Reciever's Ongoing build/mod log AW17 Ranger

Yeah it does well enough but can be much better with 120mm fans that can generate some real CFM and are still controllable with a fan controller (which I have).

The HDMI cable I was using was finnicky iirc and was removed from service. I have a DP cable but its the regular iteration, I will go out and buy a mDP to DP adapter to resolve that little issue. I checked just in case and Windows was setting to 1920x1080 like it should, its just not displaying anything. Whats odd is that it works just fine on the 13 R3 though, so maybe the monitor only works @ HDMI 2.0? I dont know but I will find out tomorrow. EDIT: It just started blanking out on the 13 R3 as well, likely just a bad cable.

Its technically the best 1070 in the market, but without active cooling on the VRMs then it can just be a problematic card lol I plan to push it to 130w TDP or however much I can get without power throttling from the MXM slot.

The USB Hub I got also is pretty nice, no issues powering some HDD's, so after retrofitting the fans to the cooling pad, I will attach the HDD's underneath and connect to the Hub for additional storage.

I need to make the mockup heatsink for cicichen to look at, hes not wanting to try and waste materials again from the last time he attempted a 4 pipe single row heatsink. I need it flat as possible so I can attach more mass to the die area, if im I am lucky maybe get a heatpipe or two from the vrms to it so I can avoid the VR power limit reason.

 

Got the CoolerMasterU3 outfitted with 3x 2150rpm and its original USB fans for the lolz until the weekend. I plan to raise the front just a little bit so I can mount the USB hub, fan controller and a couple of HDD's under neath the pad.

Not much of an update, but I gotta say, 3x120mm fans is leeeaaaaggguuuueees better than the stock usb fans lol

EDIT: Max temp went from 62c to 57c, 56c being the normal average. This is with a seriously hacked up GPU heatsink that wasnt built with the 1070 in mind.

With a proper heatsink I think I can get those temps lower, if I can get it closer to sub 50c then modding the TDP will be an easy ask of the card, 2Ghz core anyone?

 

Ok so some thoughts.

GPU heatsink needs to be replaced at some point. The 1070 runs really well, if not too well. I have maybe 10 copper mosfet heatsinks attached to the VRM area and laptop will shut down if I dont have the cooling pad on. So while it works fine for my uses, I do want to remedy that. Its a DTR, so it doesnt go anywhere, but it irks me.

Another note. ODD to HDD cable works fine with the 1070 installed and has no issues but I did have issue with my Internal USB hub, I have disconnected it for now but I just wanted to chill with the machine. Im thinking it may just be the sBIOS, as I have tested the power cable, hub but no way to test the mpcie to USB 3.0 A port, it could be dead after all the testing who knows. Thats a 10 dollar fix if it is, not worried.

Also I may have found an answer to my quest of finding a more powerful fan for the CPU, the real question is, can I control the RPM with a fan controller when its powered via molex? Its one of those PCI slot fans but then kicker here is they are about 45CFM and another one with 65CFM (though I dont think the second one will work)

I have 3 fans hooked up to a 4 fan controller, so I was thinking of powering one last fan on that fan controller and that can be the CPU. I just have to find one to my liking and Ill give it a shot. Maybe I might get that 60ish CFM fan and trim it down to be around 50cfm. 5x the CFM may help with temperatures...

 

Currently in talks with a member here about getting a VRM cooling solution off his hands to properly cool the machine long term and also start TDP modding. Hoping for 150w but may have to sell for 130w, depends on the motherboard and how much its willing to let me play. In any case I am hoping to get cloesr to 1.9Ghz

For the CPU development has been halted for a bit, I need to make a mockup for the heatsink for an ebay seller to be willing to make a one off for me, maybe this weekend I can tackle that bit.

Lastly I gave up on trying to cool this thing with the 10.55CFM fan and have started looking at 12v alternatives.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/New-for-As...m=322054015743&_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851

12v 4 pin PWM controlled fan. Not sure if I will be able to retrofit it, but nothing ventured nothing gained. I will put both of these in the machine. I will then use the fan controller that is fitted to the cooling pad to control / power the fans in the laptop. It will raise the laptop quite a bit, but I am thinking I can cut a couple of slots in the U3 to account for that.

