Solving the 5672 Heat Issue

Ok, any updates?

 

I am no expert on wireless chips or how the antenna is laid out in these laptops, but does anyone think that placing the heatsink in the area of the wireless chip could shield the antenna and degrade the wifi capability?

 

i have put AC5 on my NB, processor, and GPU 2 days ago and my processor idles from 48-55C and load not over 60C, before the AC5, and i just got the heatsinks to put on my southbridge and the other chip under the touchpad, and i will do that tomorrow. my HDD idles around 39C. the touchpad is warm but not scorching hot.
i will post temps in the future, once the AC5 cures. or unless i notice it getting coler.

and s003apr, about the wireless chip i don't think the heatsinks would intefere with the wireless at all. because if you think about it the heatsink for the GPU is right next to the wireless card. and theres no interference.

 

Hello everyone, I am back.
After a week or so of tinkering with this laptop and going to college, I found the solution to keep the entire laptop cool, without the need of an additional fan!

To start off your going to require some tools as shown below:


Hey, wait a minute! This looks strangely familier to the first post... Except for one thing:


Yes thats right, I am replacing my artic silver 5 with ceramique. However thats just something I am doing in addition to the main goal for today.

While trying to fit two more small fans in that one spot by the southbridge, I realized that there is a much more efficient way of cooling down my chipset. Why not have the CPU fan also cool down the chipset? Crazy you say? Impossible? Dare to dream? Not at all, actually it is very easy:

I figured that there was a good portion of the fan output not being put to good use:

As you can see, there is a large area that there is not air being pushed out of the fan case, or shroud. Some of you might think that that area is needed to "build up" air pressure to force it through the CPU and graphic heatsinks. However, these fans are designed to operate efficently even if all of the shroud is missing. So I decided to make that sily fan do something extra to cool down this beast.



WARNING!!! I am 100% sure that the following will VOID YOUR WARRANTY!!!

You only need a razor blade and a screw driver to modify the fan case (shroud).

First, take off the back cover and say goodbye to the acer standard warranty. Then you are going to remove the heatisnk and fan assembly as shown previously in this thread. After that is acomplished, you will want to dissasemble the fan assembly, which is held together with four little screws. After you gently remove the plastic fan assembly, you will want to CAREFULLY cut down the pastic shroud in two vertical lines about 1/4" apart. You will want to make these cuts so that neither the cuts nor the space between is needed for anything (i.e. screw holes, stand-offs, etc.). On some fan shrouds the pastic will "chip off" as you are cutting, dont worry this is normal.Then carefully bend the plastic after you cut down to the bottom of the black plastic and it will come out in a jiffy. Sorry I dont have photos of this, I was too busy making careful inscisions. However when you put the fan shroud back onto the heatsinks, you should have a nice hole pointing in whichever direction you wanted it to.

Before I replaced the heatsink onto the board, I removed ALL of the old artic silver 5 and replaced it with ceramique. Keep in mind that ceramique has special install instructions, here is the link for them. http://www.articsilver.com/ceramique_instructions.htm

Now that you have re-installed the heastink onto the mobo, you should see something like this:


Ah sweet, sinful success. Now the hole I made was aimed to cool down the copper heatsinks I installed over the exremely hot chipsets. Your hole can be aimed at whatever you need to stay cooled. Here is a picture with the airpath that will take place when my fan is operating:

Now the big test came when the laptop was closed back up, and then turned on. The results I have seen in the past few hours are as follows:

1.) The fan turns on and off while plugged in, keeping the temp between 50C and 53C.
2.) The touchpad is even cooler than before.
3.) The logitech revolution MX owns.
4.) While playing CS:S the touchpad stays at the same temp as at idle.

The CPU staying around the 50-53C temp range is most likely due to the Ceramique.

Finally, here is an overall flow chart for before and after modifying the fan shroud.

Before:



and After:



I believe that has solved the majority of the heat problem with this laptop. I will experiment with channeling the airflow directly over the chipsets when I have the time. Happy modding!

**edit**
Yes I was using a bit too much AS5, as now I am only using a small drop of ceramique on my chips. All of my temperature readings are with NHC. My hard-drive runs at 47C constant, both at idle and high data-transfer.

