G73 GPU heatsink and OC question

Have a few questions about the GPU and overclocking.
1) Artifacts are heat generated or can be form wrong voltage too ? My GPU seems to get artifacts even at 800/1100 clock speed sometimes. Temps a near 73c.

2) what do you think about the heatsink on the GPU ? Was thinking as im gone repaste my GPU to machine a new heatsink out of copper. A copper heatsink would be a better heat conductor.

The stock heatsink does not look that good Had a 6600gt in a desktop with a similar pattern on the heatsink + a small fan and got artifacts


3) is it me or does some of the heat form the rear vents go back in the notebook case ? There is a 4mm gap around the vent and case. ( will get pics soon so you understand what i mean)

 

Artifacts happen when your card can't handle all the awesomeness. Can be too high of clocks, or voltage that isn't supported.

 

Hmm so it might be the 1.15v thats giving me the artifacts.

Well might try the copper heatsink idea. Even my old asus X53 had a full copper heatsink and was able to clock the GPU realy high. Only bottle neck was the DDR2 but still got to run FO3 "new vegas" on medium at ~25FPS with a 9300m


Any idea if the mem. and GPU chip are level or will i need new heat stickers.
Gone order a second heatsink so i can just mode that and not the one in the notebook. With a bigger area of copper it should keep the GPU nice and cool. A nother idea would be to just remove the fins on top ...flaten the top as much as i can and then just add some small copper mem. heatsinks. Would have to take a little of the top of the fins so it would fit but that might help to.

As is see it: With a full copper heatsink + thiner fins on top might see a drop of 4-6c on idle. (thats how much i have gotten down on desktops GPU-s) + Copper reacts faster to heat change.
If i try to mode it by just reworking the top and adding small copper heatsinks then it can be from no change to 4c.

 

I don't think a heatsink mod will help a lot, but you're going to need thermal for the heatsink. Otherwise it isn't of much use at all. You can get them for example at frozenCPU.

 

You are talking about thermal paste? Got some IC diamond. The best Heatsink would be a diamond plate but thats gone cost more then the laptop.....even more then some ppl earn in a year

To get a better cooling i prob. would need a nother fan to blow the generated heat to the vents. At the moment it should be about 30-40% heat goes into the case and 60-70% to the vent via the copper pipe. As i understand most of the air is taken from the top and just a fraction from the bottom vents

Adding the copper fins to the aluminium heasink will just generate more heat inside the case now that i think about it. With a cooling pad + removing the panel from the bottom then it might work but if its like that then its not a laptop anymore . A full copper heatsink on the other hand should be able to transfer the heat to the vent at the back. This is just a theory

 

Sorry, forgot the word "pads" somehow... of course you need thermal paste, but you asked whether you needed thermal pads and I say definitely yes. There's no such thing like a "flat" heatsink or mem chips. The pads will be useful.

Nobody stops you from trying it, I'd say it's always fun to tinker a bit but keep care to your system I just think that there's already little space so I doubt a heatsink mod will really help as the airs still needs to circulate.

 

One big issue with the heatsink is that the thermal pads push up on it and prevent about half of the GPU die from sitting nicely against the heatsink. This can be improved by either stretching the current pads slightly (they are quite elastic) or buying thinner ones. The problem with buying pads is that 0.5mm is too thin and 1.0 mm is perhaps too thick.

The heatsink is mounted by spring loaded screws so the pressure is relatively minimal and that's why the pads cause problems.

 

Here, this thread from the alienware forum should give you some ideas about what can actually be done.
The same problems that they addressed are also present in our laptop.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...ll-internal-cooling-mod-huge-improvement.html

 

Removing the thermal pads for the RAM would be unwise. The problem with our heatsinks is that they aren't mounted with enough tension to compress the pads adequately. The spring loaded screws are too weak. However, adding tension causes the GPU board to flex because it has no reinforcement.

The heatsink really should have a few more screw mounting points to compress the pads. It's sloppy engineering like lots of other aspects to the G73.

The best thing would be to have the perfect thermal pad thickness. Something in between 0.5mm and 1.0mm. Either that or you can stretch the stock pads because they are elastic and this makes them effectively thinner. You need to be careful though that they still make contact.

 

Ok

Been running the notebook for a while now on IC7 and can say its much cooler .....but the artifact now have gotten worse. Worse as they pop up at lower clock speeds like 800/1100. Its not the main core as it can go up to 835 with no problem but mem clock cannot go over 1095 and temps are higher on the mem side then GPU.

Had to skip the full copper heatsink mode as the copper plate whent a bit over my budget. So back to the drawingboard.

So here is the latest brainstorm and i should get my last parts by tomorrow. Will add a drawing of the plan later when i get home from work.

But the idea is this. As the stock heatsink sucks having almost no fins to transfer the heat + its upside down and taking about the laws of physics heat from the heatsink when transferd to the surrounding air will rise up in this case actualy reheating the card. Now i been scavanging some old VGA cards that have Al heatsinks on them the surface is about 2-3 mm thick and the fins are about 1-1,5 cm high making it ideal to rework for the JH heatsink.

