5920G cooling overhaul

This project took me a year or so, where it could be done for couple of weeks, or a month at most It's running from quite some time now (you can see when the pictures were taken) and I'm pretty happy with it.

Additional CPU, Wi-Fi and RAM heatsinks



I've cut out all of the aluminum fins and made a copper ones (25) with custom profile, so it would be able to take a heatpipe. The heatpipe is from a friend's Gigabyte 8600GT Silent, I gave it a custom profile so it can fit under the bonnet All the fins are glued with Arctic Silver Thermal Adhesive, two at a time since I have to hold them down for about 5 minutes. Pretty tricky and time consuming job. It's not state of the art, but I don't care



I made holes on the thermal pad so it can fit perfectly on top of the GPU



I've put some AKASA thermal tape on the heatpipe and it's ready



Final setup



Smile



And the most important part - it does what it's meant to do
-10ºC under FurMark



There is still room for improvement, like adding a thin copper plate between the heatpipe and thermal pad, or cutting the entire GPU part and using a heatsink from another laptop... and so on, but I'll settle down for a while

Credits should go to all the cooling overhaul topics around the forum (too many to list)

Update 06 April 2012:

Stage II + Turbo Upgrade

I'll have to add some pics later, but the most important are here



Added copper shim to the 2nd GPU heatsink, and also there's now 1,5mm thick 7W/mk Phobya XT thermal pad. Don't have exact measurements, since the room temp is different, but I guess it helps for 2~5ºC less.

And now the most important cooling upgrade - the fan itself:

Everything packed well, so no aluminum/plastic dust would get inside.



Re-seating the third screw.



After every good party, there's a pile of garbage



Here are some before/after pics. I got both fans thanks to King of Interns, from his parted W860CU.



There were some sacrifices in the process



Thankfully, there's no audible difference before and after the intervention. Well to be completely honest, the left speaker probably lost a little deepness But just a little.

Final setup



It was quite of a grinding, indeed. Arctic Silver Thermal Adhesive used here as well.



And finally, some back plate modifications. Stock mesh replaced with DEMCiflex mesh only.



Update: 09/02/2014

Stage III - SuperCooling

- What do you mean SuperCooling?
- Twin fans; triple heat-pipes and vapor chamber for the GPU; lots of copper aaaand a meter long pipe for water coooling





That's it for now, thanks for reading

 

Very good mod triturbo! Do I read 10C load temp for your 4670 or 10C drop in temp from previous temps??? Can't believe it lol

Btw I am looking to loosen memory timings on the card or perhaps even perform a volt mod on the card during the coming months... will keep you posted

Also nice one on the 8GB ram upgrade! I have a Intel X3380 in post on way to me as we speak as my next upgrade

 

In your screenshot of the ram its only showing 4GB accessable in the windows task bar.

Also Heatsinks on the wifi module?

Otherwise nice.

I'm a bit

 

Did you bend the heatpipe? How? They're pretty fragile...

 

I think he bought a second heatpipe or perhaps had two separate heatpipes welded together. Probably the first rather than the latter though.

 

LOL I wish it was the former, but sadly it's the latter Here's a screen



What kind of soft you'll use for that task (loosen GPU mem timings)?

A Xeon, nice I've just received a SLAQJ, but it wont post, it has a scratch on it, so I guess I'll have to return it and buy another one

I don't know what you mean



Why not?! After extensive use when I open the laptop they are pretty warm

I thought as you, but I had to try it, otherwise it wont fit, and it's OK.

As you said I bought a heatpipe and a second heatsink so I was able to work over one of them as much as I want (a year in that case ).

 

Ouch still 84C at 1.1V stock clocks?

I don't want to make you feel bad but in crysis 2 I tried fans at full speed for a while at 750/985.5mhz for a laugh and after an hour temps on GPUz reported max 53C !!!

 

Yeah, 5920G's cooling is poor but I love the damn thing

 

Indeed. I love mine too So what is your next upgrade going to be? Once I have installed the X3380 (once it arrives....) intend to upgrade wireless card perhaps and also go back to SSD.

Are you planning to put an extreme chip in your acer?

 

Was this image that confused me:

http://img580.imageshack.us/img580/2525/ramx86.jpg

 

As I said above - I have a SLAQJ (X9000), but it has a scratch and it's not working, so I'll return it and I'll probably get a SLAZ3 (X9000 better sample).