 

No it will not, your wifi antennae is located to the left of your webcam, and there are wires carrying the signal to that wirelless card in your latop.

Oh and I fogot to mention in my last post...

Stay tuned for a new thread featuring:

1.) Core 2 duo T7200 2.00 GHz
2.) 2gb Dual channeling DDR2 667
3.) Windows vista Ultimate
4.) My tiny nipples went to France.

 

very nice work. too bad i dont wanna viod my warrenty. lol otherwise i would definately try this.

 

i have put AC5 on my NB, processor, and GPU 6 days ago, and added heatsinks.

now i am ready for an update. now my temps for the cpu right now is 46C with the fan coming on like every 10-15 mins. And my HDD is at a steady 35C.

My computer has been on for about 6 hours straight, while playing oblivion at full res/settings, and having Azureus running in the background for about two hours today and i quit to check my cpu temp and it was 56C which is 4C cooler than before i put the AC5/heatsinks in. and my HDD was 38C so the AC5 and heatsinks must have made it cooler.

i might consider the fan mod in the future. but for right now i am ok.

 

Anyone know of a good way to measure the touchpad temps? The meat thermometer method isn't really cutting it.

 

hmm good question. i'll do some searching around and get back to you. but i only think you'll be able to tell the temperature if theres some kind of sensor or something.

Edit: wait what about a fishtank thermometer or one of those laser thermometers. i would actually go with the fishtank thermometer, but i think they only go up to like 90F or so but its worth a try.

i did find this looks pretty cool(expensive tho)

 

I had a thought, if I could get Acer to send me another cpu heatsink/fan set, I could mod the old one and save the spare till I need to send it in. Hmmm... I think I might try this, but after I move in to college (friday). Happy modding.

 

or if you can find a cheap fan that looks exactly like the one in your laptop. replace the one in it. or you can try and get it from acer. good luck with that, ill send an email too, and post what they say. i'll look around on the internet first, and letcha know what i find. hmm who exactly would i emal at acer?

 

Dude, how are you playing oblivion with high settings? I turn off antistropic and hdr AND grass, and i still had a little chunkyness outside at times.

 

That is interesting, the fan is supposed to come on at 50C. How are you idling at 46C? Do you have a cpu cooler, or a very cold room? Also how are you running Azureus (the biggest resource whore of torrent clients), and oblivion at full settings at the same time? Is oblivion choppy?

Actually, I did. There is a pretty inexpensive device from radio shack that does the job. It uses an infared beam to determine the temperature of a surface within 1/2 of a second! It can also switch between Celcius and fareinheit.
http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2103171

 

my fan doesnt come on until the cpu hits 55C then it goes back down to 46-47C fan shuts off, then slowly goes back to 55C then the fan turns on.

oh and i do have a cpu cooler but there is no difference when its on, or when i have it on my desk.


and about oblivion, it does get a litle choppy when i have Azerus on but i just turn down the seettings to mid and it runs great for me.

there is also this

 

this is my setup at my desk





and this is the fan i have (3$ at walmart) just bought today. blowing directly on the heatsink on the right handside of the notebook and at idle i was able to get the cpu down to 37C!!!! from an average of 49-50ish
and right now as im typing this, listening to itunes, and ZA virus scan in the background. im just hitting 44C

and while gaming im at about 50C the notebook fan doesnt even come on, and the little walmart fan is surprisingly silent.

sorry fo rthe low res pics i used my phone to take these as i cant find my dang camera atm.

 

Funny, I didn't do any heatsink mod or apply AC5. Just using a cooler and I'm having the same temp. And I do run alot of background software. Hmm.. Is it because it's winter/spring here in Aus? Is it summer in the US?

 

mmm what type of cooler do you have? and it is late summer here in New York.
the temp could be from the 2gigs of ram it does take a little workload off the cpu so you may have a 1-2C off mine to begin with, and did you do a clean install, i havent yet. i just ordered a new cooler here

 

I'm using Antec cooler. Don't know whether anyone heard of it. It's worth AUD70 (around US50-60?), aluminium and 2 fans with high and low fan speed, well mostly will be needed on high. Yeah, did a clean install, but still have around 57 processes running, after tweaking, disabling services and such . I guess I'm running too many programs... especially Norton!! This **** antivirus runs around 5 background services if i'm correct.... tried stopping some of the services and the program would not work right... Nowadays, most softwares think that modern pc machine is strong enough to handle small resources, but it adds up and slow the overall performance imho.