Anyways just some food for thought for now. Confirming the link is the model I am looking for and will order as soon as I get the confirmation.

I also purchased a USB powered IPS 60hz 15.6 1080p matte panel to replace the 14" 1600x900 USB DisplayLink panel. Giving it and my old m4600 to a friend in need.

 

Do you know if a MSI 970M would work in the AW?

 

Never had the chance to find out that one, I ended up going 780m / m6100 / 1060 / 1070

 

Ok so I have contacted cicichen about the GPU heatsink solution until I make a mockup of the CPU heatsink for him to try to manufacture for me and others if they desire it (and willing to pay extra for one off's)

I asked him to attach 2 heatpipes from the VRM/Mosfet area to the heat exchangers, and also to extend the other end of the heat exchanger adding a bit more mass to the heat exchanger.

This will likely increase my GPU temperature but overall the performance will improve dramatically. As of currently, if I have a sustained gaming session @ 115w TDP, it spikes up to 120w and with my chopped up heatsink, it cant handle the VRM heat dump even with the additional copper heatsinks attached.

With the two heatpipes, I should be able to easily maintain 150w of heat. This will also mean however, that I will be dropping the Internal USB hub in favor of a single USB port provided via DMC which will connect my 5TB HDD with a power supplemented USB cable to avoid any potential for power issues. So the mods to the chassis will still be justified, just repurposed.

The reason for dropping the USB hub is to allow space for the fan. Due to adding 2 more heatpipes and heat exchangers for them to attach to, you will need to move the fan back or risk losing efficiency overall.

CPU side of things will be getting a bit....creative.

 

Unfortunately, after a long internal debate, I've given up the ghost and decided to let go of my precious Ranger. It was a beautiful machine, but I was sinking far too much money into it for it to be worthwhile in my eyes. As for now, I watch this thread with distant eyes, one day hoping to get a Ranger again, or settle for a M17X R4.

 

Oh yeah I have spent a lot on mine too, but there isnt anything that can replace it. It simply doesnt exist anymore.

If there was a laptop that could house 2x5TB 15mm drives with equal or greater performance then I would be looking at it.

Until then the Ranger is simply the best option there is until I build a desktop or something.


Im still waiting on the fans to come in, when they do I will be working on replacing the 5v fans with 12v fans, cutting slots for the fans in the cooling pad so it can continue to lay correctly, reduce the 120mm fans to 2 vs 3 and my games drive is getting full so maybe a 4TB SSD is in the works. Had some OT on this payday so could cover it but its not an explicit need lol.

Keeping the nest egg ready for when I can finally get a modified heatsink

 

Also, there is apparently a 2TB MSATA that exists in the wild, in the Samsung T3/T5 drives if you where interested.

 

Yeah had seen those after I got my 1tb, not sure I'll be getting one or not lol

I still treat my 1tb almost like it's 256gb. Not much goes on it.

 

Ordered another 4 pipe cpu heatsink, also ordered some thermal adhesive and lots of copper heatsinks for the GPU side.

The quest for 135w+ begins, and hoping to hit at least 4.0Ghz on the CPU just to see an improvement.

 

What CPU was it again? I have the 4930mx at 4.2 on all cores

Sent from my SM-N950U1 using Tapatalk

 

It's the 4930mx chip, thing is conductanaut seems to be out of stock everywhere and I'm running into some other personal problems so I'd like to get this to a good stopping point for a while,get it ready for air travel.

 

So cicichen has a new 4 pipe heatsink for the Rangers it seems, something about vacuum copper or something? I just got it in the mail, looks to be in good condition. Ill have to trim it a bit to allow clearance of the GTX 1070 and test for temps with NT-H1 as conductunaut (sp?) is out of stock, damn OEMs suckin up the stock maybe lol

Anyways, with this new heatsink I will also begin modding the other heatsink I plan to add to it to hopefully keep the temps below 90c for when I push the clocks up to 4.5Ghz. Ill be adding some copper heatsinks which hopefully will jive with the additional heatsink. A trimmed down NH-L9i. The idea is to attach atop the "standard" heatsink, then also have vRAM coolers thermal glued to the fins to aid in heat transfer.