The plan is to glue (with copper glue used to attach heatsinks to chips withoud screws) them on the stock heatsink. Now i would have to flaten the heatsink but that would ruin it if the mod did not work ...well not a good option. So i am gone cut the JH heatsink pattern on the Al heatsink i got form the old VGA cards and then glue them on (if it does not work then i can later just pull them off as the glue is not that strong). Kind of like lego.

Can hear ppl say there is no ruum but the motherboard is at an angle on the bottom case just under the cover there is 8mm room and at the back almost 1,5cm. Now ok if i managed do the mod what about the heat generated and stored by the bigger heatsink will help as it is now heating even more?
Well thats were the empty TV card location comes in. (my rig does not have the tv card). Today i will buy a micro 1,3cm high 3-4cm long turbofan (similar to the ones at the back) and will just use some 3M toubleside tape to but that in position. The best part is i should be able to wire it up with the GPU fan so the speed will be regulated by the computer....if it can not power the two fans then will just have to rethink. Can always get a 5v turbofan that runs at a constant and quiet speed like most notebook cooling pads)
As the fans outlet is almost 1,3 cm it will be able to creat a small air flow under the card , in between the card and heat sink + between the heatsinks fins.

Were will it blow it ? well thats the part im still working on. The stock fans pick up the air inside the case and thanks to the vacume the case sucks in cooler air. With this mode it will blow the warmer air to the CPUs fan so it should not be a big problem.

Lol dont aske me why im thinking of this or why i want to do it..... If i get a answer ill let you know Might be the waiting for the 6970 test result thats making me think crazy things.

A lot of text and no pics. Ill take some later + the sketch of what i want to do.

Hope to start and finish by the end of this week. Got the tools and 2 VGA heatsinks....just need 1 more and the turbofan.



Just got my last heatsink from the IT-guy. Seems he had a few (36) old nvidia 5300 cards going to the scrap

1cm high bottom is about 2mm.

 

This sounds like a lot of hard work and will probably not do much for your temps and you may end up damaging something in the process but if not be interesting to see pictures of the results.

Just removing the GPU section of the heatsink and replacing it with an exact copper replacement should be enough to see slight results personally just get 0.5mm pads with IC Diamond 3mm blob and you will get the results you are looking for. The copper piping takes the heat to the heatsink so there should be minimal heat flying around the inside of the laptop.

In regards to your artifacts the voltage is hardwired so your stuck with what you have im afraid. If you plan to get modding I would recommend waiting for the results on the 6970m mod tudorfwolf is conducting.

 

Hardwork is my middle name lol. Naaa love a chalange. Would not have a working 2005 type-r engine under the hood of a 1989 year car if i did not like hard work. Cuting and fabricating things is my favorate part about any project be it computer or car related.

It cannot be the voltage as it keeps droping my speed after a surten time. I could do 1125 with mem a week after i had used IC7....now i cant go over 1095 without artifacts and comp freezing untill reboot. To me the heatsink is silly thin and does not transfer the heat as fast as it should....could be the thermal pads to as they are 1mm and i think the CPU core is not flat to. Well ill take it appart on the weekend anyway for a better repate and hope to add the extra heatsink.

Well hotwired can also be just a resistor on the board that does not allow the change. If i am not mistaken there was a nvidia 6000 series card i think that needed a replaced resistor to get more voltage..... might be mistaken. Remember someone solderd something to get more voltage.

Ou and about the OC. Why i think it is more of a heat problem then voltage is i have to go up in steps. Could not slam on 1100 ....if the computer was at working temp then it would get artifacts....but going up in steps 1050....1080.....to 1100 worked fine. The voltage change is minimal and could not make the card crash or could it ?


Well if the 6970 work then i will still need to mode the heatsink so why not think ahead

 

There's a couple of flaws regarding your interpretation of thermal dynamics

You are correct in regards to the fact that the heatsink itself does not have any fins for radiating heat. This was by design, because they have a heatpipe that transfers the heat to the radiator fins that the exhaust fan blow across.

The engineers did NOT want for heat to radiate to the surrounding air of the heatsink since that would elevate interior case temperatures by a lot. The heatpipe allows for the heat to transfer efficiently to the exterior radiator fins.

In conclusion, what you are planning to do is not recommended for the case design. You'll make matters worse, actually. You can improve the ram situation by replacing the thermal pads with more efficient ones.

 

Thats why im using Al and not copper Al can store heat better copper on the other hand moves it faster and radiates it faster then Al my idea is to get the heat away from the VRAM.


Well the case itself is a flaw itself as the the case will heat up anyway. Thats why the case is couted with copper paint. to absorb heat. Also was talking about the extra turbofan inside to help with the vacume and airflow.


As i said it was a brainstorm and thats why i am not cuting the JH heatsink and only the ones i got of the VGA


PS its not the copper pipe thats good its the gas/liquid inside the pipe A friend was offering a mac-s heatpipe with fins at the end...but no room to at that lol.