And it's actually early spring here, usually 20C day and 3C night. I'm testing out Vista RC1 now. So far, nothing to complain other than I need to buy a new burning software tool for it to work with Vista

Edit: I didnt check on the cooler pad you ordered earlier while replying. I bought the same cooler before, it works ok. Then after 2 weeks I saw this Antec cooler which looks cool, and bought it lol. Just a note which I seldom see people here mention, or I miss it, Try to lay your laptop on the cooler with a small gap (1mm-3mm), It promotes better airflow, I tested it personally. The bottom of the 5672 is not flat and when you lay it directly, it "shuts" all the little airflow-holes around the touchpad area, thus making the cooler having a hard time sucking air in, and air flowing out. I just used "blu-tack" and mount the laptop on it on four corner, which works well.

 

did you use XP pro?, and did you try any of the keys from the recovery CD?
none seem to work with my xp pro and i want to try MC edition but i dont have a cd.

 

Yes, I used XP Pro. The keys from the recovery CD also didn't work for me when I tried them 2 days ago. I was doing a clean install again that day. For me, I got another XP Pro key from my Uni, since IT students get a free retail version copy for AUD3

 

If anyone is crafty enough to put together a "cooling pad" (i.e. something suspended from the desk top with fans mounted to it) that compliments the air intake/exhaust on this laptop, I think that you would see some nice results. Anyone wants to test the waters with this idea?

 

yeah i got 2 free cds from my college. xp pro and the x64 edition. i guess ill have to use the pro. but i have to do some programming homework to do so ill reinstall later

 

you shoud definitey check out www.laptopmods.com the sit is under mantinence right now but its awsome for modding. theres some homemade colers there too.

 

Whats up guys, im new to these forums. just bought a Acer Aspire 5762 with the ATI Mobility X1600. I been doing alot of reading and my laptop came today. Turned it on for the first time, and this thing gets really hot. but it only gets hot in the upper right hand corner, everywhere else is cool. i been doing searching and i see some people take the plastic film off and it cools down there but then other parts get hot. I was hoping someone can give me suggestions on what to do. Im going to leave the film because its there for a reason and i know its working becuz other wise hot air wouldnt be coming out. i was going to get a laptop cooler but was hoping if someone could tell me if they actually work. is there anything else i could do to cool this down. i remember reading somewhere that u can change the settings on the laptop for the fan to always run, any1 know how to do this because i cant find it any input would be appreciated.

 

Actually, you do indeed want to take off the film. It has decidedly cooled everything down signficantly. download nhc so your cpu can slow down when you arent using it, nhc also monitors temperatures effectively (unlike speedfan and others). also, get another fan, whether it is a little wallmart fan to blow on the right hand side heat vents, or anyother type.

 

Any progress on the acpi homefront 98sniper?

 

but i remember reading people said that taking the plastic film off made other parts of the laptop hotter.

 

yeah but i think having a warm touchpad is better than a super hot cpu because of no ventalation. thats just my view. if it does get a little too hot for comfort then buy this cooler it seems to work great for me.

and as Tovi said earlier to download NHC so your cpu can slow down when not in use. thus making it cooler.

 

does that cooler cool it down alot? it has alot of reviews and they all seem to say that it works good. how cool did it make it?

 

my computer was idling between 50-55C and after the cooler it idles between 46-48C and the fan comes on even less than before. but this cooler comboed with a litle wal-mart fan it idles around 41-43C. so the cooler does help. hope this helps.

 

If you read back in pages 4-10 of this thread, you will see what I did to help solve this problem. The stock cooling flow was in theory pefect for the laptop, however with only 1-1/2mm of space for air to be drawn into the fan, it is too choked to provide enough circulation.

No, stupiud acpi control stopped working again. I am still tinkering with it, but my work has me putting in too many hours to even get my homework done. In a week or so I should crack the acpi code for this laptop.

