about 1mm in heigth. Thats the reason why I pulled it off. Also on another thread someone said they called Acer and the guy from Acer told him to take off the "dust cover."

 

Maybe the dust cover is there to prevent dust from entering the computer while it sits on the shelf/box. Because think about it, why would acer go thru all the trouble of creating vents if their just gonna cover them up. If they only wanted very little air/dust goin into the bottom of the computer then they wouldve initially only made the vent very small instead of making it big and then covering it up.

Its like building a 30 story building, then after ur done with it u demolish most of it because u only wanted a 3 story building.

 

Right, I just removed the stupid plastic flap from the ventilation holes on my Acer laptop. Here is a picture of the offending article.



Now, this piece of plastic was placed between the ventilation holes, and some plastic mesh on the inside of my Acer laptop. Why it was there I do not know, but I can't see how this is part of the design.



The red lines indicate where this plastic was blocking airflow into the laptop. It was just the top corner that was not covered by this piece of plastic.

So far so good, was idling at 52c, now currently running at 47c.

Playing MP3s, was running at 56c, now at 49c when on t'interweb and Media Player going.

Might chuck on some Arctic Silver later, depends how adventurous I feel.

 

I did this also, removing several huge pieces like those. And I can definately feel an improvement. The idle cpu is a good 6-7 degrees celcius cooler (down to ~33 average from ~38-39 before). The hdd used to be the biggest problem, with it gettin up past 40 even just browsing the internet. This would make the left palm rest quite uncomfortable to keep my hand there for extended periods of time aka typing alot or playing a game. Now the hdd under normal usage stays at around 36-37, well within the comfort limits of my hand (unlike before). Ill test out max load temps soon too.

 

I've been reading this thread and I am scratching my head, just what are you guys talking about? My 5672 never had any internal plastic covering any of the holes (vents or fan). I've got one of the first 5672 that came out, it has the x1400 gpu. I'm wondering if just the newer ones (x1600) units have this plastic. I so, then I think someone forgot to remove the plastic off the assembly line.

 

They just have a sheet black plastic, same type used on CPU, chipset and GPU to avoid contacts.

Cannot wait to put a T7400 CPU there.

Gradius

 

risslerp, I agree. I got mine back in April of this year. I have absolutely no strips or reflective films covering the Fan. Dear God, I just scrolled up to see the piece of plastic that everyone is talking about. Hard to miss that. Mine NEVER had it.

Talon

 

PART 2...

Okay everyone here is part two of my quest for a cooler 5670. By the way Mine is the version with the x1600 Ati chip, I forgot to mention that earlier.

Here is a photo of what I want to cool down, the two hottest chips I can find on my motherboard. Coincidentally the larger one is directly under the touchpad, with no way of dissipating the heat:



These are the materials that I bought from Fry's today, the only ones I can find that will fit:



To start off I placed one of the heatsinks on the wireless chip. This chip gets so hot while using the internet that I cannot touch it:



With the wireless chipset now done, I need to turn my attention to the southbridge (I think) chipset right below the touchpad. This chip gets very, VERY hot even at idle. Also notice an absence of material where a fan can be mounted in the chassis:



How can I possibly fit that fan in there you ask? Well a little razor blade and some patience yielded this:


So now I am glueing the fan into place and will let you guys know (with pictures of course), what difference this will make.

 

Wow, I await the results.

I did have the plastic flim over the vents under the CPU, but no other pieces of plastic.

 

Alright I just put in some AS5 I had left over from when I built my Rig. Things are going fine. Thanks a lot, K98. I don't care if I voided the warranty, I doubt Acer support would even ever consider replacing the laptop in any case either ways. The way I see it, doing this will prolong the life of the laptop.

I just wanna ask you something, if I don't want to glue a fan in my case, can I just put a few of those heatsinks onto it?

Currently getting 40 Degrees idle. 50-60 Load.

 

Cool, good to hear. I am glad this worked for you. IN answer to your question... see below.
s
PART 2 CONTINUED...

ALright so now that I have had about six hours of tinker time with my experiment, here is what I have done and the results:


So here is the fan after mounting it to the underside of the plastic chassis:



Pretty cool huh? Now when i tested the fan on a 9v battery, it kept hitting some components on the mobo. No big deal, I just took it out to the sander outback and sanded it down. Time after time, more and more material was removed untill only a faint tap tap tap could be heard. Well I had come so far I just HAD to get rid of that tapping. So one last trip to the sander I went. Everything was fine untill when I went to put the fan back in the fan felt very jiggly... Uh oh... as you can see I broke the plastic fan off of the motor shaft:



Well that sucks, now I am looking for a different fan (hopefully smalller) online to try out. BUT WAIT!!! All is not lost!!

