Completed: DIY Laptop Cooler!

Hey everyone, I've finished building my laptop cooler. It took me a couple of days to research, acquire parts, and assemble. Here it is. let me know what you think.

I decided to build this out of a tote because I can carry all of my laptop peripherals in one, convenient, package. The laptop sits right on top, securely. I used a 5 gallon Hefty tote. I liked how it had the snap handles, and it had a very sturdy (not flimsy) lid.



I ended up buying some Noctua fans. I like the way they look, and they have good airflow, they are very well made, and they are extremely quiet at full blast. They were expensive, but worth it for the quietness. Yesterday I bought some ENERMAX fans with LED's just to see how that would look.

I used nylon screws because I didn't want the look of metal. I also used rubber washers to eliminate possible noise. Besides, it looks cool with the washers. I used a 3" hole saw for the holes.



Pep Boys had the cheapest price for this 36", self adhesive, LED strip. Just for show, obviously. I cut 1 1/2" holes around the entire box for air intake and for USB cord routing (i.e. if I had an external HDD inside).



I bought both switches (SPST), and the DC input jack from Radio Shack.



I decided to whether strip the top of the box to keep the lid from potentially rattling. The lid fits nice and tightly now.



I also bought this power adapter from Radio Shack. The voltage settings are used to reduce the fan speed or LED brightness at will.



I bought this suction cup thermometer at Home Depot. During initial, basic, testing, the temperatures inside the enclosure have dropped 3 degrees F compared with temps outside of the enclosure. I will do some testing with dry ice to see how cool I can get the air inside.







I'm contemplating installing a card reader or USB ports, but I'm not completely sold on the idea. I'd like to keep my storage space within for my peripherals.

That's it! I hope you all like it. Let me know if you do, and throw some more ideas out if you like.

 

Before/After temps for the laptop? Looks great though. I probably would have painted it to match the laptop, but yours does have a finished look. I like how you installed the power jack/switches as well as how you grommeted the holes. Very professional looking!

 

Thanks! I may just paint it. I'm not sure where it'll go from here, but I can't imagine I'll leave it alone.

I'll be doing a first test later today comparing my old cooler vs. the new one, then I'll be disassembling my laptop to clean out the dust bunnies, and put in my new processor, SSD, and upgrading the thermal paste to ICD7. Once I finish that, I will do a second test with both coolers to see how the temps have changed.

 

Woah, major overhaul it sounds like good stuff. Keep us posted!

 

First round of testing completed. The testing consisted of an Intel Burn Test for 10 passes and one pass of 3DMark06 for each cooling method. Method #1 was no external cooling. Method #2 was using my Targus USB powered twin fan cooler. Method #3 was with my DIY cooler.

Method #1 (No Cooling)

3DMark06 score: 9037
Intel Burn temps: 50C min, 95C max


Method #2 (Targus Cooler)

3DMark06 score: 9082
Intel Burn temps: 46C min, 94C max


Method #3 (DIY Cooler)

3DMark06 score: 9330
Intel Burn temps: 35C min, 89C max


I have to say I'm very pleased with the results. The 3DMark06 scores aren't very far apart, but I'm happy to see an improvement regardless. The Intel Burn test results are a little more drastic. I wasn't expecting to see a 5 degree C change in temps with the new cooler, and I am very pleased with the Linpack output.

There was a pretty drastic difference in time taken to complete the 10 rounds of IBT.

The no cooling solution finished the IBT in 1058.18 seconds (17.6363333 minutes). It had double digit speed scores in only the first 2 rounds.

The Targus cooler finished the IBT in 829.255 seconds (13.8209167 minutes). It had double digit speed scores in 6 of 10 rounds.

My DIY cooler finished the IBT in 709.465 seconds (11.8244167 minutes)! All 10 rounds showed double digit scores! Awesome!

Overall, I am very very pleased. Round 2 of testing will commence after I swap my P8400 for a T9900, install my SSD, apply ICD7, and clean out all of the dust. I will run the same tests next time.

 

Dam dude, you're laptop is wayyyyy tooo hot!

But I like the invention, storage space and you can use it on your lap or elevated coffee table

 

Oh, yes, WAYYY TOO HOT. I completely agree with that. That's why I'm cleaning it up and upgrading parts. I've neglected it for the past year or so because I thought I'd have a new one by now, but things have changed and I have to squeeze every last ounce of life out of this.