All while under the watchful eye of 3x Gentle Typhoon 2150rpm fans.

Then also hopefully I can fix my GPU heatsink so I may overhaul the VRM area, cicichen doesnt seem to understand the problem and isnt really interested so I have gone another route.

 

Hey Receiver, I notice in your footer that you've implemented a Killer AX1650 wireless card which is PCIe, but the current port for the WiFi card is half mini PCIe or something like that, how did you manage to make that work?

 

You can source mpcie to m.2 pcie adapters off of ebay, may take a bit to arrive but should work fine. Make suer to also get adapter antenna if you plan to re-use your same antenna (different connector size)

I took it back out for what reason I can no longer recall but ill reinstall it tonight after work. Its not flush fitting or anything but still works as desired.

 

Installed the new heatsink yesterday after work.

I no longer shut down when allowing the 1070 to fully stress itself. I added about a dozen passive memory copper heatsinks which are made active because of the cooling pad.

I was getting about 46-48c with Overwatch maxed @ 90FPS with my old hacked up heatsink. With the new heatsink I get about 49-50c @ 120FPS and no VRM overheating anymore.

The GPU is limiting to 115w TDP though, I need to find the vbios and flash it to the 150w. @kaibsora do you know how to flash TDP on GPU's? I think I have the right programmer but Im still ignorant to the rest of it.


CPU heatsink mod is more of an endurance race, sanding the contact plate takes for freakin ever. In the end it should be about 8 heatpipes on the CPU heatsinks and two different heat exchangers. Sounds fancy but its really not.

 

I do. You just need to dump the bios and use the Pascal tdp tweaker to set the target and max tdp. Then you flash it back and done.

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Good thread, enjoying updates on your progress.

Can we get some pics?

 

Ill take some pictures when I get home this afternoon.

Its still a work in progress though, got to OC the proc to get the most out of the 1070. I can share my plans on that front though.

I have to make sure I have the right programmer to get the job done, corrupting vBIOSes make me timid lol.

 

A heads up. If you got the 1070 from euro com they are more than happy to send you the bios files. Any watts. That you want. U just need to show your receipt.

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You couldn't pay me to use their cards.

I'm using the msi 1070n card that is known to handle 170w+ power consumption. I can't take it that high but 135-140w should be possible.

https://imgur.com/a/jIy30xu

https://imgur.com/a/Kc0p0TA

 

Yes we have the same cards. The msi one. I bought mine from eurocom right before they went to the garbage ones.

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Couple of pictures uploaded, while its simple in practice with 3x 2150rpm Gentle Typhoons the results are quite nice.

Installed the 4 pipe cooler just to have the CPU bump up a bit but realized all the power saving crap is still enabled in the BIOS, will have to take care of that another time. 12c differential is concerning though.

 

12c differential how though

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heatsink isnt lapped, even though its all copper its using a plate for the die area, which is uneven

 

Just discovered that G-SYNC works on the Ranger with my GTX 1070

With it enabled and vysnc on, I cant perceive any tearing and/or input lag.

This is with the stock 120hz 3d panel.

 

really? where did you try it? does it show up in the nvidia control panel?

 

Yep, gsync vbios of the 1070 I think

 

it's strange that it works with the stock 120hz display though, it gives me hope for the N173HHE-G32

 

Yeah would be nice for certain!

Planning to sell the alienware 13 r3, I just can't get used to Optimus it ruins the whole experience for me.

 

Does anyone know of a 17.3" 30pin eDP 120HZ Panel?

 

Not the place for that inquiry since the Ranger doesnt use a 30 pin eDP medium.

 

Ah I thought it did, as someone had reported using the screen it comes with with a 30p eDP M6700. Sorry for the hassle!

