OCZ Whitebook Heat Mod

Ok..so, I know this forum is young..and these rigs are rather new. But, I'm looking to mod my cooling system just a LITTLE bit. I finally got my CPU temps in check, and they dont go over 76c. TZ00 is a couple degrees highes, but Justin might be sending me a thermal pad for that. Now, I'm trying to find if there are any pics of a mod that someone has performed. Whether it be personally, or it was purchased with it. Ideally, I'd like to check pics of the bottom of the computer, back of the computer, left side, and if you're nice enough to turn it upside down and remove that cover..snap a pic of the underside of the cover, as well as the internal pics of the system. I know K|N has a mod, that seems to be beneficial for some.. but then again, they aren't running an x9100 with my clocks. But, I'd still like to see that, as well, if anyone has some pics. Thanks, and much love!

-Erik G.
OCZ Family

 

Was really beneficial for mine. I will talk to Mark and see if he wants it in the open or not. Out of respect of course.

But I have managed to get to 3.3Gigs on a Quad core with it without heating issues and no cooler used.

So I would say going from 2.53 to 3.3 on 4 cores is well quite bit hotter than most if not all 9100's.

 

you have a lot less voltage being drawn..should keep you a bit cooler. Oh, and someone will post pics eventually. Doesnt have to be you. But, Im just looking for all options to keep my system cool as possible.

 

No doubt the more accumulative knowledge makes for a more succesful community.

What program you useing to watch temps so we can put our numbers up and see if we can get a consensus on what mods would be most appropriate.

 

HWMontitor Pro - Check out the thread on here asking for game benchmarks..posted a screen shot at the bottom.

 

OK.. well, special thanks to someone who sent me pics of their K|N Heat Mod that shipped with their unit. Just in case that person doesn't want to be put out in public, I'll keep their name to myself. But, you know who you are, and I thank you. They snapped a couple grainy shots with their Camera Phone, cause..well, they don't have a digi camera. So, here is the Heat Modding K|N is performing for their customers.. the idea is nice, having more breathing an all.. but I think it could have been a bit cleaner. Looks rushed, and kinda hax0red up. Nice foot mod tho. I do agree that there should be ventilation over the second GPU, as of now it is not provided when the system is built. I'm planning to do a minor alteration to mine, and had already considered opening some breathing room for the second GPU. But, I haven't done enough research, and I'd like to make sure that I'm not removing all of the backpressure from the internals.. I don't want to make it breathe too freely, and then have hot pockets of air hanging out inside, there needs to be a balanced equilibrium of intake and output, similar to a car's intake/output ratio.

So, here's the pics..and this person also removed the small filters covering the original vents..that's the black fuzz you see around some of the vents. Not sure if this is a good thing, or not..but, they seem happy with their results.

This is the Footmod that KN also shows you on GoG.. Very nice design, and innovative. It provides room for better airflow beneath the rig. Has anyone tried taking these off, and seeing the temp difference? Would be nice to find out.




Here's the base of the computer.. as you can see, there are vents provided for airflow..and KN added more breathing by drilling holes over 1) Slave GPU 2) Master GPU and 3) CPU Fan.. Im curious why they didnt bore more holes into it over the GPU fan.. Hmm..




Here is the part that made me cringe just a bit.. The numbers match up to the previous pic and description, so you know what the function of each is. Not like anyone can see this from the outside..but, I thought that there would be more time taken, and maybe a cleaner finished product like the Mod pics on K|N's site. Those look very professional, these look like someone was drunk off rum and coke, and had a good idea. NEvertheless, it's not attention to detail..it's about providing better performance.




Nothing special was done here, these are the GPUs with Crossfire connector removed. However, that blue pad that is just below the battery(center of pic).. I don't remember that in mine when I cleaned up my GPU thermal pads. I'll have to re-inspect. Otherwise, unless they buffed the underside of the GPU heatsink copper..which, mine was already very shiney, then nothing is changed here.




And, the last pic here.. There is no modding done to the heatsink, unless like my previous comment, it is lapped underneath. This person had not removed it to inspect..and Im not going to ask them to. No need..shiny, dull, buffed, it doesn't really matter. It's often better to have a slightly shined, but still slightly grained heatsink. If it is mirror smoothe, with no defects, then when you apply the AS5, it has no minigaps to fill.. and will just prevent the heatsink and CPU dissipator from actually touching. AS5 is meant to fill microscopic gaps, not meant to be used as a spacer..but if there are no mini grooves, then the AS5 actually increases temps by preventing surface contact. This person agrees..and I wish I had the link to the nice little diagram I found a couple months ago. Ill post it if I find it. Oh, and I also noticed, as circled.. K|N didn't clean up the GPU thermal pads. That pic is the edge of one GPU's heatsink assembly. The thermal pad, as you can see, runs along the entire edge, altho there are only 2 micros that are on each end..and about half of that pad can be trimmed off. Otherwise, you're adding heat back to the board from the thermal pads touching the GPU circuitry as you see this one is.



Well, that's the K|N Cooling mod.. and If anyone has feedback about its performance gains and temperature losses, then please feel free to comment and post temps. I'll be posting my Mod pics as well, when I decide it's time to make the move.

 

thank you so much to E-wrecked and to the person who sent you the pics.
I wonder about that thermal pad. there are many types with very different kinds of performance.
maybe a silicon based grease it would be better then AS5 or a thermal pad in this case.

 

thats a heat mod ? lmao. i would be quite pissed if i get a new machine that was drilled like this...

