Grab copper and a drill, now!

Here is what I did:

Copper block placement overview
Copper on GPU closeup
Copper on CPU closeup
Backplate fan vent
Backplate GPU vents

Results before mod:
Furmark 1366x768, Xtreme Burning Mode, 8xAA, ten minutes. Ambient approximately 74. X9100 at stock voltages and clocks, GPU at stock Asus clocks. On top of inactive Zalman NC2000.

Max temperature 91, fluctuating between 90 and 91



Results after mod: (Which is still not complete; I still need a few more copper blocks)
Furmark 1366x768, Xtreme Burning Mode, 8xAA, twelve minutes. Ambient 73F. X9100 at stock voltages and clocks, GPU at stock Asus clocks. On top of inactive Zalman NC2000.

Max temperature 86, stabilization temperature 83.



EDIT: Did notice a difference between the tests. In the before picture, I began the run at around 68C. In the after picture, I began it when it was 46C.

 

I'll definitely consider doing this with my 9800m GS. I'm certainly sure that max temps will decrease dramatically.

BTW great idea...


-Leonid

 

Big thanks should go to Soviet, Do-You-Know-The-Munchkin-Man, and Kondor.

Leo, definitely do the copper. I might hold off on the drilling, since your reseller Asus has that long warranty. Don't know if drilling voids it, though.

 

Good job. My blocks are coming tommorow, so I'm going to stick them on straight away.
Good to see that there is actually a decent drop in temps. If u can, post the results with the Zalman on full blast, to see the full potential of this mod
I see u removed the soft foam protectors form the heatpipes, aren't u scared that the plastic will melt when gaming/ stressing the laptop?

BTW: What did u use to drill those holes (or maybe its just the photos..)

***
Let's make 1 big thread titles G51 Cooling with all mods/ guides etc about lowering the temp of the G51.

 

Some old Sears electric drill my dad let me borrow. Bits were 1/32 and 1/16.
Go ahead and make fun of the workmanship. I know it sucks. But even if I thought it was ohmahgawd awesome, I wouldn't care because I'm too happy with that temperature drop.

By the way, which size copper did you get, and did you order the Sekisui thermal tape?

 

I've ordered the longer ones (22 x 8 x 5 mm) for the heatpipes


And these shorter ones for the GPU memory (10 x 10 x 5 mm )


I did not order the tape, I'll see the quality of the stock tape, If it will be bad then I will think about getting the Sekisui. I don't know if it would make any difference in temps anyway.

 

Here is my furmark run, I seem to have a rather...odd graph. 8xAA XTreme burn mode, 1920x1080 res. I max quickly to 90C, drop to 82C once the fans kick in, rinse and repeat 3 times over the 10 minutes I ran the test.


http://a.imagehost.org/view/0047/furmark_000000


and here is at 1366x768:

http://a.imagehost.org/0180/furmark_000001.jpg

 

Hopefully those fit. I barely had enough room with the 4mm-tall blocks.

Not at all. After playing Left 4 Dead for an hour, and The Last Remnant for two hours after that, the backplate was barely warm. I'm sure plastic won't melt if you put it into a pan of boiling water.

Already making one.

 

Great job Forge! I wonder whats the temp with the Zalman on.

Maybe a silly question but does adding heat sinks void the warranty at all? And do they come off easily if I had to?

Extreme mod!

 

Just the copper doesn't void the warranty, as long as you remove them before you RMA. I haven't tried, but you should be able to scrape them off with a razor blade.

 

wish you would have done heatsinks first. then run tests. then drill those holes and do tests again... just to see if those holes really do make a difference. I am sure they do but i bet the extra heatsinks make more of the difference.

 

Copper blocks only

 

Copper blocks: Where do you buy them?

 

Ebay.

I'm not sure on the height dimensions of the G71gx, but 10x9x4mm work perfectly for the G51.


EDIT: Ran Furmark for a bit, same settings. The difference is that my room is a toastier 79F. Temperatures rose to 88C, stabilized at 86C. Going to try running when it's around 73F so I can see how the 186.82 drivers compare.

 

Forge,
awesome job with the copper blocks, i am going to order some to throw on my GPU and CPU like you did.

 

great idea! next time though, remember the digital cameras usually have a "macro" mode, the pics, will be better...

 

The advertised size is 10x9x4mm. But you are technically correct. They are actually 5mm blocks since the Chinese are too cheap to use calipers.

Trust me, you will need quality thermal tape. The black T4000 thermal tape is worse that silly putty.

Very nice, now cut out the entire hole and put a fly screen or AC filtering as a dust filter.

Drilling voids your warranty, but if you can get a spare backpanel for it, then you are safe.

Ever heard of graph paper?

You can always take the heatsinks to some low grit sandpaper if you want to shorten them.

That is correct. Thermoplastic won't even sweat at ~90*C. http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=5224661&postcount=4

 

You placed them real nice Forge. I can't wait till I get mine.

 

It felt like silly putty.

Meh.

I used my phone.

 

I should be done with mine by the end of this week as well. I was lucky today. I picked up an old digital precision scale from a local garage sale. I will finally know the true weight of my machine.

 

Great thread

Those copper blocks are very cheap. I would like to do this, only thing is what happens if a block gets loose and shorts out the motherboard?

How well does thermal tape hold?

 

Let me put it this way. If you replace the crap thermal tape that comes with the blocks with Sekisui thermal tape, you will need to eat all the spinach your stomach can make room for because Popeye is going to have a hard time trying to pull Excalibur out of the stone.

