Solving the 5672 Heat Issue

My 5672 came with the dust cover over the cpu intake vent and the dust cover with holes over the bottom intake by the HD cover. According to MobileMeter m cpu temp is 58c and HD is 32c...speedfan has the cpu at 59c and the HD at 33c. Its even currently sitting on a cooler. I also have a usb fan that lowers the temps by several degrees when in use. So is the general consensus to remove both/either of the dust covers or to leave them?

 

I would say it is best for OVERALL system temps to keep the cpu intake cover on. The dust cover by the HDD cover is up to you. I removed it to get the max amount of air flow but to be honenst dont know how much it helps. Besides I might have gone against warranty doing that. So if you are worried about warranty i would not do it but for a marginally better air flow the take it off. I used tweasers to do it.

You will get hotter cpu temps but the rest of your system will be bearable if you keep the cpu intake fan on.

On another note. After I reinstalled windows I used the acer video drivers from the website but I was getting bad artifacts in WoW so I switched to Omegadrivers which seems to help A LOT. Plus i get a better overclock from them with no artifacting in any games. They are Cat 6.9 drivers

 

i was wondering ho wyou would go abou tdoing this i have searched and cant find any option to adjust voltage of any sort

 

So any updates here on controlling some settings with ACPI?

 

So I finally modded my fan along with the Ceramique and heat sink application. For some reason I thought I read to take off those 2 pads for the two chips that are covered by the pipe other than the cpu and the gpu. Now I am not finding that suggestion so I just put a bunch of Ceramique on both chips and wishing I left the pads on! It's too thick to help but I decided to leave it on there anyways. I also removed the dust covers and the fan vent cover. So far I have just been running DVD shrink and surfing but my temperatures are steady at 49 for the cpu and 36 for the hd. (I am using NHC to monitor the temps.) The touch pad seems to have warmed up a little bit after the fan mod. I think that the hot air moving from the new hole in the shroud is very hot air which passes through the area of the touch pad and that is why my pad feels so warm still. However the rest of the laptop feels a little bit cooler.

Before the fan mod I had applied the heat sinks and Ceramique. After that I finally installed NHC to monitor my temps and I have no previous knowledge of what my temps were before opening my case. So those initial temps were about 56 for the cpu and I think around 40 for the hd but I was not as concerned about the hd temps so I could be off a little.

I was mostly concerned about the extra heat shortening the life of my notebook. I am hoping that I can purchase a new fan/heat pipe from Acer if I ever need warranty work. That way I can slap it on and they will honor my warranty. I like to tinker a little to much as well. Overall I am happy with the mod so far, but we will see what happens when I tax the hell out of the system. Thanks K98 and others for the suggestion and guinea pigging your systems.

Now does anyone know if those pads I removed an threw away are just foam with a sticky coating on the underside? I have something like that and would like to wipe the Ceramique off the chips to apply the foam pads I have (intended for hanging pictures on walls.)

I have the x1600 version by the way.

 

Ok so now I have been taxing my system. I can get the cpu up to about 58 but I can not get the fan to switch into high gear. It pretty much overs around 53 under a large load. The whole palm area of the laptop is much hotter now. Like I said, I think that instead of cool air being sucked from the front to the back, the hot air is now being pushed out of the front as well, heating all of the front plastic palm rest and touch pad area. I would not recommend cutting a hole in your shroud unless you are super concerned about your processor running hot. Unless the fan can be controlled to activate at about 50c, this solution heats up the palm area a little too much. I think in winter I will leave it like this but in summer I will either order a new fan/heatpipe if I can or just try and cover that hole with some plastic and super glue.

 

Yea, I think Acer is making the right move by covering the fan intake vent. The chassis needs the air circulation.

However, with that said, if you cut a hole in your fan shroud to let air out, it should be cool air that is blowing though???

The hot air comes from radiators, but with a hole in the shroud, the cold air is sucked in from the vent and pushed right out without being heated.

So I am surprised that your touchpad is getting so hot.

I have the vent cover mod, and now my touchpad is only slightly warm versus burning up without the vent cover.

