Anyone tried drilling holes into their laptop for ventilation?

It seems like there are lots of areas that you can drill into a laptop case for better ventilation. Most of the vents I see on the bottom of laptop cases aren't as big as they could be. Ever tried taking the bottom covers off and drill them out with a drill to get better cooling?

 

It will drill your warranty,so nobody try it .....

If you want to cool down ,buy notebook cooler

 

..................................

 

Is this a joke, if not try buying some fans or what not.

 

Indeed

random crap

 

I have done this to my Voodoo laptop. I have A+ certification, so I can mod anything I want without voiding the warranty
Its great when you know the guys at Voodoo they are very leinient.
I love being able to mod my stuff.
The harddrive bay is completely modified. The cover was once a standard piece of plastic, but now it is much more than that. Before the modification, my harddrives woulr run about 170-180F, and after the mod, my harddrives never run above 125F. It is much cooler, I do not get burned anymore
I also upgraded the really crappy stock fans with a high quality EBM papst fan which pushes 17.1cfm, which is significantly more than the stock fan which could only do 3.4cfm.
Some Pics:
Before the mod:


Upgraded the fan to the ebm papst:


After the mod:


The modification only cost $35 for the EBM PAPST fan, and it really made the world of a difference. Its a lot for a 60mm fan, but its made in Hungary, so it is well worth it. It runs so much cooler. The palmrests would run so hot, water from my skin would be drawn onto the palmrest. That does not happen anymore after the mod, which is really nice.

K-TRON

 

I did that to my car. It goes so much faster now. Aerodynamic baby! Sure they look like bullet holes, but my car is now faster than a speeding bullet.


...Ok, maybe I was involved in a drive-by. So what? Shoot me - wait...

 

Hmm....if drilling holes in it doesn't work, you could always pour water on it.

 

Actually I got rid of the case. But I noticed the fan was less efficient. Seemed to just blow air around with no focus. Also the heat sinks burned my legs. So now I leave things like that alone as really a bad short sighted idea. Where are you going to drill? I mean why not just put the fan on the outside? Holes will increase airflow and dissipate heat in non essential areas.

Edit: Assuming the guys who designed your notebook had a clue! And understood things like directional flow and all? If not go for it!

 

To allow for the best possible cooling system,

1. Remove laptop casing
2. Turn on
3. Runs CPU/GPU intensive tasks such as minesweeper and solitare
4. Place laptop in pure liquid nitrogen
5. Being careful, remove laptop, and continue use.
6. Repeat steps 5 and 6 as desired.

 

@K-Tron: nice mod with the mesh for the casing. But what is up with those pig's feet?

@powerpack: did parts start falling out of your laptop with no case? As for directional flow, why don't we have tubes connecting the vents from the bottom of the case to the top of the screen lid? This would give a big chimney effect if those tubes were a bit heat conductive. It would allow for much better passive cooling.

 

Ta da... we have a winner.

I was just gonna mention this, drilling more holes in your machine does not always mean is better for cooling. Ask the experts from Sun Microsystems. Some of you may have experience with their machines, if you leave the case fully open, it will overheat, because the case and fan location are designed to create a certain flow only when the case is closed.

By the way K-TRON, are you serious about being A+ certified will not void your warranty? I never knew that...

 

Maybe just machines manufactured by Voodoo

 

You need to know the people at Voodoo. I know all the original tech guys, and they have no problems with any of my modifications. I just tell them what I want to do, and they say yeah as long as I am not cutting the motherboard or anything like that.

The pig's feet are actually massive rubber grommets usually used to give antivibration properties to power washers and such.
The rubber grommets are my custom lift-kit. They lift the front up 3/4" and the back 1.25", which allows more air to flow under the case, and thus better cooling. Well and the fact it makes my 17" laptop even bigger.

Here is my laptop without a case:
It does not run any cooler than running with the chassis


K-TRON

 

I think I would opt to get a notebook cooler rather than drilling holes in it. You could end up making it look terrible or break it if you don't know what you are doing.

 

hey k-tron. about your fan upgrade. i'm fixing to search myself, but how do you go about identifying your fan and replacing it with another one. are there just basically a few standard sizes/outputs and you replace with another brand?

 

I respect your caution. But if you were going to do? Would you use a 3/8's or 1/2 inch? Let us get beyond common sense and talk tools?

 

PP, you know me. Bigger is always better
My weapon of choice is a Cobalt High Speed Steel 1.25" forstner bit. Fitted to a powerful Milwaukee American made drill sporting their powerful 15 amp motor

The harddrive/memory fan in my system is a standard 60mm 5volt fan. I replaced the low quality Chinese made fan with a high performance EBM PAPST fan - made in Hungary. You can really only upgrade standard sized fans. Basically all other fans in laptops are impossible to upgrade. Their is only one way to upgrade the fan, and that is to get one custom made. EBM PAPST has a custom manufcaturing fan program. You can either make the cad file for the existing fan, so that they know the dimensions, or you can send the fan to them. Then once they get the fan, they will come up with a solution with a more powerful fan. The only drawback is that the fan would be custom, which means big bucks $$$
A custom fan runs you $300 and up.
All of their fans are manufactured in Germany or Hungary, so you know you are getting a high quality, high performance fan.

K-TRON

 

K-T I respect you have no fear going over an inch! I feel foolish as I restrained myself. Do you know where I can get a 2" bit? Or do you think a "key hole" saw might be better?

 

Where oh where has the European manufacturing gone? I hate Chinese-made merchandise.

 

Here pp, this is a 2.125" forstener bit. Made by bosch, so that means its made in Germany, or at least it should be.
http://www.acetoolonline.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=BOS-FB034&utm_medium=shoppingengine&utm_source=googlebase

I think a key hole will be less precise. You will have a very jagged cut. At least with a forstener bit, you can get a very clean cut hole at even high speeds.

All of the production has gone to Asia because of the cheap workforce.
I buy most of my tools from MSC, which is a very large industrial tool warehouse.
Their inventory book is about 5" thick, and for every item, they state where its made, and they give you options.
It is great, you can buy gear hobs made in China for about $82, in taiwan for $97, in Japan for $155, In USA for $295 or in Germany for $435.

I would be happy to pay more for american made products.
Those rubber grommets on my laptop are made in the USA. I bought them from MSC. They were $3.75 a piece. I had the option of getting them made in Taiwan for $.75 each, but I support the USA, so I bought the American made ones.

2100th post

K-TRON

 

Congrats my friend!