 

Hi every1 !
Great thread!
Here's my problem:
Last week I bought 5672WLMi, 2GB RAM, X1600, 120 HDD +tape on CPU vent hole. When I surfing net or workin' with MS Office it's OK, but then I start playing Oblivion or Prey, it just shuts down (cut-off power) without any alerts just after 1-2 hours due to overheat. :-o Do you guys have such issue? Should I take it back to the retailer and replace it as a broken one, or it's normal thing that happens with this super-hot-notebook?

 

sorry for the off topic question, but did yours come with 2 GB of RAM or did u add another GB cuz i have that same 1 and mine only came with 1

 

there's only a 1GB version of the 5672WLMi

 

There are two versions of the 5672 WLMi, one with 2gb and an ATI x1400 and one with 1gb and an ATI x1600.

 

orly? oO I've never seen that version in the pricing

 

I've been running mine almost nonstop since I got it 3 days ago and depending on what I'm doing with it, it usually runs in a range between 50-60. 40ish at idle. The highest I noticed was 70. I have everything on maximum performance settings on AC power. I haven't touched the film under the grille in the bottom intake, which I had read (and worried) about before I got the computer. It's obviously getting air in, because an impressive amount of hot air blasts out the right side vent.

The maximum temperature for this CPU is 100 degrees, I don't feel there is anything "too hot" about my run temperatures at this point. There was so much talk about the heat on this model I really didn't know what to expect. I would consider it a problem if the heat was causing the case to melt or warp, or if the heat was interfering with use (like if the touchpad was too hot to use.) I have experienced nothing remotely like this. It didn't sound like the other poster was experiencing that either.

The top right corner immediately surrounding the exhaust is the hottest part, not surprising. The touchpad is warm in the upper left corner, the piece above it (below the keyboard) which people have reported was buckling from the heat is barely warm. I use the computer on a table or on my desk in a house about 24 degrees.

The only heat problem I'd report is that I need to keep my mouse hand 7 or 8 inches away from the right hand side or the exhaust blowing on it is annoying.

I tried NHC but the Acer power management that came with the computer is all right for someone non-techy like me adjusting most of the basic stuff. I used NHC, Everest Free and Core Temp to read the temperatures. I might get the Core Temp version with logging and see how that looks.

 

Oh, if only there were just 2 ! ; the 1400/1600, RAM, maximum RAM, OS, Bluetooth and maybe HD size among other things are mix and match all over the place (which does not make price-comparison easy...) and it varies by country also.

For instance I have MCE (they can come with Pro and Home), x1600 120 GB, 1 GB RAM and no Bluetooth. It is LX.ATD0J.008 on the Acer.ca site. They list 2 GB RAM with some of the x1600 models and 1 GB with some of the x1400s.

Iinterestingly, my Acer System Information utility says I can support 4 GB RAM (not that I will ever be able to afford that)... I wonder if that's right?

 

Yes, I have the 2GB, ATI x1400 version of the 5672.
Love it.

 

So any ACPI Updates?

 

i was wondering myself

 

What about solving this problem electrically instead of mechanically or software wise?

What I am talking about is wiring the fan to a direct voltage source to get it to spin faster and always.

The connector with the 3 wires are sitting right there next to the fan. If we could figure out how much voltage and which wires to put that voltage on, we could wire up a bypass switch to power the fan at full speed when we want it.

I for one, would give up battery life to have this thing cool down.

If you think it's ok for this laptop to run hot, I just had the motherboard, CPU and hard drive replaced under warranty due to failure from heat.

The battery life is so pathetic anyway, that any less battery is not the issue.

But right now, I have the bottom plate removed with the laptop sitting on a coolpad jsut to keep the temps down. It's one thing to have to plug it into the wall all the time, but it's impractical to pull it apart and sit it on a cool pad all the time.

So, does anyone know how to find out what the max voltage to the fan is, and how to apply that voltage from inside the computer?

 

Update:

This link shows that it's a 5V DC fan:

http://img183.imageshack.us/my.php?image=picture048zl3.jpg

So that answers that question.

A quick check with a voltmeter would show which wires are used for the voltage.

So, does anyone know a good source of 5V with 3W in the PC?