 

I wouldn't go that far, but let's say a few test tugs left me with sore fingers and a firmly placed heatsink.

 

Ive done a similar mod like this but not to a notebook.

You just need to buy a pack of ramsinks and thermal adhesive paste like AS Alumina.

Should cost a total of around $20

 

ok, that is very good to hear.

I'm just wondering if I could use a butane torch to really get those things on there. That would make the cooling even better since it would be metal to metal.

 

The difference would be minimal compared to straight up thermal tape. Also, that is a permanent method that is irreversible.

 

As well as the alumina binding agent, I think. Not sure though.

Looking at your mod pictures and my own heatsink, I keep realizing how tiny the heatpipe is.

 

It's not tiny, it's cute.

 

Stop patronizing my poor G51.

 

I'm not patronizing your G51, I'm insulting it.

 

Stop insulting my poor G51.


EDIT: Backplate mod expanded. Four 1/16 holes over the CPU, additional 5 holes over the GPU.

 

Interesting data. Running the same setting as in the test in my first post, with the temperature a confirmed 74F.

25 minutes of Furmark.
Max 86. Temperature would stabilize for about five minutes (example: 83), fluctuate to the next level (83 to 84, and back again) for a minute, and then stabilize at the next temperature (84) for five minutes itself. IF you notice, right before the 25 minute mark, I was repeating the trend with 84-85.

I guess I haven't reached my true equilibrium temperature.

 

haha. Is a rather amusing comparison, your graph to mine.

 

Wow, are you trying to find your maximum temperature over 24 hours? The longest you need to stress test your GPU on Furmark is 20 minutes. 25 minutes or 30 minutes is unnecessary. But those are looking to be really good temps.

I just finished drilling the last holes. My backpanel looks like swiss cheese now. After I put on that new larger copper plate, my HDD will live in the ice age.

 

While it's true that Furmark stresses the GPU far more than a game, a person will game for a much longer time than twenty minutes. I'm just interested in finding the temperature that my GPU will remain at without rising. Or does that not happen?

For your Clevo, you hit an equilibrium temperature. I can't remember it, but it's like, what, mid-sixties? Do you think if you kept Furmark on longer you'd see a rise?

 

20 minutes on Furmark will still heat up the GPU hotter than any game. I know that my peak temperature under OCCT is 72*C in 22*C ambient. I know that all of my games will never ever exceed or even go near that temperature, which allows me to safely play without HWMonitor anymore. However, laziness plays a factor here too, haha. http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=5266964&postcount=6

True equilibrium is very difficult to achieve due to one key variable: our notebooks spew our hot air and slowly raises the nearby ambient temperature. This is most apparent at home in our room, and even more so if the notebook is on a desk with the vent facing a nearby a wall, as opposed to say at the mall or in a classroom. If the deviation in temperature is only one degree past 20 minutes, then I don't think there is any reason to test further. If you want to reach that equilibrium, then run Furmark for an hour. Yes, your temperature will be higher by one or two degrees, but atleast you will satisfy your excessive compulse to achieve the highest temperature possible.

When I ran Furmark on my 9800M GTX back then, I probably would have seen my peak temperature rise one more degree to 68*C. But that wouldn't happen until 30 minutes or longer.

 

Okaydokes. No more 20+ runs for me then.

 

Of course, I wouldn't drill the holes on the back-panel.

I've got an idea... What if I make a custom heat sink on top of the original one? I am certainly sure that it will decrease the temps even further. Of course, that will require some hard work, but it's possible, right?

Also, what I've noticed is that the GPU itself doesn't heat as much, instead the DDR3 memory is the source of heat. This is why the temps vary in games.

I've made a little experiment here:
Downclocked the memory to 300mhz and the max temps went from 91 to 78-79ish.




Leonid

 

yeah but is there an easy way to remove them if you had to RMA it back to ASUS? I can only imagine that thin copper sheet would bend and kink.

 

That's why we use razor blades and a little bit of citrus cleaner.

 

Those small drill holes are going to create a bottleneck for the air to get in. Better to make more slits.

 

Agreed. Just drill out the entire fake fan grill.

 

Is drilling your systems for minimal gain in temperature really worth voiding your warranty? I don't see the logic of it at all.

 

You can buy a new bottom cover.

Those temperature decreases aren't enough to make me want to do the mod though, which sucks. Then again FurMark on max at 600/925/1550 only brings me to about 90C anyway. I think my G51 has always ran cooler than Tev and Forge's.

 

In my solo opinion, building a nice case fan cooler is much better than drilling holes. The bottom panel can be bough but it has been out of stock for months now and asus told me they won't have any until next month.

 

Your mod would be so much cooler if you chromed it out.

Just saying.

<_<

 

Yup. It's very well worth it.

Some users want to keep their G51 independent from a notebook cooler. Instead of buying an external notebook cooler for the laptop, we integrate the cooler into it.

That doesn't sound too good. Is there a way to special order one from Asus?

With spinners.

 

No matter how much you drill the bottom panel, you wont see a big difference without some type of cooler or object to create a bigger air pocket under the laptop.

Estore.asus.com is the only site I know that sells it, I've been searching for other vendors for so long. I can't find any.

 

The best cheap mod for a notebook ever. Hats off. I'm gonna do the same with my N10 soon.

 

Sigh......you guys are making jealous with all your mods now......

School is way too crazy right now......busy as hell.......so I don't really have time to do anything......sigh......

Anyways, great job Forge. I'll hopefully maybe think of doing that someday.......