Bottom cover mod

I was trying to think of a way to make the bottom panel of a laptop easily removable without damaging the laptop's screw threads. Then I thought of these and thought it might help:

http://www.laptopscrews.com/Misc.htm

Those could be screwed in using something like loctight, the bottom panel could go on top of that and small thumb screws holding the cover on. This way the thumb screws could be easily removed along with the bottom panel and the internal components directly exposed to a cooler placed under it. It would also leave a little more room to throw some copper in there!

So what do you think? Possible? Worth the effort?

 

When I read your post I had no clue until I saw the motherboard standoffs in the link. You can get those on ebay for really cheap and they come in about a week. That website looks like a real ripoff. It sounds like a cool idea and doesn't involve any modifications to the original hardware. If you have big mesh screen openings on the custom panel that itself is further away from the components, that would give it a lot of breathing room. I would say go for it.

 

sorry, i have to ask... what are you doing that requires you to remove the bottom panel of a laptop that much?

and really? that much that you have to mod the screws?

 

Well, the idea for a removeable bottom is so when I'm home the bottom can be removed, but replaced when I take my laptop with me to campus. With the bottom panel off and some copper ramsinks applied, the extra airflow from having the panel off and the laptop on top of a cooler will keep temps down while gaming or stressing the CPU/gpu.

 

Hmm, seems a bit much trouble just to keep your temps down, but, whatever floats ya boat. A really good notebook cooler would work wonders though.

 

Well I read in the ASUS forums about the copper mod people have done and that seems to help temps a lot... and the heat that those small copper ramsinks are absorbing probably doesn't dissipate very quickly since there isn't any air movement over them. If I were to add the ramsinks and then have the bottom exposed to a laptop cooler, it seems like you could get REALLY low temps.

 

Sounds like an interesting idea. I've gotten tired of having to open up my old Sony to replace the hdd (or otherwise tinker with it, just for funsies) and messing up the screws (which have a tendency to come loose anyways), so something like this - a quick-release mechanism or something - would be interesting for those purposes as well.

 

Airflow in a notebook is strategically designed to cool everything that needs cooling. Just because it doesn't have a heatsink doesn't mean it doesn't need airflow. This is something many who use watercooling end up finding out.

When you remove that plate or even lower the bottom you just changed all of the airflow in that area. While your cpu and gpu may end up cooler, what about the rest of the components?

Even if you add in a new fan, you still have disturbed the thermal dynamics and have no way of knowing what is happening in other areas, you could end up blowing hot air into a different area or creating a dead spot someplace else.

 

I see what you are saying, but if I do this when the bottom cover is off the whole laptop will be sitting on a laptop cooler, with probably some foam tape on the cooler creating a "gasket" of sorts. That way air that is blown up toward the laptop will have no choice but to cycle through the laptop. Also by doing this the laptop fan will still draw all that air out like it did before, just the warm air coming from other parts of the laptop will be mixing with the cooler air from the laptop cooler which will probably leave the temperature of other components unchanged but will provide cooler air for the cpu/gpu/ram. all in theory of course.