 

i got my computer in Taiwan and it didn't come with a plastic dust cover. There is a plastic mesh thing though...

I got X1400 with 533 ram!!! (I've been conned...)

 

Hey, I might aswell post my stuff for comparison

My laptop is the 5672 with x1400, 1gb ram [and bluetooth!].

Currently, with just ZoneAlarm, AVG, NHC and Firefox in use its at about 51 C CPU and 45C hard drive. This is without the plastic flap but with the plastic with holes in on the other opening on the bottom. No modifications have been done.

 

Here's the big update

I measured the voltage to the fan in it's normal state: 2.5V

So I took off the connector, strung together 3 1.5v AA Duracells, and hooked up to the red and black wires of the fan using spare CAT-5 wires.

The fan runs much faster, and as a result is much much louder. In my opinion, it's loud to the point I could easily live with it.

I put the cpu lid back on with the wires sticking out the side and taped around it so the airflow wouldn't be changed.

Here's the cool part: When I run a Spybot under normal circumstances, the CPU reaches 90 to 91degC every time!

Now I just ran it and the CPU maxed at 68 degC. That's a 23degC reduction!

And my mouse pad is much much cooler than it's ever been.

And the Harddrive is hanging aroud 38degC when it use to be in the high 40's. I had a hard drive failure already, so I want it cool too.

So now the only thing I have to find out is where to get 5VDC from inside the chassis.

Does anyone know where I can get that? It only has to support 3W.

3 watts is not a lot to use full time. The monitor and the processor probably use a ton more than that anyway...

 

Looks like I'll be dropping off this thread. My 5672 seems to stay cool now.

Why? I wish I could answer that.

I started pulling apart the case to look for 5VDC, and it got to be a mess really quick. The slider buttons for the wireless and bluetooth fell in the case, and the fun started.

I just wanted to take a peak, but to resolve the button issue, the whole **** thing had to come apart. I didn't think I would ever get it back together.

I had to remove just about everything. In the end I got those **** buttons back in (trust me, it's not easy). I put everything back together with one 1 screw left over (I have no idea where that goes, but I'm not going to rip it apart again for 1 screw).

The one thing I did find, is that after only 6 months, I did have quite a bit of dust bunnies in the 2 radiators. I blew them out manually.

Once I put it together, it's been running a lot cooler. I also change NHC so that ACPI is disabled.

Now the fan runs hard even below 50degC! How could that be? I have no idea.

I am thinking maybe I messed up it's ability to check fan speed so it runs it faster.

So now with regular use it's around 48degC with the hard drive around 42degC and the mousepad is nice and cool. And, I even left the vent cover on.

So go figure, but I don't think I need to do anything else. The machine is running great!

 

Ok here is my experience so far with the Acer 5672wmli x1600 (128mb) I got from Newegg.com

Got the notebook in and turned it on. everything worked ok but it got pretty hot compared to me dell i9300 so i took the plastic film off the cpu intake becuz people said it helped them. It seemed to cool down a bit so i was happy with that. I used it for a few days while the hard drive i ordered came in (hitachi 100gb 7200rpm) and everything seemed fine but it would get extremely hot in the mouse pad area (CPU around 46c idle 53 load and HDD got to 48c load!). I mean almost too hot to use plus my palms would get sweaty from the heat. So after I installed my new HDD it get even hotter due to the RPM's.

I did a fresh install of windows MCE and DID NOT install any acer software.... just the drivers for everything. I also installed NHC and ATT tools alone with avast! antivirus and spyware doctor. only problems I ran into on reinstall was the camera which i fix by downloading the EU drivers and NOT installing the acer software for it. I thought everything was running great at that time but the heat issue (and the noisy fan) nagged me.

To fix the heat issue I replaced the thermal compound acer put on with Artic silver 5 on the CPU, GPU, and northbridge (I think, the chips the heat sink is attached to) AND I put tape over the CPU fan intake with about an inch of space that the CPU fan can suck cold air in.

