Safe to remove bottom panel on laptop?

Long story short, the cooler I have does a really good job, but the vents on my computer (in sig) are small, and there are not many of them.

I removed the small mesh covering the vents, and that allowed more cooling, but I get so much more if I have the bottom panel removed. Here is a pic:



With the bottom on, I get about 4°C-5°C cooling difference when my cooler is running (this is on my GPU). With the bottom off, I get around 8°C-11°C cooling difference.

I know the big downside is that dust is a lot easier to get in (which I don't mind to much since I clean it almost weekly), so unless it hurts the laptop in some other way, is it ok to do?

I'm not worried about the cooler to much, since the bottom is aluminum, and the only rubber close to the panel is at the top, but doesn't touch the heatsink.

 

its fine if your laptop does nothing but stay on top of the cooler..

but when you take it off and place it elsewhere, there's a greater chance that water or metal can cause a short circuit, or stuff can get inside and damage it.. or scratch it up

the body of the laptop is just to protect the insides.. you could drive a car with no windshield, but rocks might hit you

 

I agree with the above post.
As long as you protect the inside yourself - no problem keeping it often.

Another idea - make some more wholes in the bottom panel - this way it will protect AND cool better. You need to come up with a good airflow plan though - although the CPU and GPU dissipate most of the heat, the RAM, HDD and MB need cooling too.

 

You'll be fine as long as you're careful. Dust will probably be your biggest issue, and if you drop it you're going to be SOL. One of my friends used his 15" Gateway laptop without a bottom cover for more than a year before getting a new computer, due to overheating.

 

Thanks guys.

The laptop doesn't go anywhere. It is basically a desktop replacement, and it stays on my desk (in the middle, a bit away from any walls), so dropping it won't be a problem.

I will make a note to check the bottom more often, and clean it regularly. The temp drops I get are pretty sweet, and when running a GPU test, I dropped 15°C (from 90°C on a hardcore test, to 75°C).

 

I would advise against removing the bottom panel. If somehow you forget to ground yourself and pick up the laptop, you can fry something. I would modify the bottom panel by drilling holes and putting mesh over it.

 

Biggest "killer" of gaming laptop is heat. Due to two things:
a) RoHS directive it is prohibited to use solder with Pb and this solder works fine in high temperatures (oddly enough it is allowed to use such thing in crucial electronic like ABS, planes etc.) . Most manufacturers do not use expensive "counterparts" for Pb and in effect tin quickly gets old and loose chips.

b) cramped space in laptops and buildup of heat -heat accelerates aging proces of solder more than 200% more (30C - 60C - 90C).

Conclusion is: only reducing heat is way to out-trick manufacturers and be happy owner for longer periods than 2-3 years. I strongly RECOMMEND using Zalman ZM-NC-2000 under this laptop even without bottom panel and ALWAYS on FULL blow when gaming.

 

Or you can pretend to take off your bottom panel without actually doing it.

Like so.