I decided to go the way of heatsinks on the southbridge chipset:


As you can see about four fit on the chip just fine, maybe sticking out about 1mm. So for the time being, this is what you see when you open up my ram cover:


mmmmm... This makes me in the mood for testing it out!!!

So I plugged my laptop in, closed the cover and started to play, work, etc. TO my surprise the touchpad had cooled down quite well. It was no longer a no-touch pad but a fairly warm soothing heating pad. Not being satisfied of course, I tried something else.

I taped back up that "dust-cover" over the CPU fan to see if it changed anything.

I think this screenshot says it all (for idling):


What... the.... #$&^!?!?!

Upon further investigation, it seems that that dust-cover is not to protect from dust, it is there so that air is drawn over the chipsets to cool them down. However when there are no heatsinks on them this plan backfires and creates melting spacebars and curiously burned mouse hands. With these heatsinks on and the good thermal paste on, the laptop has become very bearable. At least until I get another fan to mount there.

I will be sure to keep everyone posted about what I am doing in my quest for a Cooler 5672.

Oh and what temperature monitoring programs are you guys using?

Happy Modding!!!

 

Oh and I forgot, here is the picture of where my dust cover was. YOu can see some tape there, thats the hole I re-covered for the temperature readings.

 

Haha I love this kind of stuff. I bet you are having a blast toying around with that thing. Sounds like a lot of fun. Just goes to show you a modder with a goal in mind > multi billion dollar corperations.

Best of luck to you with all your mods!

 

Alright, well if you are just viewing the most recent post in this thread, I suggest you go back a page and see what I am doing to cool down my Aspire 5672. If you have read everything, then here is another way I have cooled down my heat-box.

While finishing up with the modifications above, I noticed that there was a gap between the heatsink, and the plastic chute for hot air going out the rear. I decided to close that gap up with some black electrical tape:



My thoughts were proven correct when I found that it lowered the temperature sensor reading by 1/2C. When I get home today I will also remove the back exhaust grill mesh screen to see if that makes any difference.

 

Dude that is just awesome! I just ordered dome heatsinks from newegg. They measure 14 X 14 mm. Should be here tomorrow. I can't wait now.

So do you suggest putting the dust cover back on after the heatsinks are installed, or not? And what kind of thermal paste for the heatsink on the chipset, if any at all. I heard about something-epoxy that is like a glue/thermal paste. I'm kinda lazy so I might just go with the heatsink sans epoxy.

 

Yeah I just now ordered some from Newegg as well. I just hope those heatsinks will not contact the plastic cover. Also, I'm wondering if they will alter the air flow pattern (as small as that may be) within the case and heat other areas excessively. One thing I learned about cooling in desktop systems is that you just don't add as many fans as you can stuff into the box. Air-flow patterns are very crucial to adequate cooling.

Talon

 

The thermal take heatsinks I bought are 14mmX14mmX8mm, I believe. So I think .8cm will fit into the case. And there are gaps inbetween the fins, so airflow shouldn't be altered. I would have brought the Vantec ones, but I like these cuz they're more square and tons cheaper.

 

Good to hear. I ordered the Thermaltake as well, same size. The others were aluminum and I think these copper ones will conduct heat away more efficiently. I wonder if they have the sticky adhesive on the application side and whether that'd be good enough or should I get my old Arctic Silver 5 tube out.

Talon

 

I'm not sure about that. I think they do come with adhesive, but if you want to apply thermal paste, I think it would have to be the adhesive kind. Not sure though... I think you would need Arctic Silver of the epoxy variety, of course, I don't know anything worth a **** about that.

 

Ok, I took off the cooling unit and have cleaned off the old paste. A couple of questions.
There is a white pad on the copper cooler that covers the chip right next to the RAM. Do I remove that little white pad sticker? It seems that the paste will have little effect contacting it. there is another little white pad for the grey little box...
What now?
Also there is a little square of foil on the cooler for the ATI chip...

