Fanless Notebooks

lol I am an ASP for Acer and the 3810/3810T/3810TZ has a voluntary recall for overheating issues. I believe they will replace your microphone cable for free under this recall.

I first saw Commander_Wolf's sig about a fanless Latitude E6400, and not because of I want a laptop quiet but it means less dust on the insides and all that.

 

it depends on the machines design, my CF-30 has a magnesium body/shell and internal structure as well as ultra low voltage CPU and intel IGP therefore is ideal for passive cooling through the chasis itself. ( it does not even have vents to help keep it water and dust sealed )

 

Are you including windows 7 tablets? Add the HP 500 Slate.

 

Eh I not really looking forward to spending 700-800+. Maybe a refurbished/used Latitude or similarly thin notebook for the 400-500 range. It's yet another side project I am pursuing lol.

 

After opening up my T410 for other reasons, I couldn't help to wonder if there's a mod I can do to make it passively cooled. So far no dice.

 

Err looking up the specs, dunno if you can passively cool an i5 even if you had Intel HD graphics..

 

Temps while basic net browsing (no flash) and idling never went above 52C. I started up google earth which brought the temps up to 61C before the fan kicked in (using a custom fan control program). As soon as I closed google earth, the fan stopped at 60C and temps kept falling until they hovered and stayed around 54/55C (while browsing the web). It's interesting to say the least.

 

?!?! 52C for idle? What is your ambient room temp? Then again you can't undervolt i5 with RMClock.

My T7500 idles only very slightly above ambient room temp, usually 3-4 C. I don't think you will be able to do passive cooling, well that's if you want a functional computer where the palmrest isn't 4 billion degrees.

 

How about a non-rotaional fanned system, something like those ionic air filters combines with the airfoils of the new dyson fan to create enough air flow.

 

Lower 50s aren't bad. With the fan on temps stay in the low to mid 40's at idle and light web browsing. But you're probably right, I wont be able to do passive cooling with this notebook. :\

I remember reading an article about that a while back, that's technology that I would love to see come to notebooks.

 

If you've got a ThinkPad, just use TPFanControl. You can keep the fan off at idle and low load, and just ramp it up past 60 or 65. I would very much prefer having adjustable fan control on a standard-TDP processor than full-passive cooling on an LV or ULV chip.

 

I created a new thread about my little adventure, since it really doesn't have anything to do with fanless notebooks, which I'm still looking around for by the way.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/len...part-my-thinkpad-i-didnt-like-what-i-saw.html

 

Doesn't the dyson thing have a fan in the bottom which sucks air through the base?

 

Yes I was talking about the airfoil (like a wing on a airplane) to increase the air pressure/speed, since the air speed by charging the air alone would not create sufficient cooling. So kinda a hybrid version between the two techs.

 

Macbook pros are probably your best bet. The 13inch can run for 10 hours.

 

Hardly. Not only do they run hot, but they absolutely require active cooling. Kind of defeats the purpose of a "fanless laptop".

 

Actually I don't think you gave an example.

How exactly do you manipulate an ACPI to ignore fan control and more importantly prevent force shutdowns when a fan is not detected?

 

You could just disconnect the fan header and if you notice your temps go up too high, shutdown and reconnect it. xD

 

I'd like to know how to do this generally as well, if it actually is possible. I've seen an ACPI hack that supposedly works for a very small number of HP laptops, but it seems cumbersome, and I've never verified if it works.

 

I've tried running my old XPS M1530 without the fan plugged in. Things got rather warm, and by that I mean idling around ninety Celsius. Even with that, it did boot properly and run fine until the GPU reached around 113-115 Celsius, where it would eventually crash.

 

lol smart move there. M1530 is already plagued by the defective nVidia chips, disabling the fan is just salting the wounds..

 

I was fully aware it was going to die anyways, and therefore I didn't care.

 

Ah well did you bake it afterwards? lol

 

Making an active cooling system into a passive one is very possible... Even without hardware modification.

EG my m860tu with P series core 2 duo

If you're just really into fanlessness, definitely getting laptops with very good cooling systems and putting lower powered more efficient components in them is an option.

You could even put something else where the fan used to be...

 

It ended up being replaced with an SXPS 1640 (which I eventually just got refunded) before it had a chance to fail. I wanted to get rid of it as soon as possible, since it was my main machine at the time and I really relied on it. For a while after that I had an M11xR1, which I was very happy with in terms of reliability. I'll likely get the next M11x revision that comes out.

 

I too would suggest that this is currently the best way to make a fanless notebook. Smaller notebooks that come with LV or ULV chips by default also come with smaller coolers that won't provide sufficient cooling without a fan.