Cooling Mods!

So, anybody out there doing some modding on their laptops? Post some of your work and some pics, maybe some instructions for anyone who wants to try it aswell!

I'll start with this, as we know, most laptops come with ridiculously small intake vents for their cooling fans. My theory for doing this mod is since the original vents are so small, most of the air going through the system is air coming in through the passive vents on the other side of the casing. That means the air going through the fan system would already have been heated up by every other component in the whole computer, including the heatsink piping that runs through the whole thing. Thus I assumed that opening up the vents would introduce the cooler outside air into the system, with the larger temperature difference increasing the effectiveness of the heatsinks.

After removing the bottom case, what I did was take a pocket knife, and gently pry off the grilles with it. It's a bit ghetto but it will get the job done. After that, I filed off the stubs with a round/half moon file. Position the bottom case with the inside facing AWAY from you. An important thing to remember is that you ALWAYS push the file from the outside of the case, towards the inside. This is so that the filings build up on the inside of the case where how it looks won't really matter. I kept filing until the edges were as rounded as I could get them. Finally I smoothed it all out with fine grit sandpaper, sanding away at build up on the inside thus avoiding ruining the finish of the case.

Here's the end result.


So far it's improved the cooling by a fair bit, and the maintain at 80C without maxing out the fan speed. Next on the list would be an additional widening of the vent and adding some sort of cover to protect the fanblades.

 

Nice, I love it when people mod their laptops. I recently did something similar for the air exiting the laptop. I should probably do something like this on the intake.

 

I had a g73 jh...I took a dremal and cut out a rectangle out of the bottum of it took 2 80mm fans I had laying around, took a 12v power supply that I used for an alarm clock and made the greatest hack job I had ever seen. I went from 62* idle cpu and 71* idle gpu to 43* idle, and 48* idle, under stress it never went about 60* for either of them. It was insanely loud, I couldn't use a mic, but it made do. I hope you like it...ha.

 

Forge is the master in this kind of modding. Check out his work. Amazing cooling solutions on all kind of gaming notebooks.

I'm also lookign forward to do some drilling in the future. I have an HP DV6t (the 6000 series) which is not bad for tmeps, but for audio... huh it can be terrible. There's no air intake vent below the fan ->so i will make one. Also the hot air screams through some plastic grills which is only esthetic touch on the machine. Looking forward to cut some out, maybe every other or all of them and make a stylish metal grill/mesh.

 

Here's some my cooling mods I did to my Asus G60VX, it went from 52* idle cpu and 67* idle gpu to 43* idle cpu and 41* idle gpu. I am proud of my work.











I did some work around my GPU and CPU by putting copper heatsink, you can find them on ebay for $4. It's really simple project, and its really worth it. Also I bought myself a ram heatsink long time ago on Newegg, but it looks like they are Discontinue... Oh well.

Anyways i thought i should share it to you guys because it was fun project.

 

Not trying to hijack this thread but if someone has added a liquid cooling system to their notebook that would be interesting to see.

 

A word of advice use velco tape! Much prettier than the solution you have used here! That what I used for a similar mod for my M15x.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alie...koi-style.html
Here is my work so far lol

 

That looks nice, what difference it made to the temps? rep for the neat job.

 

My gpu temp went from 67c to 51c in average, so I notice a lot cooler on my side vent. But its still not cool enough to oc

But hey at least its a lot cooler than it was before, and no more lags on BFBC2

 

neat mod! hows the case's stability?

 

My good old MSI GX740:


Bottom cover:


Thanks to these mods I was able to upgrade the GPU in my laptop, first from 5870M to 6970M (undervolted to 0.96V, stock clocks, 89C in FurMark), then to 7970M (OCed to 920/1400, 87C in FurMark).

 

Yes this case stable, like new feeling. Even tho my brother takes my laptop and take it down to school back and forth, no problem. I still have it, it looks like new still.

 

I've had issues with my XPS cooling, but I'm not ballsy enough to go cutting the case up like some here XD (Good for you btw)


So I went for an exterior solution;

1x Adjustable voltage PSU at 1.5A

2x 120mm CoolerMaster SickleFlow Case Fans (2500 RPM)

CoolerMaster U3 Cooling Pad (came with 3 whimpy 1800RPM 60mm fans)

Some wires and a switch

Took me a bit of soldering, but 2 paralleled 120s put a fair bit of air though! I postitioned them under the intakes, so they push more cooler air into the case for the onboard fan to use (Dell in its infinite wisdom has partially blocked each intake with componentry, which is good for cooling those bits of circuit board, but not good for the airflow, given the intakes are tiny slots to start with).


Anyway, this is my solution! Hope you like it (P.S, there are usually rubber isolators I made up up so the notepad fans aren't blowing the exhaust back against itself)

Finished product from the back




Underside of the cooling pad




(And no, this isn't supposed to be the most mobile of setups, the XPS is basically a desktop replacement for me)


Thanks for reading!