This is the test before the test. I just wanted to test this laptop the way it sits now so I can see how drastically the temps change. Starting later this week I will be disassembling this laptop and performing the upgrades.

Thanks for commenting.

 

Looks pretty good! +rep
Good choice on the Noctua fans. Quiet and excellent airflow; definitely worth the money.
If you want a little more airflow with minimal noise check out the MegaFlow 200 Blue/Red LED (R4-LUS-07AR-GP). They're larger so they provide an impressive 110 CFM at only 19 dBA (about 2 dBA higher than the Noctuas IIRC). They don't last as long as the Noctuas but they're also a bit cheaper.
I've been itching to build a custom cooler for my system as well. Might just start up my project after seeing your thread.

 

waiting on an update for this...

 

Thanks for the rep! As for the Noctua's, besides being quiet and having good airflow, they seem to be very well made. It's a little hard for me to explain, but even the insulation around their wiring is top shelf.

Thanks for the recommendation, I'll be sure to check them out. You should definitely get started on yours. I had a great time designing and building mine. I made about a thousand trips to Home Depot, Lowes, Radioshack, and Harbor Freight, and I had a lot of fun doing it.

 

Finals week. I was pretty swamped, but I managed to get some new tests run.

I upgraded the thermal paste (ICD7, installed a Crucial SSD, upgraded from a P8400 to a T9900, and did some general cleaning of the computer (dust mainly). Once I finally opened the laptop up I discovered a cat living it. I seriously had an absurd amount of dust in this laptop. I can't believe I let it get so bad. I had put in my mind that my laptop was slow because it was old, when really I had just neglected to care for it like I should have.

Anyway, temperatures are night and day. Surprisingly, all three methods performed almost equally, with the only differences being with temperatures.

Here we have the laptop without external cooling.

This method produced a 3DMark06 score of 10608.

It finished the IBT in 430.114 seconds (7.17 minutes).

The IBT scores were just drastic IMO. I went from 7's to all 20's! (GFlops). The temps are also staggeringly lower. I'm impressed with how well these upgrades are performing.



Here we have the Targus cooler.

It finished the IBT in 426.596 seconds (7.11 minutes).

This method produced a 3DMark06 score of 10613.

The tests times and speeds were almost the same, but for some reason the temps with no external cooling were lower... I attribute to the fans not lining up with the intakes and perhaps having more of a blocking affect on the intakes.. not sure. For some reason the Targus performed the best out of the 3 despite having the highest temps.. fluke?



Here we have the DIY cooler.

This method produced a 3DMark06 score of 10633.

It finished the IBT in 429 seconds (7.15 minutes).

The temps were definitely the lowest by 7 degrees over the Targus and 5 degrees over no external cooling! I am very pleased with the performance of my cooler. For some weird reason though, my cooler performed in the middle of the road despite having drastically cooler temps. Fluke?



All in all this entire project produced a DRASTIC change in how my system runs. It's way cooler than it has ever been, and it is more stable than the day I bought it, although that's unfair considering it was running Vista XD. The IBT tests went from 17, 13, and 11 minutes (respectively), down to 7 minutes. That's just insane to me.

The temps are absolutely amazing compared to their pre mod state. I'm surprised my laptop even lasted as long as it has with such negligence. I couldn't even watch an HD movie full screen without it getting so hot it would lag constantly. Embarrassing.

Method 1 comparison: 52C low - 25C low. 95C high - 64C high.
Method 2 comparison: 46C low - 25C low. 94C high - 66C high.
Method 3 comparison: 35C low - 25C low. 85C high - 59C high.

Incredible what some cleaning and general maintenance can do. Looks like I'll own this lappy for quite a while longer. It plays Diablo III at full blast, so I have no reason to ditch it.

 

Those scores are all within margin of error. Since you're no longer getting very hot, even without the cooling pad, you won't be throttling at all so you should see the same scores on each, which your tests have confirmed.

Before hand you were hot enough that your computer would be throttling back to keep the heat down. The cooler gave it more headroom and so it didn't need to throttle back so hard.