The real issue is getting the fan to run more though. No matter what mods you do (articsilver, fan shroud holes, heat sinks, vent covers, etc) you need airflow to make those mods work for you.

My fan runs faster than it did before for something I did by accident to the hardware (it's clearly not a software mod because I can put a different hard disk in there and the fans will still run faster than any other 5672).

If someone could figure out how to control the voltage to a USB port, it would just be better to wire the fan to the power of a USB port and control it from there.

Any extra fan noise is just your laptops way of telling you it's not going to die from heat related issues...

 

hello guys, i am new here.

i have read every post in this thread so far and was very intrigued by the solutions people came up with. so.. i last night i went ahead and opened up the bottom part of my laptop to check it out. i decided to take off the dust-cover to see if my laptop would cool down a lil. i closed it back up and the temp dropped about 5-7degrees. i was happy but i wanted to lower alot more. so then i ordered some as5 to apply to see if it would lower my temp some more. after re-reading the first few pages of this thread i wanted to be familiar with the inside before i received the as5 in the mail. so i go ahead and open the bottom once again and this time i wanted to take apart the copper cooling unit to see where the thermal pad, cpu and etc were located. saw all that good stuff.. assembled it back on and then screwed the bottom plastic part back on.

here is where i got reaaaaaalll scared.

i turn my laptop on and then it goes through the normal Acer screen, the windows xp loading screen and then bam the laptop shuts off. screen goes black and shuts off. so i restart.. same thing but only this time it shuts off seconds after the window xp loading screen comes on. i try it again same thing. at this point im like "why the HELL did i mess with this.." anyway, i open it back up.. thinking i did something wrong.. take it apart.. check it out.. wipe it with some q-tips (i don't know why) and put it back together. no luck. once again i do it and this time it loaded windows to my surprise. and now im sitting here writing this post thinking i dont ever want to turn it off haha. but seriously, what did i do wrong? any suggestions would be appreciated, thanks for your time.

 

did u plug in the fan? it might shut down because it is over heating?? maybe?
too much as5 on the gpu? even though there is a protective cover it can get under there. hope that helped.



has anyone tried to add a switch to the usb fan mod?

 

An on/off switch wouldn't be too helpful. The fan needs to be running all the time at some speed. What would be good is an adjustable fan speed switch.

I have one built into the LapCool2 that could be canabalized for the purpose. Since it drives fans that are powered off the usb already, it's a perfect candidate.

The question would be where/how to mount it.

But I am still happy with my fans that run too much right now. I am always sitting pretty around 50degc for the cpu and 40degc for the HDD. The touchpad is never hot even with the laptop closed and running hard.

 

thats wut i meant. like my fan controller i got on my pc. a knob switch. as for mounting goes. im not quite sure either, but if u could find a good place lmk. cuz i want to mount one as well.

 

Hey guys! really great thread here! have read all the threads regarding heat issues of the acer 5672. any updates??? how about the usb mod for the cpu fan anyone else tried it? can you post the results?

 

So I had spent a good deal of time with my Acer fan mod and messing around with the heat sinks and getting a good feel for every inch of my laptop that would get hot. I was idling at 51 and 45-48 for my hard drive with the fan mod. My hand rest was not too hot when I would just be surfing but the touch pad was always very warm. I actually had to remove the heat sinks that I had added because with the fan mod it would hinder the air flow to keep the touch pad way too hot when surfing and even idling.

When playing CS Source I would reach 62 for the processor and about 52 for the hard drive. The fan NEVER EVER kicked into high gear. In fact I thought it was kicking on but it was so quite that I didn't ever hear it. But while gaming the hand rests (especially left hand above hard drive) and the touch pad were extremely hot. In fact I would say the touch pad was well... Almost unusable without sustaining burns to your fingers. No joke.

Then today I decided to put the machine back the way it was when I bought it to test the temps out again...

