Alienware 17 R1 Ranger GPU VRM cooling solution!

This is the Ranger version of my GPU VRM extra cooling mod that I did on my M17x R4 here.

This mod requires bottom shell cutting. This is just a show and tell and not a tutorial. If you want to try this mod yourself be carfull when cutting and !! THOROUGHLY CLEAN OUT THE BOTTOM CASE OF METAL SHARDS & SHAVINGS WITH WATER & COMPRESSED AIR!! The metal shards from cutting are as small as dust & will be hard to fully clean, you do NOT want to have metal pieses shorting out your motherboard. Also cover your LED cables in the casing when washing with water, there are three, left, right & front.

Spoiler: Pictures inside :)

First there is a center bar that had to be cut out in order for the HDD bay and MXM bay to be opened together. I used a hack saw but a dremal would be much easier.



Covered up the bear metal with permanent marker.


Final pictures.

 

*Continued...* It's no big difference to regular temps but does improve VRM cooling as the VRM end of the heatsink normally gets saturated with heat not going anywhere quickly but now it can!

Spoiler: Pictures

Playing Battlefield Bad Company 2 MP
With custom fan:
Idle: Load:
GPU 49°C 66-67°C Stable low fan speed

Stock:
Idle: Load:
GPU 49°C 64-70°C fan going up & down speeds to stay cool



There is also a perfectly placed vent for the intake.


Temps improved even more when you have the back of your system elevated to allow more intake. Some people use fan pad coolers but I've never needed to do more than this. My custom wood stand has a slit on the inside to give room for the vents.

 

Well done mod mate!!

Me also use them elevated, bout 2 cm all corners.

 

Yea, just elevation works well, I made my stand for My old XPS M1730 and it has worked well for every laptop after.

 

Nice work, on the side I wish that Dell kept up its XPS line better as the m1730 is still a nice machine after all these years and got two of them. I can see this mod going further as there looks to be a bit of room between the cooler and the bottom cover.

 

If you cut out the RED bar and if your willing to give up 1x RAM slot you could possibly fit a small Surface Pro fan here and put a little heatsink on top of the CPU heatsink for some early cooling before it reaches the main fins.