 

Ok finally sanded down the hybrid heatsink. Took a few weekends to get it there. Might have to sand some more not sure yet but I believe this weekend I can test fit, and start cutting more away from the chassis to allow clearance.

I will be adding 2 more heatpipes to the CPU heatsink and adding more mass on beginning and end points of the heatsink.

GPU side will be getting maybe 4-5 more pipes. 2 for the GPU core, and 3-4 for the VRM/mosfets.I will be moving the fan back about an inch to give it the space it needs for more mass.

Apologize for all the delays, I have been focusing on health/fitness and I also needed a break from troubleshooting my only machine lol, Now I have the Aw13 R3 and T440p so its not as though my world stops now if things dont work out the first time. I also have an actual table now instead of a broken book shelf.

The itch is back, and while progress will be non-existent during the (as I still will be focusing on fitness) the weekends should be more interesting from here on out.

Been wanting to play some emulators and they directly benefit from higher CPU frequency, so its time to get the tools out and get that damn CPU to 4.5Ghz

 

Good to focus on fitness & health. Looking forward to your VBIOS adjustment post.

 

Pull something in my back with the gym trainer, so no progress since I am more or less bedridden as I cant have any downtime. However I do have a treat of sorts to share with you guys.



mpcie to m.2 adapter enables the AX1650x to work perfectly for simple browsing and streaming, will try some gaming in a bit. I dont have a Wifi6 Router so I cant test full throughput.

Anyways I hope to make a bit more progress over the week. I have one pipe to get off of an old heatsink and also to lap the heatsink.

EDIT: Gaming works perfectly

 

Is this in the DMC slot or the MPCIE wifi slot?

 

mpcie, DMC is being used for 5TB drive.

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-Origin...256987?hash=item4b6a32bbdb:g:iiAAAOSwDD9db4CO

Thinking about trying these out, 12.1 CFM each

 

Which 5tb drive you got in there? Got a pic?

 

I am at work right now but I can take a picture after I get it put back together. I can throw it in there as a mock up but I will probably do a full write up like I did the Internal USB hub.

its the 2.5" 15mm 5TB Seagate drive. I use the ones sold as external drives since they are often 30-40 USD cheaper than the bare drive and its the same exact model.

 

Its something like the "ST5000M" something something....
I grabbed a couple of the 2TB ones, I know they won't last long because they're awful seagate meme drives, but they work in my M6800 that I'm temporarily using as a portable NAS, in someways I find it better than a Ranger, certainly built better. It however, can only take a max of 9,5MM HDDs in the ODD, and bye bye Pascal.

 

Its a solid metal chassis, if it was worse than the Ranger then it would be a cash grab.

 

I'm actually getting a M4800 again lol. It's definitely built better than AW 17 R1.

I don't think it was much better than my M18x though.

I had a 2TB drive die before from a seagate external , along with a 3tb desktop drive. I'm basically done with seagate drives and repurposing usb hdds since I think they are the worse binned drives.

 

Its literally the same drive.

I liked the idea of the m4800, but its pointless for my needs. Doesnt have the GPU power to justify its weight nor the battery life, kind of a weird middle ground. So I have my Ranger and t440p serve those needs. Ranger doesnt need to be a tank when it stays home, the t440p goes with me everywhere and lasts 8 hours on battery with the 4980hq. I would recommend that upgrade if you can find one, I guess supply might not exist anymore. Does wonders for my use case in the t440p.

 

M6800 and M4800 can take CW and dual batteries, as well as be docked to a docking station. Seagate drives are the worst of the worst, and those 2TB drives are infamous for their random spontaneous ability to die.

 

I've been burned multiple times by Seagate in the past but they are the only supplier of 5tb drives. Plus my sshd drives have been working fine for over a year now 24/7.

I don't care about battery life or the docks for my use cases, my ranger stays home, running for 2-3 weeks At time before rebooting. If I need battery life I have my t440p for that.

I've had the m4600 for years, it was a great machine but I outgrew what it could deliver. Hence why I have this thread.

 

If your ranger stays home quite literally all the time, why not build a ITX PC in something like a Node 202?