I used electrical tape to cover the vents above the fan and then covered the fan shroud mod hole with the tape on the outside the best I could. And then taped the little sliver of area where the fan connects to the air pathway out the back. The tape is rated for very high temps and is so far holding up to the heat without dis-bonding. I closed the system up and powered it on. Keep in mind I did not put back the heat sinks even though I think it might help with the negative air pressure set up.

I powered it on...

It now idles at 59 for the proc and 37 for the hard drive. The hand rest areas were average for a laptop and was a welcome relief. I then booted up CS Source. It barely heated up the hand rests at all! The touch pad was also only slightly warmer than the hand rests! And then the fan went into high gear when it was around 70 for the proc. I was surprised to hear it because I did not realize it had not once been activated with the fan mod.


Now the processor is designed to run up to 100C and it is not even close when playing games. I will take a warmer processor and some fan noise when gaming over sweaty palms and a nuclear touch pad any day. And hard drive life is greatly impacted by even a couple of degrees difference. I am definitely going to try and order a fan set up to replace my moded fan because I do not trust having tape sealing that hole.

The person with the original idea meant well but it is not even close to being a good idea.

*Also I use NHC to monitor my temps.

 

i gave up. i just made a laptop cooler. now my idle
cpu 55c
hdd 39c
load is
cpu 62c
hdd 41c

its pretty ghetto and is not really portable. lol o well.

 

does anyone knows how many volts passes through the built in fan? was thinking of adding some LEDs in .. hehe..

 

Seeing its a computer, 0V on black, +5V on red, +12V on yellow and also a Vcore of about +1V

 

Well. The problem is that de Acer Aspire 5672 hasn't airflow inside.
That is because:
1) the cooler run slow
2) the cooler's cover doesn't permit the air to flow in (excuse my english)
3) the RAM and some chips are to near and they get very very hot

Why some Acer 5672 came with a dust cover between the cooler and the plastic?

Because the Acer Aspire 5672Wlmni (ATI 1400, 2GB, 120GB) came without that cover and it has a lot of problems because the hot in the mouse pad. It's really hot.

Then, when Acer made the Aspire 5672 with de ATI 1600, they put that cover to slove the problem... the aire flow should now go in from under the mouse pad and go out behind the cooler. One problem was solved (warm pad instead of hot pad). But doing that the CPU temp got to much hot (more than 60 C)

Why not to put the heatsink on chips?

Because you are no getting out the hot from de notebook! you are just changeing the place and disparceing the hot, but you must take out the hot from the notebook.

Solutions without buying a notebook cooler pad:

Increase the fan speed. How? I dont know.

Decrease the fan's sensor temp from 50 to 40. How? I dont know

Inserting an other fun (5v, small). Look to this pict

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v624/k98sniper/DSCN9560a.jpg

to the right you can see a circunsference... it seems to be that it is prepared to place a cooler there. you see?

where do you connect the fun??? just connect it in parallel to the other one, its very simple. but be carefull, you should put the cooler to take out the hot to from the notebook to the outside, not otherwise.

ok. excuse me very poor english.

bye

 

Just a tip, you don't need to say bye in your post. Also, why do you not have any ram in your computer?

 

ok i have the ultimate solution to all your heat problems.

i think this is what K98Sniper was trying to do way back in the beginning of this thread



i found this picture in an acer 5670 service manual. i don't know if it supposed to be here or not in the 5672. but would it not help? i am guessing there is enough room.

picture directly from the service manual
Photo---------------------------Part Name--------------Description------AcerPartNo.


i know the top one is for the processor/gpu/NB

and from what i can see on the manual this is the second fan that is supposed to go below the touchpad

i mean this does make sense for optimum cooling one fan to suck air in and the other to push it out.

i don't know if anyone wants to further investigate. this is what i got from their website. i think i will probably call them and at least see about some kind of ordering a part from them. or just for the fun of it.

End User Technical Support and Service (USA only)
For end user technical support, spare parts and service: 1.800.816.2237

 

sorry for the "bye".

i've 2gb of RAm but I took the pict from this forum to show the place where we can insert de cooler, but that is not my notebook.

so Acer forgot to put a fan?