 

Um, I didn't remove the white tab. I think the grey box is the voltage regulator. You should take a closer look at the pics, they're pretty detailed. You don't want to take off those white tabs because its better than nothing. You won't put any paste where those white tabs would be since theres not guard to catch any spillage like there is for the CPU and 2 chipsets.

I dont remember any square foil. Are you sure its no just a thin layer of thermal paste? Go ahead and take it off, but be careful.

 

Ok, there are three chips. that are shown in the pictures getting pasted. on mine, one of the three has a white tab. Forget the grey chip. its the chip closest to the ram like i said. Since I am putting paste on it, as i speak, can i remove the corrosponding white tab from the cooler?

 

I didn't remove mine. It's probably there for a reason. Leave it.

I just opened things up again to check.

 

How significant is your heat issue? Mine was up to mid 60's C. After i took out the plastic intake cover plastic.

 

You are on the right track. All of the BGA, RAM, and Chipset cooler heatinks come with a very thin layer of double-sided thermal tape already prefixed on the heatsinks. Artic silver does come in a two-part epoxy, but the thermal tapes on the heatsinks work great, and with no mess.

From what my experiments have yielded, I do recommend that you keep that "dust-cover" covered. This is because it keeps the System Temp down. However if you are crazy about the plastic getting warm, then go ahead and remove the cover. Remember you can always re-cover the hole.

Here is a picture of the air path inside the laptop with the vent covered:



And here is a picture of what the air path looks like with the vent UNCOVERED:


As you can see, with it covered, the laptop uses the air more efficiently than with it not covered. That increase in efficiency is why the air is hotter.

You are absolutely correct, adequate air flow is essential, That is precisely why I put that “dust cover” back on the vent. When it is covered, the air is pulled from the vent in the front, under the touchpad. This cools that nasty southbridge chip and still allows the CPU and GPU to be cooled.

Okay EVERYTHING on the copper underside of your heatsink except for two things should come off. I kept the aluminum on that area for the GPU, because it works fine with it on. The only white tab I kept on was the one for that ‘little grey box’ on the motherboard. You can easily pull the other one off with your fingers. (gloved of course)


MAKE SURE YOU HAVE GLOVES ON!!! If you touch the copper underside of the heatsink, then your skin oils will fill the microscopic crevasses. That oil will prevent the artic silver 5 from forming the crystalline chains which what make it such a good thermal transfer material.

I think I have answered everyoens questions up to here. If you have any-more just ask!

 

I was idling mid 50s and getting mid 60s at load after taking the strip of plastic out. Now I idle low 40s and reach mid 50s under load with the AS5 in there.

I don't have a sensor where the touchpad is, but I know its a bit warm for comfort, and VERY warm under load. So hopefully the heatsinks will cool it down. Since I had the cover off, I took some measurements of the two chipsets for anyone who is interested. I have some archaic methods since I couldn't find a small enough ruler, but I measured out pieces of post-it notes I had folded over a few times. Hope this helps.

Here is one of the clearance for a heatsin (the height is actually about 9 mm):


Here is the width of the small chipset (1.5 cm):
http://img213.imageshack.us/my.php?image=smallep2.jpg

Here is the larger chipset (2.5 cm):
http://img213.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bigwp5.jpg

EDIT: Ok I took off the cooler assembly and removed the white tape thing. I finally noticed the silver film on the chipset closestt to the DVI input. I'm gonna see what temps I get with ans without the vents blocked. I also applied a lil more AS5. Cheers.

 

I lost dropped 20 C since I put on new thermal paste. totaling 46 C doing light tasks. I'm curious What are your temps like k98 after the tapeing, the new fan, heatsinks etc? And anyone elses...

 

OK I'm running it with some electrical tape over the vents cuz I threw away the dust cover. I'm idling at 37 Degrees and I'm happy with that. Ill wait till I get my heat sink for the problem with the over heating touch pad.


Just for the record, I think this is the perfect laptop if:
1. You install XP PRO on an NTFS drive.
2. Apply arctic silver 5.
3. Install some heatsinks.

I think these critical things make this laptop a great deal. The heat issue is effectively resolved so it's no longer uncomfortable.

 

Why do you supose I have such higher temps? I used antec formula 5... Would that make a difference? Maybe I should throw that dust cover back on?

 

Here is a screen shot of my computer while running Norton, windows media player, browsing the internet, and typing a paper:


By the way, it is true that this laptops potential is not truly unleashed until you at least get xp pro in it.