What did it do for my system? Well the CPU temp went up about 2 degrees idle and under load (so about 46-48c idle and 56-58 load and should get lower when Arctic Silver runs for a while) doesnt sound that good does it? BUT the overall temps dropped so much! the HDD is around 44c load now! (i.e. mouse pad is warm not HOT) and the noisy fan will not kick on when i play wow for like 20 mins where it would start up almost immediatley without the artic silver and without tape over intake. not only does it turn on after about 20 mins but it will turn off after running for about a min and on and off every now and then. I am very happy with the results. here is a recap of what I did and what should work for most of you!

-Get a faster HDD (lets face it a 5400RPM is slow as molasses) and reinstall OS of choice and drivers from acer website. DO NOT install ACER programs they are basically bloatware. Windows manages all your power needs anywho. Also I find NHC and ATT tools helpful in overclocking and watching system temps.
-Get 2 Gigs of RAM because the x1600 uses half of your gig so you are losing a lot of resources.
-Take plastic covering off the CPU intake vent and replace with tape (leaving about an inch of the vent exposed so CPU can get some cool air)
-Take the heatsink off and replace thermal coumpound with arctic silver 5 (keep the little pad on the north bridge and take the plastic film off the GPU heatsink).
-Take the dust covers off the bottom air intake vents near the HDD door for better air circulation.
-Get a laptop cooler. I am sure it helps a little but I Cant tell. guess every little bit counts.

Now all i have left to do is overclock the x1600 because Acer screwed up the clock speed (running 440/370 when is should be running 470/470) I have not done that yet but will get back to you guys when I do because I am curious about the temps after overclocking (my already underclocked card).... does that mean i am not truly overclocking? LOL Also I might look into putting some heatsinks on other chips or a little fan near the intake vents by HDD. So much to mod and so little time.

Hope this helps because I have been reading these forums and everyone is giving different opinions on what is working for them but to me, the way I have done it makes the most logical sense (I build Computers as a hobby).

Cheers! and good modding!

 

Hey everyone here is an update:

1.) For you guys who are afraid of taking off the dust cover and just want the fan to spin faster, solder it to a usb connector on the mobo. you can even selecively adjust usb voltage in the hardware device manager in windows, in case you have to slow down the fan speed. Here is a diagram of which pins to solder the fan leads to:



2.) since I modded my fan shroud, I couldn't be happier. The laptop cools all the way down to 49C and then the fan shuts off, warms up to 55C, then the fan activates and cools it back down again.

3.) The Hard Drive stays at 49C always. Much better than the 55C it was at before.

4.) No luck yet with the acpi stuff....

5.) Glad to hear about people trying sifferent stuff to cool the laptop.

 

I feel like an idiot now. The USB is a great place to get the 5vdc! And it's right there on the side near the fan. I had been looking all over the place for 5vdc that could handle a fan and it was right there under my nose the whole time.

Well done K98!

I not going to mess with the laptop right now because for some reason, it's pumping 3.5v instead of the normal 2.5v to the fan and that seems to be enough to keep it cool. I am running at 42 HD and 52 CPU. I did not put on any ArcticSilver and I left the fan vent completely covered.

But the bottom line is that heat sinks, Arctic Silver, and fan shroud mods are only most effective when there's significant airflow, which means the need for a faster fan.

K98, I think 49C for the drive is too high. You need to get that in the low 40's or you'll end up like me with a failed hard drive after 6 months. If nothing else, make an image of your hard drive regularly so you can recover when it blows.

By the way, where exactly can you adjust the voltage to the USB? I looked in the device manager and I could not see a voltage setting...

And also, your fan shroud mod is actually a very good idea. I like it because it allows the fan to work efficiently by sucking in air through it's intended vent. And also because it helps deal with the very poor ducting of the GPU radiator out the back. Right now with my vent closed, I think all that hot air from the GPU is just being sucked right back into the fan.

One question: Do you notice the hot air coming out of places like around the keyboard etc to the point where it's annoying? I doubt that's a problem, but your model has the inside chassis positive pressure versus Acer's modded vent as being negative pressure.

Side note: If you want to feel a hot chip that gets no cooling, pull off the keyboard. Right next to the touchpad is a small chip that is incredibly hot. There's nothing that can be done because it's sandwiched between the keyboard and the chassis. I just can't believe they were thinking straight when they designed this chassis. The lack of cooling is a killer...