 

bugmenot9, thanks!!! do you have the service manual of the acer 5670/72 ??? can you send it by e-mail? ([email protected])

Thanks man...

Where can I buy that extra fan?

 

yeah ill send it i dont know if you can buy that extra fan but you can try the only thing i can find on that part number is on a website in a different language and i cant understand it.

you can try that acer phone number above.

 

hi! anyone verified/tested the pins where (pic #1) the extra fan power is connected has power/how many volts??? i have a spare fan that i think would fit in there but cant decide coz i would be getting the power from the usb port inside but it has only 5v. tnx

 

if i were you i would connect the second fun in parallel with the first one.
if you conect it to the USB port the fun will always be runing.
I saw in my motherboar that connection for the second fun, the place is there but it doesn't have the connector and solding a connector there is very difficult. I was thinking in makeing a small circuit with an integrated CMOS to with a temp sensor to control de fan.
(After that inoticed it is a cool idea to make small extra slim fans with temp sensor tu fit any notebook inside)

 

putting in a second fan? where would that go? i know AOC makes some small and thin fans (7mm). i bet a bunch of other companies may tiny fans also. im sure a second fan would cool things down a lot.

I got my 5672 a long time ago when they first came out. Within the week I was looking at ways to keep it cool. the update to RMClock came along and it helped.

but the easiest thing i found back then and as I had shared was to prop up the back of the computer. my battery is sitting on top of a notepad about 1 inch high. this lowered the max temp of my computer and would also lead to the computer taking longer to get to a hot temperature(conbinatino of radiation, conduction, convection). i did tests with mobilemeter and posted them a long time ago. fact is, it works, and its so simple, and pretty much free.

but i must admit, it is still hot. and i've been waiting/looking for ACPI fan control for almost a year. if only i had paid more attention in my programing classes...

 

Hello Everyone!
I am back from almost a six month hiatus into the terror known as the corporate world. I have had little time for further programming of the acpi control, but plan on continuing it. I see that bugmenot found out that there was supposed to be a fan in that hole I mentioned early on. Indeed, all of our laptops have the soldering points for a second fan connector, there is just no connector there. However, those contact points DO have voltage running to them, so with a little patience you can solder on the fan leads. I am in Oregon right now but when I get back I will place a call to Acer and order that second fan unit.

As for my notebook:
Things couldn't be better, running FEAR: Extraction point and the CPU running around 55C. The HDD stays at 47C now, so I am happy. Also when I am walking around with the laptop unplugged and I set it down on a desk, the fan will kick in when the CPU reached 55C and turn off at 49C. Most of the time the fan doesn't even run while the laptop is running on the battery. The keyboard is room temperature, and the touchpad is only slightly warm. I will keep trolling this thread and hopefully answer some questions.

- K98sniper

 

K98sniper, did you ever get an ACPI script to control the LCD brightness working? I'd very much appreciate that if you did.

 

hey guys, so i've installed some ram heat sinks just like some previous posts. altho, i don't really see that much improvement at all. granted, i didn't use any thermal paste, just the thermal tape that was on the sinks. but my touchpad temperature has only gone down by about 3 or 4 degrees celcius. but to the touch of the hand that makes no difference at all.

conversely, this seems to have affected the cooling fan. the fan is always on low. it used to be that it would only turn on when the temperature got to 55degrees C and go on high speed until the temperature fell back down to 50. now its constantly on low speed idling at 51degrees C, or for a time it stayed at 57degrees C while idling. I have not really noticed the fan going on high speed.

this doesnt seem right because a fan that is constantly on, will more likely break than a fan is it on intermittenly.

note: CPU temp measurements taken with mobilemeter.

 

Hi,
My dad owns this computer and for the past 8 months he's been complaining it gets too hot.Extremely hot as he sais.A month ago he started having blue screen of deaths and acer replaced his hard drive.
I don't have physical contact with the computer but a remote assistance showed on maximum performance settings idle temperatures of 72 degrees for the cpu and 47 for the hdd.
Running superpi it reached 90 before i killed it.I bet it could go higher.
After nhc installation with default settings(no cpu undevolting) it idles at 63c and 44 for the cpu and hdd respectively.
I'm wondering since i saw that most of you guys here post really lower temperatures even before tinkering with the fans and the heatsinks.
Do you think it's a faulty laptop and be sent back to acer with complains about the heat before the warranty expires?
Opening the laptop is not possible since we live in different countries.
Do you think that the hdd failure was because of the heat?
Any ideas on what to say to acer repair in order to make them replace/fix the laptop?