That's my 32bit Vista Home Premium, the other shot is from my 64bit Vista Ultimate, that's why I've posted both screenshots

 

Dude
ive been watching your work on 5920g since 2009, as long as i own my 5920g, the only thing i upgraded is my ram to 2.5gb. the laptop is a BEAST. the only problem i had so far is with a single button on my keyboard.
im pretty amazed on what uve done!
and im gonna give you an idea for a next mod
change the monitor to a led backlight with a higher resolution one !!

 

Wow nice job, always nice to see I'm not the only one still using an old laptop from 2007 to fulfill my gaming needs ^^

I'm so jealous of your temps, my gpu still reaches 91 celcius (at 1.1v and 600mhz). I got to drop my cpu temps from 90+ to 70+ celcius a year ago by using AS5, but I think its effect is wearing out since my temps are back around 85 celcius now

Aside from your cooling, I'm very jealous of your cpu I've been wanting to put in a new cpu for a long time, but couldn't get my hands on one. (for some reason I can't use paypal on my banc account).

Also, did you completely take your laptop apart to get the heatsink out, or did you only open the first pannel which gives you acces to the hdd, gpu, ram, wifi,...? I remember I had to losen quite a few of the 'deeper' screws and th screws where the battery is located, and pull the plastic casing a bit apart (thank god nothing broke lol) to be able to 'slide' the heatsink out of the laptop.

 

Thanks I've been thinking this way, but the only LED 15,4" one that I've found is 1440x900 from 2007~2008 MacBook Pro, which is not that great, because even if I buy all of the display related parts (display itself, inverter, cable) I'm not sure that I'll be able to connect them to my Acer. After all Apple is quite a bit proprietary when it comes to their cables/connector/you-name-it stuff, and the cost of this upgrade jumps as high as $350 shipped. So, at least for the moment I'm not that advantageous

Well @600MHz, you should be able to drop the voltage @1v, if not try to lower the clocks a bit and then try 1v, but you'll definitely see at least 5ºC lower temps.

I don't know what your problem with the bank account is, but if you have the money for new CPU you better fix it. Changing my CPU from T5750 (Merom, as your T7300) to T9500 (Penryn) gave me a nice 10ºC lower temps, not to mention the performance increase.

No, only the back panel and the screw in the battery compartment located just over the CPU heatsink. Remove it, lift the battery compartment and you can slide your heatsink easily (well not that easy, but still, it's not like dismantling the whole thing).

 

One of you guys could consider testing a BSEL modded X9100. Would be great if it works. They are cheaper than a X9000. See http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...intel-gl960-gl40-useful-info-pll-modders.html for details.

 

They are, the thing is that I tried this mod, but it's not working for me. The guy with the working BSEL mod on 5920G has a 667MHz FSB CPU, maybe that's the reason, I really don't know. I have contacted him, he was responsive before I do the mod, but afterwards, he's gone. I wanted a picture from his setup, but as I said - no answer. The guy in the repair shop tried everything, but it's a no-go. I have pictures, but every time when I'm on a place with good connection (I'm on crappy mobile EDGE where I live), I'm either too busy, or I forgot about uploading the images

 

If you could do it properly it would be. I couldn't, that's why I ended up with a X9000 and overclocking it using ThrottleStop.

 

Very nice mod! Cutting those copper piece must've taken ages, though

 

Man, yeah this is awesome. I would suggest, instead of making the heatpipe contact the thermal pad, get a copper plate and solder it on then put the thermal pad under that.

+rep. I'm trying to do something similar with my 7738g, which has a somewhat similar cooling system. Although the card is mounted right side up, its not accessible without removing the motherboard like yours is. But I'm trying to get the 2 heatpipes in the same place, right on top of the GPU core. and replace the GPU mounting plate with something from a Clevo...
The radiator is aluminum on mine, so I've just removed half of it and I will solder the existing radiator in place, its already attached to the heatpipe, from a Clevo m570ru CPU heatsink.

AFAIk you're still one of the first people to add a heatpipe usefully. I still have to suggest using solder tho, it really transfers the heat much better than AS5.

Another tip that may have helped you, instead of gluing on individual fins, take 1 long strip of copper and fold it with pliers into a zig zag sort of shape.

 

wow that's some preatty insane modding gj i love how you went really hardcore and rebuilt the fins all together also now reading how you ad to do it i love my odm for going copper straight from the begining

also i'm not that familiar with this model but you seem to have put some heat sink quite far from any fan inside the laptop is there any air circulating inside ? have moded the case for airflow?

cause i did a similar mod on my laptop

 

Thanks. Not exactly, but close

Thanks mate, I appreciate it. I don't have a solder iron laying around though.

I wish you good luck with your mod! With your proper GPU placement you have quite a lot of room for experiments. I was thinking about an Alienware M17-R2 right GPU heatsink, it would be perfect to cut mine and use it, since it sports two heatsinks, but it's hard to find.

