Alienware M17X R4 water cooling system

I am starting a water cooling system for my R4. Before you ask why I am doing this I will give you the answer.

1. Better cooling system for the laptop (not a gamer so gpu is always idle)
2. Because someone told me it couldn't be done.

I am runnning my benchmarks right now. If you want me to do a benchmark for you with my specs let me know but so far this is what I am testing.

1. CPU stress test temperatures (100% at 3.8Ghz)
2. GPU stress test temperatures (100% at 1350Mhz)
3. Memory stress test temperatures (100% at 1600Mhz)
4. Idle temperatures (Idles around 1.2Ghz)

The cooling system will consist of a built-in water pump power at start up. I will also have a reservoir and about 2 feet of 1/4'' copper piping. The piping will not be the same size everywhere but overall it will be 1/4''.

Know for my questions

1. Will the water changes create condensation on the copper piping?
2. If yes, should the piping be coated in some material?
3. Is there a location on the motherboard where the pipes cannot cross over?
4. Is there a place where the motherboard shouldn't heat up.

Last but not least throw me some suggestions. After my testing is complete I will post my schematics. Wish me luck .

 

Good Luck , have you seen the m18x liquid cooling?

 

If you are looking for a micro water pump, do a search on radio controlled car water cooling. There are lots of very small pumps for those systems.

 

Yes I have, but that system doesn't circulate the water into a reservoir.

Wow I hadn't seen those yet. The only problem is that I have 5V limitation because I don't want to make this complicated since I would want everyone here to build one without much experience. The pump I have gotten for this project works on 5V.

 

This is enaugh of a reason for me to rep you

post some picture as soon as you can

 

Here all are all my pre water cooling scores and temperatures. All these test were done at around 22-23Celcius room temp.
XTU Stress Test
CPU
CPU: 93 (Max)
86.5 (Average)

Intel Burn Test
CPU: 92 (Max)
87.5 (Average)

3DMark06
Score: 17980 3DMarks
SM2.0 Score: 6848
HDR/Sm3.0 Score: 7524
CPU Score: 7228
CPU Temp: 58.2 (Average)
GPU Temp: 70.9 (Average)


3DMark Vantage
Score: 12146 3DMarks
Graphics Score: 10379
CPU Score: 24819
CPU Temp: 57.4 (Average)
GPU Temp: 65.3 (Average)


3DMark 11
Score: P2676 3DMarks
Graphics Score: 2422
Physics Score: 8494
Combined Score: 2158
CPU Temp: 58.3 (Average)
GPU Temp: 59.4 (Average)

 

Well here is my schematic finally finished up. The first picture is only the tear down. After that you will see picture 2 and 3. When I receive the pump I purchased I will see what fitting is more appropriate. So far I am pushing for the one with the submersible pump. If it won't fit I will settle for the one I ordered, which is not submersible. Side note pump will be powered by CD drive. Both 2 and 3 show the layout for the copper piping on the front of the motherboard. Picture 4 shows the layout on the back of the motherboard. The layout is a little unique so I will explain it as good as I can. I will solder a 1/2 inch pipe to the 1/4 inch copper pipe which is what will be used overall. If you see the picture you will notice that all the piping will be layered over with extra flat piping. As for the CPU heat sink, I will take it to a machine shop to cut a score instead of slant that it currently has. That way I can move over the current heat sink and add the water copper next to them. Then I will do the same procedure to the GPU heat sink. Allowing all the heat sinks to be merge to spread heat equally. Finally to explain how the piping will cross through the heat sinks. I will drill through and solder a flatten 1/2 inch piece of copper piping through. This will give me 2 built in radiators. If you have any question or want to follow along with me let me know. I will give you a list of what I have gotten so far. Current I am just waiting for the extra GPU and CPU heat sink so that I put everything together. Will update soon and wish me luck.

 

Good luck with this. Certainly an interesting project, and kudos for risking it! Potential failure could be catastrophic.