Cheers.

 

Hi I also have this laptop and the problem with heat. When im using media centre or playing games the temperature rises to over 73C and the display begins to flicker every 3-4 seconds. This continues until I reduce the load, a cooling pad doesnt seem to help. Is there any simple way to fix this without voiding the warranty? Is there any chance of getting help from Acer?

 

By the way has anyone tried the external addon laptop fan by evercool?
it's powered by the usb and locks on the exhaust vents.
On their site they say it adds to the exhaust power of the stock fan but i'm wondering if it could be an obstacle since their fan is just 5v and could be stopping the air coming out of the laptop.

 

@Kenenas,

after i undervolted with RMClock, (using mobilemeter) my CPU temp was between 50 and 55 degrees C at idle. the fan come on strong at 55 degrees. (i also had the back lifted up). I remember that my unit did in fact get up to 70 degrees easily. before undervolting, and lifting up the back. and yes, the touchpad did get quite hot. using a themometer on the touchpad i got an average of around 42 degrees after undervolting.

After, installing heat sinks and taping the fan inlet shut, the touchpad has gone down to as low as 34 degrees. the CPU however idles at 58 degrees with the fan NEVER turning off.

if you want to get a cooling pad for your dad make sure the fan BLOWS air onto the bottom of the laptop, and does not SUCK it out. because the fan inlet at the bottom of the laptop sucks air in, it does not blow air out, air comes out the side.

 

How low were you able to undervolt to? I think I read somewhere that you can't go lower than 0.95 V which is kind of useless because you can't undervolt at the lowest speed. I run at 1.05 V at 1.66 GHz (had the occasional reboot running it 1 V). Anyways, my temps are usually around the same as you reported, between 50 and 55 idle. The case temp is really what worries me because it's always in the 40s, usually the high 40s, and HDDs are supposed to be subject to this much heat.

 

i have found one of those external addon fans you were talking about and i am buying one and i will let you know if it is good enough or if it does restrict air flow.

 

The internal fan is 5V.

But I measure with a meter and the internal fans run at 1.5 to 3.5 volts.

 

thats good to know , in case someone wants to set up a voltage regulator or some type of program to increase the voltage. if its even possible.

ex. my fan comes on when it hits 55C and shuts off at 49C say it is using 1.5 volts. you up it to say ~2v and when its in the next higher speed running at say 2-2.5v you can up op to say 3v so the fan spins faster and stays cooler when under load. of course sacrificing 5-10 minutes in battery life would be worth it to me.

or if i could somehow on the external fan i am buying somehow up the voltage on that manually. well... ill see when it gets here.

 

hm, i have a theory, that not the cpu itself gets to hot.
i think the cpu and the graphic chip are cooled over the same heatpipe, can someone confirm that??
and not the cpu gets to hot but the radeon chip. over the heatpipe the heat is then transfered to the cpu. stupid construction (if i should be right). i think the 5670 series was not designed for grafic chips, which get that hot...
i think that doesn't help much solving the problem, but maybe there is another way to cool especially the radeon chip...
i use ati powerplay or nhc to clock the chip down, when i'm not playing, so the fan doesnt anoy me all the time..
i am really curious if there is a way to run the fan on more than 3.5V...

 

yup its true. u can't undervolt the lowest CPU multiplier, which is Intel's way of making sure that you buy their low voltage CPUs. but it really helps when you undervolt the other settings. When you don't your CPU will eat up more juice and make more heat even at idle...I've tried it.

How do you measure the case temp? I can only get the CPU temp, and the HDD temp. Never found anything for the case.

 

Sorry when I said case temp I meant HDD temp.