 

you might have applied to much AS5, or you might not be mounting things properly.


--ssx--

 

Here's something quirky. I was running speedfan and it showed my CPU (Temp1) at 41 degrees straight for about 15 minutes, with 5 minutes of CS:S in the middle. My HDD however climped up and down as expected. I thought something was weird since my CPU temps weren't fluctuating the way I'd expected, so I restarted. I opened up spped fan, and my CPU had jumped to 69 degrees!! AHH! So I don't know exactly what happened... Vent is blocked wit electric tape, btw.

 

I also bought some thermal compound from my local computer shop. It is not artic silver 5, it is some no brand stuff that contains only 10% silver. And before i put the thermal compound on my cpu ran at about 50 degrees clecius. When i turned the ;aptop on speedfan said 40 degrees celcius. Then about an hour later i restarted my laptop checked speedfan and now it says 58 degrees celcius! I put about as much thermal compound on as k98sniper did.

Update:
I took the excess thermal compound off and it runs no cooler than before. I think it was just the cheap thermal compound i bought so i will have to buy some artic silver 5.

 

I did't have a real measurement from what the temps were before I installed AS5, but I guess it must have been really hot before if im idling at 56 C with AS5. Also, my touchpad is a lot cooler, lukewarm, as opposed to "hot water bath" warm before I installed the heatsink. I also reattached the dust cover since it helped drag air through the vents under the chipset (touchpad).

Also a minor note, I installed my heatsinks so the fines were PARALLEL to the bottom edge of the laptop. I think you would get slightly better cooling if it was perpindicular, but there is also a vent to the right of the southbridge chipset so I hope it's no big deal. I wouldn't even know how to remove these heatsinks anyways. Just something small I wanted to point out.

Another thing: Speedfan is worthless on my laptop cuz it doesnt detect changes in temp of the CPU. Go figure...

Whats a good idle temp and load temp for the CPU? HDD?

Twiddling my thumbs at 67 C for my CPU.

 

Hmm... thats a pretty high temp, here is a picture of my temps right after running a 3Dmark test.



By the way, my score was 1222.

 

Hey I got NHC and it actually works. My CPU is at about 54C, idle, and up to 61C load (after 3dmark). A laptop cooler helped, but I wanna find out if I should replace the heatsinks. I put the on so the fins were parallel to the laptop base, instead of vertical. Should I try and change it? Or am I hosed with the thermal adhesive.

3dmark: 4490.

 

K98Sniper, please go install NHC and check your temps again. I too was getting lower temp ratings with Speefan which tells me that it is not reporting it correctly.

I just yesterday took off my heatsink on my 5672 and replaced all stock compound with Artic Silver 5. I took about 70 pictures of a step by step process as well as what I discovered / found as far as the results go.

I'll write the guide for anyone looking to do it in the near future.

Overall I can say that I am not very impressed with the cooling solutions on my laptop AFTER the replacement of the compund. I did not notice any major differnce in temps "yet". I say "yet" because AS5 needs time to cure and settle before it is REALLY effective.

I am running Folding @ home / Prime 95 / Toast / Super PI all at the time time overnight to really burn this AS5 in

Another thing I noticed about the laptop is that the CPU fan will only run when the temps are above 50C! Now I know that I could have cooler temps but this lappy is running completely passive until that magic 50C mark! Does anyone know of an application that can control the speed of the fan (I assume that it is hard coded into the bios and controled though the chipset drivers). I have tried NHC and speefan both with no luck!

Ideas?

Also I took a ton of pictures of the overall steps from start to finish of replacing the compund on the 5672 and how to do it properly. I basically liked your pictures and your write up, but for the novices out that that are wanting to try this I think a few more pictures would do it justice. I'll have screenshots of the temps and the process later tonight. I'm not saying your guide and screenshots weren't helpful, just that I'd like to include a few more screenies for the novices out there ^_^.

Look for more soon Hopefully the lower temps come soon, because I would like to cool this sucker down a bit!

--ssx--

 

I was noticing the same thing. We need to figure out how to trigger that fan at lower temps. Maybe there is a previous bios version that does this! Go team!

 

Active cooling is needed, indeed. Hey SSX you're the pro here, does the placement of the copper heatsink matter? Mine has the fins aligned on a horizontal axis with the laptop base. Thanks.