Heatsink/Copper

Would adding a copper plate between the cpu/chipset and the laptop's cpu/chipset heatsink improve temps? Something like this: http://www.frozencpu.com/products/2410/exp-03/50x50mm_Copper_Cold_Plate.html

 

Yes, it improves temperatures. But you just would need those copper sheets typically on the GPU/Northbridge in the case your laptop heatsink uses a thermal pad or something that if you remove it it creates a gap so that you can't use thermal grease between the interfaces between there is a gap there.

Which laptop do you have?

 

in some case...yes.

 

If everything in the cooling system like your heat pipe connected to the main cooler fan is made out of copper and some aluminum where the cooler fan is and connected straight to the CPU's thermal plate, then you're basically just adding a spacer. You're probably just concerned about the CPU/CPU heat pipe connection. You have the thermal paste in place and it was installed right? Is the heat pipe doing its job conducting all the heat from the CPU to the cooling radiator/fan? If Yes, then why add a spacer.

 

It would only be worth it if the copper plate replaced a substrate that had a lower heat capacity than the copper you're replacing it with; for example, a thermal pad that is typically made of parrafin wax is less conductive of heat than copper is.

 

I am just going under the assumption that adding surface area improves temps.

 

This rule is true for dissipating heat with a heat sink; but adding a copper plate between a CPU and the heatsink is unnecessary. You're just adding yet another slightly inefficient substrate that heat must be transmitted through *unless* you're replacing something like a heat pad, which I mentioned earlier.

Such a mod has actually been done with the XPS M1330 and can be seen here as a prime example of using a copper plate to replace a less efficient heat-transferring substrate (like parrafin wax):

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=268081&page=1