very inexpensive way to cool down ur 9400M G some 22 degrees less or more

I do not take responsibility if you damage your PC in performing this mod. thi mod is particularly dangerous cause if not done correctly you could crack the sides of your 9400M's chip.

with that said, before this mod my 9400M G was reporting 58 degrees on idle and about 70 when under full load. I always thought this was

something I didn't like, because I knew that the culprit of all this heat was the padded compound found on the 9400M's heatsink. after the mod my 9400M idles at 35 - 36 degrees and goes no further than 45 - 46 on full load.

though, the reason I never did this mod before was because I wasn't sure how big or small of a gap there was between the 9400M

and the heatsink. so, when I saw a flattened penny in my desk I thought that could really be the right size for it.

well, I mentioned inexpensive, because to perform this mod I did not have to go anywhere outside of my house.
everything I needed, was laying around at home.

if you live in the US you've probably seen one of those penny pinchers around in cool places of your town or just at the malls.

all you need to perform this mod is:

1) a flattened penny like this one ( http://pressedpennysg.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/4pennies.jpg)

2) Ceramique or Artic Silver 5 or even any cheap thermal compound you have laying around.

3) Sand Paper, any size you might have around, but for precision jobs, use the thinnest you have.

4) Like all things, patience.


I mentioned to use Artic Silver 5 and although I had both, I used Ceramique instead, because is non conductive and if something

was going to go wrong I thought Ceramique would be much easier to clean without solvents or other specialized thermal compound

removers. and also, to risk making a mess and potentially screwing up the chip was something I didn't want to deal with only for

that 1 degree of benefit.

of course if you want you could improve this mod on your own, and I am sure it has already been done before. you could go to the

hardware store and get a small copper foil and therefore use even better materials.

Pennies are made of zinc in their core but their outside is made of copper.


the first step is to flatten the bumped side.

place the sand paper in a flat surface like a table or on the floor and make sure that the bumped side of the penny is facing the

sand paper, then start to rub it up and down or side to side, until the bumped figure is totally removed. in doing so, you will

notice that the copper covering will also be removed and you will only see an aluminum like color instead.

once this is all flat, prepare your alienware laptop, unscrew it and remove the CPU's heatsink from it.
remove the padded surface from the 9400M G heatsink, which is the small copper part, the one with the two screws on the sides.

very easy to identify.

BEFORE YOU GO AHEAD ANY FURTHER you need to test if the penny is of the right thickness, for a successful mod. you simply need to

place it over the 9400M's chip and screw the heatsink in place, all without applying any thermal compuond in it. then now you

should try to touch the penny and see if it moves. if it does move, FORGET IT, don't try the mod or use another flattened penny.

if the penny doesn't move, you can proveed with the following:

now apply the thermal compound over the 9400M's heatsink side, apply it eavenly like you would to a cpu. try to apply it as a very

thin layer though. after doing this, apply at the very center of the surface that you have just worked on, the equivalent of a

drop of thermal compound.

now take the flattened penny and make sure that the scratched surface will be facing the drop of thermal compund on the heatsink

and once you are ready, press on it very strongly, but in doing so try to keep the penny centered so that you don't allow air to

get in between.

now you should be able to leave the penny attached to the heatsink and it should look like glued to it.

now apply some thermal compound to the 9400M's surface just like you would on a CPU. this time DO NOT apply a drop of thermal

compound in the center of the chip. it is not required.

now all you have to do is to screw the heatsink back in place starting from the 9400M's two side screws. don't screw in place one

then the other one, rather try to alternate between the two screws, so that you don't risk loosening the penny from all that hard

work you spent on before.

screw everyting back in place and a great way to test it right away is to enable only the integrated card in the BIOS.

then once you are in windows, open HWMonitor and if you did everything right you should see very low temperatures for the 9400MG




I hope this can be of help to anyone. sorry I have no pictures of how to, but the reason is that when I did it I didn't think the

benefit was going to be so dramatic due to the poor materials utilized.

but I do have some pictures of HWMonitor shwowing temps on Idle as soon as I started the PC and temps back on Idle but after they

where under heavy load, then showing under the MAX value the maximum temp the 9400M reached.

 

you sir are brilliant... insane, but brilliant.

 

I hope this works on M17 too.

 

If you need something to flatten a coin go to the nearest train Track and put it on the track and wait for the train to go by. Best get the newest pennie. Then cut to size.

 

Nice work

 

Actually the heat that the penny gives off when flattened tends to attach it to the train wheel. Maybe it would work if you put some grease on the penny, but I always lose them when a train goes over them.