Personally I'm of the old school of 'water and electricity don't mix' which is why I've never dabbled with water cooling on desktops! It's never sat easy with me the idea.


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Very interesting. For your information: as long as the cooling liquid is kept at a higher temp than the surrounding air, then you should not have to worry about condensation on the pipes. Water will only condense on the pipes when the copper pipe's surface drops below the dew point temp. DPT changes depending on the area temp and relative humidity. Here is the site to calculate that number: Dew Point Calculator (Pipe condensation is a real issue with us diesel mechanics).

The only thing I can recommend to minimize condensation while the liquid cooling system is off is to wrap the pipes. Two mediums I've used before are: vulcanizing tape (works OK) and cork tape (works real good). But your sig says you live in Texas so I would imagine the humidity there to be very low. Unless your R4 is stored in someplace where it's exposed to freezing temperatures, I don't imagine condensation to be an issue for you. Good luck, keep us posted.

 

would be interesting to run a cooling line outside here in alaska if the condensation could be kept down. -40F tempatures would make for some great benchmarking days!!

good luck jackgarcia7 and hope the system comes together easily.

 

Cool!
what kind of temp drops do you predict with a water cooled system?

 

Thank you very much that's exactly what I was looking for. As for the wrapping that wouldn't be possible since I would like the pipe to be exposed everywhere so that I can absorb as much heat as possible from the inside of the laptop.

Also thanks for the good luck and I am expecting to see a 10-15 degree drop at max with my custom fan system included, and I would like to idle at around 25. Plus there will be hardly any fan noise since the fans wouldn't have to turn on much.

 

I have been trying to work on this mod as much as possible, but it is a bit difficult right now since I graduate in December and everything needs to be done by then. So far I have made my own water pump that will run from the CD drive power source. I have also bought my materials to make the acrylic reservoir and have started looking for fitting for the pipes. As for the matter of the piping flow rate I will have to look further into that issue since I haven't had much success receiving my spare heat sinks. I will be doing some extensive testing on the spare heat sinks and will report results.

 

You will need some insulated copper piping, can be bought at any hardware store, the pump, ummm your on your own for finding one that will work on 5v, as for the cooling you could modify the back where the heatsinks sit to be the radiator location, as for the reservoir that sounds like something you have to make yourself, that is the task you have to make a heatsink capable to take stock height and be able to route the connections to where the heatsinks would lay for the connection of the tubing, and as for the layout of the piping just follow the way the heatpipes lay in the system and you should be good, also crossing over the cpu to get back to the res could be an idea just need flat pic personally just keep it far away from the mobo as possible. now here is the kicker, you have to pressure test the system first before even thinking about installing it, because nobody likes a leaky pipe, pun intended, so basically buy a test casing for the laptop so you dont mess yours up and start examining the areas of opportunity to lay the pipes and the radiator, now in reality the only thing your going to see is that the gpu and the cpu are going to have to be on 2 radiators no matter what, room restriction is a max, deal with it , but basically your looking at a mini water cooling system that will need 2 mini rads, 1 solid mini pump a custom reservoir and home made water cooling heatsinks. honestly its possible just play carefully with it. the most you will see out of this mod is maybe a 10c difference do to the size limitation and well lets face it, lack of pump power. Anyways thats my 2 cents, good luck with it

By the way insulated will be your only route unless you go rubber tubing, you don't need to worry about any other heat sources due to the only real heat comes from the cpu and the gpu, and the nb i believe has a heatsink or heatspreader on it. just a thought tho.

 

One step at a time.

 

I have to ask, even with the answers, why would you do this?

Unless you have insane amounts of money, why not attempt it on an older machine just because it's probably soon to die anyway?

I really don't get some of you. This is cool, but it kinda eliminates the point of BUYING A LAPTOP.

 

^^ not only that though, it's a risky DIY project with potential catastrophic results. I'm not sure that risk is worth the up to and probably not much more than 10deg temperature drop.