The zig-zag is pretty good idea, but I guess, I'll have to use thinner shim, for easier manipulation.

Thank you.

Well that's the benefit of having premium machine - you get premium parts

Well no, I haven't drill any holes. I read that it doesn't make difference, and some times it's worse for this model.

 

Wish I kept my oldie going triturbo. Once again down and out

 

So sorry for you. I hope that you would fix it. I still wonder why you sold a perfectly working machine... Unique on top of it

 

You are going to have a tough time soldering a heat pipe to copper, you will need a very high rated iron so that the copper and heat pipe don't just whisk all the heat away.

 

Some cosmetic modifications.

I saw a "Mugen RR" badge on eBay and here it is (hence the RR after 5920G).



Black keyboard:

 

Very impressive mod. Great job!

 

Thank you, Kaiden

First post updated.

 

Time for a new PSU I think! Pulling 118W is getting close hehe. Excuse for another upgrade methinks haha. Now you just need a really expensive Networks killer card and perhaps a newer 256GB SSD and 1TB HDD for your optical bay

 

Nah, it was during testing with IBT @3,6GHz, probably. So it's sufficient for now, and as you know I'm jobless at the moment The only upgrade I see down the road is the display, which I wait to be exchanged, as the one I bought wasn't compatible.

 

are you still using Vista on this laptop?

 

Why not? It runs it just fine

 

cause its outdated and would run much better with 7 imho.

 

It would, but I don't have $150 spare

 

that is a fair point.

What about when Vista is not supported?

http://forum.notebookreview.com/mic.../655984-reminder-vista-users.html#post8430041

 

I read somewhere that they have prolonged the dead line.

 

only if you purchase a extra 5 years, surely it isn't worth paying for?

That $150 may need to be found. WHilst it won't stop working it is gonna be gone. Its pretty crappy that they force you to have it then they drop it like a rock. I only used vista for a couple of weeks. I deleted it for xp. Then used until 7

 

Then I'll try to run OS X Lion and keep the Vista for games

 

well, after reading a lot, and i mean A LOT, of threads about the heating problem of this notebook, i finally decided to mod (let's call it mod for the sake of discussion) this never dying notebook XD. after reading this post, which happens to be almost the only real mod of this notebook, i decided to do one too, but focused on the air flow problem, and maybe help you too.
mind if i post here about it? XD
my idea is to "presurize" the flow of air, to channel the air to flow more effectively. as i noticed, the entering air enters from below BUT the holes are around 1-2cm displaced from the fan, so the incoming flow of air is a total mess

as writing is not the best way to show this, later i will upload some pics to show what i mean, but if you have the cover and this model, look a bit around the fan area and you will know what i mean.

i hope to hear opinions and would prefer to not to open a new thread for this

 

Howdi guys its been a while since i've been in this thread. I recently started playing AC revelations on my 4.5 year old 5920g ^^ (in 1680*1050 resolution w00t w00t)

Wierdly, after just 1 year of reapplying thermal paste on my cpu the temps went back to 90+C (always used to be 94, then dropped to 78 with AS5, now back to around 90).

But what concerns me is the fact that my max THRM temp is 95celcius (it always used to be 92-94). Not sure if this should be worrying (according to everything I ever read cpu's die if you go higher than 70 celcius, and i've been doing 20 celcius more for years lol). But the THRM is the temp of my motherboard itself I think, or of the power supply?

Im planning to buy an epic gaming desktop in the near future anyway, but it would be nice if my laptop could reach its 5 year birthday this october (and me being able to postpone my next purchase until nvidia releases its true successor of the gtx580 and not a gtx680 which was actually meant to be a gtx660) and live the rest of its days as a nice retired laptop for browsing the internet and chatting on facebook.

 

What paste did you use?

Also over 70 is so general for the entire scientific endeavour of silicon processing tech that it's laughable.

 

i'm just saying partizan but, was it a year ago the last time you cleaned inside the laptop? also, when was the last time you cleaned the heatsink?
just saying, but maybe it's just clogged

 

There is no dust in my laptop, I check regularly ^^

 

im gonna summarize what you said:
- 1 year since you put good thermal paste
- from 70ºC to 90ºC in 1 year
- you use it to play
- it's supposedly clean ) dont mind the suposition, it's just for the sake of argument)
- THRM temps are high, this one is actually funny it happens to be that in this model with HW monitor THRM is the fan speed or at least affects directly to fan speed, i dont know so far what it means in other pc's

options:
- the copper sheets of the heatsink from where the air exits the pc are dirty, obstructing the flow of air. solution: dismount completely the heatsink from the laptop clean them thouroughly with pressurized air/water or whatver you can get

- the game you are playing is requiring more system than with previous games, requiring more processing power, hence the increase in temps. only solution i can think here is undervolting

- i'm out of ideas

 

I was thinking about the flow as well, but I couldn't imagine exactly how it should go. I've made more openings above the fan and it improves the fan behavior (you can see the pics). For example, it has a lot less activity while idle/browsing (almost none - off and turns on for 2-3 minutes in an hour time-frame). Before it was turning on far more often.