 

actually according to the service manual ( here) the Seagate can operate up to 55 degrees C. It is not that much farther from the high 40's, but you should still be within operating range.

 

I don't quite have this particular model (5672), I have an Aspire 5595. However this thread got my interest since my system is EXTREMELY hot as well!

I recently installed NHC and Intel's TAT. At idle, with the speedstep cutting my processor's speed in half, it idles at around 50 degrees celcius. By using TAT and revving both cores to 100%, the CPU temp reach up to 91 degrees!! At which point I shut down the test.

This amazed me to no end...I always knew it was hot, but reaching 90 degrees in around 30 seconds is just plain unbelievable! I've never had a system this hot before...I'm a little scared to be honest. I'll read through this thread more thoroughly and hopefully learn something. But if you guys have any suggestions for me I'd be more than glad to hear it!

 

Hello guys.
Excelent, very interesting topic =)

K98sniper, I've been trying to make ACPI work on NHC, but haven't gone far.
Can you send me what you've already done?

Maybe we can work together on this.

I'm not a C fan, but I've already made some programs with it.
Honestly, that ACPI thing has almost no documentation, but I have a PDF that shows a lot of good things.

Send me the CS and the XML please.
Take my MSN if you want to do something. =)
MSN: nanji.ws AT gmail.com

Thanks!

Oh.. Another thing.
I didn't opened or changed anything inside the computer (yet).
But I used NHC. Man, that program is great.
Undervolting and mantaining the multiplier at min (6x) I was able to leave the notebook running at 57C idle.
The major drop of temperature occured when I decreased the gpu clock. The overall temperature had a drop of 5C. It's really coller now.
Now I run (idle) at 51C for CPU and 41C idle to HD (also remember to enable the spin down feature of the HD, on NHC).

Hope these tips help also.

If we manage to get ACPI working, we probably will be able to set the fan at full-speed at any time. That sound like a dream to me. =)

EDIT: Oh, btw, my e-mail is chiclops at gmail.com. Thanks!

 

i have just discovered my preferred route to cool off my 5672. I haven't done it yet, but the how-to can be found here

http://folk.ntnu.no/bardlund/howtoextract.jsp

he also sells the finished product

 

this setup seems way too extreme for me.
my computer rarely reaches past 60 degrees C unless its a really hot day.

 

I've read every page of this discussion, and I have found it very helpful. Are there any updates on the software?

I currently have an Acer TravelMate 8104, which has recently taken a turn for the worse. It idles at ~55-60°C (at 800MHz 6x clock with NHC). The fan inside functions and is clean. I use a Targus ChillPad, but that doesn't help at all. When trying to play Battlefield 2, the temperature skyrockets within minutes to 95°C+ and the computer shuts down. I really do not have many options right now because I am at school, but I suspect something is wrong with the heat pipes and heatsinks. I will be dropping the system off this week with a notebook repair shop (very reputable), so hopefully I will have a better idea of the problem.

Any more suggestions for alternative cooling methods?

 

Do you also do the chip label r50x?

I just did this to my acer was.nt sure about that chip it was more work in my case cause stupid acer tech bent one metal tabs on the heatsink

 

You can use "Intel(R) Thermal Analysis Tool" to check temperature and stress CPU.

http://rapidshare.com/files/34252919/TAT.rar



My laptop is Aspire 5672 with Arctic Silver 5
And max temp is:
ACPI Thermal Zone Temp: 80 oC
CPU1/CPU2: 77/77 oC

 

I have left this chip as it was.

 

Has anyone figured out an intelligent way to cool the hard drive? My CPU temps are fine but I'm not comfortable with HD temps in the low to mid 50s.

 

im an engineer and my aspire was getting to hot and the cooling pads you can buy just weren't up to the job.

so i set about making one from scratch. i noticed a small vent next to the ram cover, so i placed a small cpu fan on some board running from the USB supply.i run a flight sim to give the ram a good workout and the cpu.
the top of my laptop HD,ram all run cold and the laptop is one happy bunny.

have now tried four cooling pads and home made works best