But hey, if it floats your...laptop...I mean boat, who am I to say don't do it! I'm probably just jealous that I haven't got £\$1000's spare to replace the laptop if it goes horribly wrong!


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I don't have spare change to buy another laptop, but I don't have any older laptops since I give them all away when I don't use them anymore. The main reason for doing this is because I am confident I can do this in the safest way possible. I am not rushing this project and I am buying all spare parts in case of a disaster.

Confidence booster I see.

 

What could possible go wrong?!

You're on the brink of one of the coolest DIY projects ever! And, you better bet, WHEN this succeeds and you post schematics... The first thing I'm doing to my (yet to be purchased but when tax season is here I will) Alienware... I'm doing this!!

So....... Don't be thinking about spare change... Cuz you won't need it!

 

Two reasons:

1. He already said in his OP " Because someone told me it couldn't be done." If he's anything like me, we don't back down from a dare.
2. Just because you can buy a new system doesn't always mean you should.

 

Any update jack?

I'm curious to see if all is going well..

 

One thing i am missing in the loop is the radiator or at least the fan that cools it all....

 

He's sending the coolant tubes through the existing heatsinks.

 

Aaah ok, my bad

 

Sorry guys I had finals this week so I haven't done much. I should have an update on the system by tomorrow.

 

Update. Here a submersible pump that I have converted into a non submersible. Also I have started the water reservoir. Alongside I have also shaved off some of the casing to give the reservoir clearance. I have also moved the power source connection now it will be extracted from the old speaker connection. I will update when materials dry. Thoughts?

 

So did this ever get anywhere?

 

Yeah I want to know

 

Hello sorry all I havent been job hunting and unable to update. I will finish my testing period by next week and will post results.

 

Sweet Looking forward to it!

 

This is definitely one post that I will be following. I was just thinking about the same project for my M17x R2

 

Yeah if this works, I wouldn't mind trying it out on my laptop...

 

ah he is here and at TI awesome...no reason to bother to figure out my TI password now subscribed ^^

 

just some ideas for this.

1. you could use the submersible pump in the reservoir to save space by giving you the ability to utilise 2 separate components into 1 unit.
2. Why not use the existing heatpipes to transfer the coolant around. if it messes up, just replace the heatsink.
3. Use the really small acrylic tubing.
4. condensation wouldn't be a problem, never has been in any water cooling desktop setup. only a problem when you use a TEC or dry ice etc.

5. The risk for this project shouldn't be 'catastrophic' as mentioned before because the coolant wouldn't conduct as long as you use the right stuff and any parts you break are the ones that can be replaced VERY easily. ie heatsinks.


p.s. i have a lot of experience and knowledge in watercooling setups, have done this since the old AMD athlon xp days. nearly 10 years.

 

any updates?

 

I've been searching everywhere to see if this was possible...looks like I found the right place! XD

How does the project go?

 

I am currently building a fully liquid-cooled desktop and was thinking the other day if I would be able to do the same to my M17X - and a thread pops up here on the subject

However, it's been almost a year since the OP last updated... things may have not gone as planned sadly...

 

Nobody should ever say this can't be done, what I imagine they are saying is:

No where near cost effective
No dedicated parts to do it
Dangerous to do if you plan on keeping it mobile

These hurdles are overcome by:

Money is no object
I'm MacGyver
I said I was MacGyver

Q

 

Thinking about switching from desktop to laptop for college and i still want to be able to game. I could get an amazing deal on this laptop but im curious how this is going. Any updates?

 

I've got an corsair h100i downstairs waiting for my 750d to come in. Tempted to see if would be possible to mount to the bottom of my M17x sometime. Wouldn't be very portable though.

 

i was pondering of trying that with my G51j with the 920xm but was focusing on other things. You just need to adjust the pounding holes for the screens on the cooler for it to work.

 

is it possible to get a pump and tank that would fit into the optical bay or something like that? Then have pipes running to the CPU and GPU??
I don't know. I'm just guessing XD