 

I was definitely thinking along these lines. Without all of the cooling issues the system is now able to run optimally regardless of extra cooling.

I guess where the extra cooling will come in handy is with overclocking. The only thing I can OC is the video card, so I will give that a shot.

 

Sweet setup man, very creative.

Do you use an external mouse/keyboard with it? I don't feel like it would be very comfortable holding my arms up to type.

 

Have you tried dumping ice in the container and running the test? I've occasionally thought about sliding ice packs in the void under my CM ErgoStand, but have been to lazy to actually try it. Your DIY solution seems perfect for holding an ice bath if you could waterproof your wiring.

 

Thanks!

Yes, i use an external m/k. That would get old really quickly. I use my wired Razer, and wireless keyboard. I'm still not a fan of wireless mice. I use a USB hub that I keep inside the cooler to limit wire clutter.

 

I actually made a thread about this not too long ago. I guess the main worry was possible increased humidity. It was uncertain how wet it would get and how it might adversely affect the laptops internals.

I was steered toward using dry ice instead. Apparently it's cheap and available at Walmart. I'll definitely be trying that ASAP. It should cool things even more significantly. Maybe it will improve my GPU overclocks.

 

It may mess up the plastic tub if you just drop the ice in it..

 

Most likely. I'd keep it in styrofoam. If it's thick enough, it shouldn't be a problem.

 

Great idea and great execution, cooling box is well crafted.
Just as the others have mentioned though, it would most likely be more beneficial for OC'ing.

 

Thank you! I'm very pleased with it.

I'm trying some preliminary OC'ing. It seems that despite the low temps, I'm hitting an OC wall. I will try undervolting.

 

Wow this is actually insanely cool! Very nicely done, love the small details and lights, amazing!

I'm going to monitor this thread :3

 

Great idea! This would be very handy when travelling. I may have to build one myself.

 

That looks great and holds a lot of stuff. I give you props on how everything looks so nice and isn't cheesy. But let me throw some ideas out there on how I made mine which is wayyy smaller and I'm using it right now sitting on a pillow on my chest while laying down on a couch. It weighs about 2 lbs maybe. I noticed you did spend some $ on making this so I'm going to show you how someone who doesn't want to spend any $ at all makes the lightest, best working laptop cooler that is powered by a wall plug instead of burning out those USB ports..... First thing I did was order this Lot of 10 New USB 3-Fan Aluminum Laptop Notebook Cooler Pad Stand | eBay 3 fan aluminum laptop cooler with ON / OFF switch for $4.22 and that included free shipping. It works ok by itself, but yeah it's flimsy thin aluminum so when it flexes the 3 fans hit and stop and chip. And it's USB powered which I didn't like because a lot of people told me USB coolers burn out ports. No thanks, I use my laptop a lot and it's usually plugged into the wall so changing this from a 5 volt usb plug to a 5 volt A/C adapter was simple. Anyways, Step 2, I purchased another 2 fan expandable laptop cooler also USB powered off eBay for $0.56 cents, $2.25 including shipping and handling from here Folding Mini USB Notebook Cooling Pad 2 Fan Cooler Laptop Notebook Collapsible | eBay Step 3. I disassembled the 2 fan laptop cooler so the 2 fans and the power wire with the USB plug were all I had left. I used 2 sides 3m tape and attached these 2 fans on the bottom of the 3 fan laptop cooler on the bottom blowing up where your palmrest and touch pad would be about. So now I have 5 fans attached to the 1 cooler, with 2 USB power cables left. You could stop here if you wanted and just use the USB plugs. Not me and not people who use there laptops a lot and want to keep there USB hubs working. Step 4. I cut off the USB plugs from the ends of both cords. Then cut and strip off the black rubber jacket from the 2 fans so you have the two fans wires, leaving you with one black and one red wire coming from each fan totaling four wires. Step 5. Find where the 3 fans wires on the bottom of the metal laptop cooler are soldered to the one off switch. You can see that all it is is one red and one black wire running from each fan to the switch for each fan. Simply take your 4 extra wires and solder the black wires to the switch where the other ones are and the red wires to the switch where they meet also. If you don't have a soldering iron, just tie them in tight with a little electrical tape. The switch has metal ends with holes so you can loop the wire through and twist them tight if you want. Now you should have all 5 fans ties into the switch with the same colored wires all meeting at the same points of contact at the back of the on off switch. Step 6. I went to the salvation army and found a very small metal cooking grill looking thing thats about 12 inches by 8 inches and is just a little smaller then the bottom of my laptop. You could use a thin piece of wood or plastic for this. The idea is to use 2 sided 3m tape to stick the metal grille or piece of plastic to the bottom of your now 5 fan laptop cooler so it will not flex at all anymore at all. Step 7. I took a 5 volt 500ma cell phone charger (very very very common, I had a bunch of these all over my house, if you have to buy one for $2.00 at radio shack) cut the charger port off the end of the wire farthest from the plug. So now I have my wire coming from the laptop cooler on/off switch (seperate set of wires then the ones the 5 fans connected two) witht he USB cut off the end and the 5 volt cell phone charger wires to link together. It's as easy as hooking up red to red and black to black, solder or tie off the connection. I soldered the connection and just folded the entire connection in the wire, then covered it with black electrical tape, if you fold the connection then cover it with electrical tape if anyone pulls on the wires on either side of the connections it will put pressure on the electrical tape and not the connection. The last thing I really did was put a couple of small double sided velcro tape on the bottom of my laptop and the cooler so they are easy to seperate (another 1$ at the $1 store) and then slapped the laptop on, fired it up, went from running 130'F when I was putting in work to an average of 95'F, never going above. The whole thing cost me $4.22 3way cooler, $2.25 2 way cooler, $1.06 metal grille, $1 3M 2 sided tape, $1 2 sided sticky back velcro came out to a grand total of under $8 dollars and it DOES NOT LOOK HOME MADE, is light weight, and have had 4 people ask me where I bought it so they could buy one. Hope someone else makes one for under ten bucks, All it takes is finding those 2 laptop cooler fans for cheap on eBay and that won't be a problem. I'll take a pic and post it later. Let me know what ya think!