Feel free to contribute, pics would be nice

Custom LVDS cable, or you're playing it on external?

About the overheating issue, try to change the thermal pad on the North Bridge.

 

triturbo, i just found out looking at your signature that there was a modded bios, also i changed from the 8600m gs to the hd 3650m 256 ddr3 (512 ddr2 was out of stock :C) any useful changes in the modded bios? i dont really like flashing bios unless it is necessary or really useful
also, any undervolting for the vga? anyone tried undervolting to lower temps? i read it was simply imposible to touch the fans, even if modding the bios

ed: i was thinking to finally go for the 64 bit win 7 ultimate when i got time after exams, is it worth it having the 4gb already?

 

Modded BIOS is useful if you have IDA capable CPU. Thanks to the modded BIOS and ThrottleStop, you can get a full multiplier more, using option in ThrottleStop called "DualIDA". For example if you have T9500 it runs @2,6GHz max, using those two it would run @2,8GHz tanks to "DualIDA" mode.

You can undervolt your ATi using RBE, and then flashing it with atiflash, but you'll have to make bootable USB drive. There is also atiwinflash, but I have never tested it.

Win 7 is far more optimized and brings notable performance improvement in some games, like GTA IV going from ~20FPS (Vista) to ~30FPS (7) (I read it somewhere, but I don't remember where). I don't have spare money, or at least it's way back on my upgrade list So, yes, it is worth it. I got my Vista Ultimate for $29, and I'm looking for such a deal with the 7 as well, otherwise it's pretty expensive.

 

sorry, my bad, i meant if it's worth it going from 32 to 64 bit win7 considering i already have 4gb of ram, i have been using win 7 ultimate since a long ago

also, the other day dismantling an hp notebook i got my hands on a t8300 for free, do you know if the t8300 is more efficient than the t8100 in temps? i plan to install it as soon as i get thermal paste and time, but i would like to know what can i expect of the upgrade.

looking around older threads i read you had an hd 3650, any tips you can give me to get all the juice of it without hitting 95ºC? or at least clocks and with what tweak them, cause i got the RBE but i prefer to avoid touching the bios

btw, considering you have been testing a lot of thermal pastes, any preferences?

ed: i have realized that my hd3650 is going waaayyy under spec clocks, is it because it's a mobility? or it also was gpu 500 Mhz and Memory 400 Mhz for you?

 

T8300 and T8100 are pretty close, they should run at similar temps, both are IDA capable, so you can get extra juice out of them for free.

You can try Sapphire TRIXX, for undervolting, but it's towards overclocking, so I'm not sure that it would work the way you want it. At least it doesn't work for me - I mean, the slider starts from 1,1v (my undervolted voltage) and goes to 1,2v (the default voltage for HD4670). I'm not sure how it would be with 1,2v BIOS, but I don't have the time to test it right now. To disperse any doubts - it's perfectly working for overclocking, just not for undervolting. Seriously, it's not that hard with RBE/atiflash once you make your first try. I used to overclock my HD4670 this way, before an appropriate Windows tool came-up. It was a lot of editing, reflashing, rebooting...

MX-4 - easy to apply/remove, among the top performers, relatively cheap.

Try different drivers, maybe some old ones (I don't know which ones you are using).

 

im using atiumdag 8.950.0.0 Catalyst 12.3 (Win 7), i will later update to catalyst 12.4, not like i expect much from doing so. i will just have to test clocks

also, my hd 3650 is going at 59ºC-60ºC in idle, and i think it's really high for idle
what do you think about it? i get those temps in idle be it in winter or summer, 2ºC give or take

ed: forget about the clocks, it seems gpu clocks are downclocked, a lot. it's supposedly 500Mhz when everybody else has it at 675-700Mhz i really wish i had realized about this sooner, like a year ago when i bought it, imagine all the games i played with lower resolution than i could

 

I was using among 8.x/9.x drivers, but I couldn't remember which ones, and they were working correctly. The GPU itself as well (showing the right clocks).

Have you made copper mod?