 

i have taken this a step further i added extra heatsinks into my notebook and i also added two extra blowers and then i replaced all of the crappy low airflow grills with metal grills like those found in desktop fans, it works great, and with my notepal u3 i max out at 58c on my gpu running bf3, which is ice cold for a 100w gpu.

View attachment 80566 View attachment 80567

 

I have that same laptop cooler. I'm curious how did you take it apart to get the fans alone? It doesn't look like there's any screws or anything, just some kind of melted metal.

Looks awesome. How are you powering them? Are those 2 extra fans blowing out or blowing in? I've got 4x 40mm fans powered through USB and I'm planning to do the same also.

 

Well if you read the entire thing I wrote I explain how to wire the 2 fans from the expandable laptop cooler you have into the other laptop cooler so it runs off of one 5 volt cell phone charger AC plug. I have all 5 fans wired together at the switch on the back of the 3 fan metal laptop cooler. It's really simple and like my article said, I spent less then 10 bucks making mine and everyone who see's it thinls I bought it for at least $50 because of how hard it pushes air. That's not melted metal brotha, lol, that's just a cheap metal rivet they use to keep those fans in there. All you do is take a 1/4 drill bit and slowly and carefully drill those out and then the 2 fans seperate from that metal houseing and the expandable legs seperate from the housing. As long as your carefull they won't get chewed up and besides they are going to be underneith the metal laptop cooler so no one will be able to see them anyways. I have the bottom 2 fans blowing up at the laptop. The top three fans that are original to that laptop cooler have screws so you can flip them over. So I have the 2 outside fans blowing up and the middle one blowing down to ciculate the warm air away. It works perfect, there's a nice light warm breeze circulating away coming from that one fans. I actually just checked after leaving my laptop just sitting on the cooler running a huge program and downloading 3 different movies at the same time, and when I opened it and looked at the motherboard temp, the GPU temp, and the core temp were all almost at 71' Farenheit and the laptops OWN fan wasn't on!! This is why I made this little cooler run off the 5 volt AC cell charger. So it wouldn't kill my USB hub, have a bunch of ghetto looking USB plugs hooked into it with wires everywhere, and if the laptops cooling fan doesn't even need to turn on, you know thats saving life span on the entire setup! Let me know if you need anymore help! PEACE!

"The under 10 dollar 5 fan Laptop cooler OEM special" LOL