 

Well, the concept is great. Not so much the finishing touches.. But, like I said, ya cant see the inside. So, as long as it looks good on the outside then who really cares? I mean, I would if I paid for it..but otherwise, it's all good. and _-_-_-, I considered that when I took mine apart, but the pads are actually supposed to be covering 2 small plastic diodes, one at each side of that copper sink you see in the last pic.. Not covering a metal dissipator, so AS5 would be pointless. The thermal pads are the way to go, but they do need to be trimmed up. Or, I trimmed mine up..and yea, it's an opinion. And, Ill try and take pics when I open mine up again.

 

Ok... finished my personal Heat Mod. Hope it works better than just modding the heatsinks. Check it out:

 

lol.

While ur at it, can you take pics of the motherboard?

 

I like your heat mod better , more professional for sure .

 

Howdy Quad, you get your rig sold? I don't see it in your sig

 

what up quad...you a true quadzilla yet? lol

 

Geez what a butcher job they did on that extra venting.

lrn2dremel

 

Lol only a True Quad on my desktop atm. Might be selling my notebook tues or wed if everything go's well. A guy in the NBR for sale part found me when i posted something in the WTB:7811 thread he travels to michigan alot and he will be across the street from where i live in the next few days and said he wants it . So either i will be dead or it will be sold then i will decide my next move . I took it out of my sig for the time being to give the guy the benefit of the doubt.

 

hahaha, i knew the desktop had one, but i also knew you we're looking into adding one to the lappy.

hope all goes well with the sale.

 

Even if i grab the OCZ it will be quite sometime before i consider the Quad for it . Its out of my budget for now and until theres lots of confirmations the ES ones are working proper it wouldnt be worth the risk. Id prefer retail but at 1k+ i think ill hold off for now . In the end it would be cheaper and faster to go with the 9262 if i have to have quad asap.

Whens your rig coming back ? or did it already and you didnt update your sig?

 

Isnt that Ktrons pic that you are taking credit for?

 

i think it was more of a joke than taking credit....

 

Thanks guys I gotta give credit where it's due..that is actually another member's pic. I just ran across it and figured, eh..appropriate. One heck of a heat mod tho, just missing the oscillating floor fan, and a bud light. And yea, KTRON's pic of his rig

EDIT: And, I wouldnt take credit for that as a heat mod. So, thanks for the concern.

 

Looks like K|N is at it again.. trying to come down on me for exposing yet another publicity ploy and sales tactic. To the best of my knowledge, my OP with the KN heat mods is nothing but demonstrative.. I wasn't biased with that, whatsoever. However, they seem to think differently.. Here's their recent response on their own GoG Forum:


"...Actually that is a good lead in. This whole notebook market has been turned on its ear in the last month and most recently the last week. In the past we have had to contend with the "me too's" saying, "We're the same, there is no difference." That caused us to keep striving to be better.

Since the beginning we wanted to differentiate K|N from the competition. It started with the customizations, then the tweaks and drivers with OS optimization, then the hardware mod's and the proprietary software. One of our mainstays in the early days was the GPU cooling mod. This is something this system can really benefit from with all the number crunching we and other forum members have done.

Well the time is again at hand that we need to have every available weapon at our disposal to separate ourselves from the garbage ninjas. The existing cooling mod of the feet and the ventilation for the 1'st and 2'nd GPU and CPU will be truncated on future systems to just be the feet and a CPU cooling mod.

When released the GPU cooling mod will be a bolt on unit that can be applied to the system, either new or existing.* We directed the ODM to the GoG in which they saw the temperatures achieved with the existing cooling mods and are very interested in them. They are still having various quad core issues that we have long ago addressed with the KN-Quad Core Patch and the cooling mods.

The ODM wants us to send in a modified system for official approval of the cooling mods. As we have said before, every time someone at NBR tries to discredit us, we come out better than before they started smearing us. The usual NBR suspects have grainy cell phone pictures and speculative rantings. We will have an official seal of approval. Hmmmmm, I think I'll take the official stamp that these are approved myself.

Ironically the person that has his little campaign against K|N is driving a ton of business this way with his Jerry Springeresque rantings. People come to check it out like Hotel California and they never leave. It is also ironic that this person has a system they had to modify themselves because it ran so hot when he got it from MeTooPC.

How much hotter? Never mentions this in his smear campaign, but it was twenty degrees hotter than a K|N over clocked quad core. He also fails to mention that his home grown modifications will not be warranted by the company that built the MeTooPC. Yes, MeToo doesn't build this system, ASI does.


* absolutely NO sales of heat sink/cooling modifications, proprietary software, tweaks, mods, patches, fixes, drivers, existing or future hardware, upgrades, customizations, support, trade-in or sales of hardware to non Killer Notebooks customers AT ALL so don't ask. We're tired of doing it to be attacked and have our work "piggy backed" and then no credit given. We're tired of the attacks from NBR members and the kids they have moderating their forums. We have tried to help the community as much as possible but from this point forward are only going to focus exclusively on K|N Customers. Anyone that doesn't like it, that isn't a K|N customer, should have spoken up before we got to the end of our rope with garbage ninja bashing"


Now, I apologize if someone there took it the wrong way..but personally, I think there may be some embarassment over my XoticPC Whitebook smoking theirs, with all their swiss cheese cut ups for cooling. Anyhow.. just an fyi.. but lab conditions vs. living room conditions..maybe you should come visit my coffee table.


EDIT: And the ODM is wanting you to send them a system so that they can inspect it..and let you know you voided many customer's warranties by drilling holes in their computer like a drunken monkey. Watch out for 'suits. They come often nowadays..especially when magic blue smoke puffs the final breath from an ES Chip in a "New" computer.

 

That bench cooling mod is hilarious. The guy would have been better off with a desktop instead of jacking up the whole laptop like that. Since that is basically an desktop, hilarous indeed Ah well those holes that are drilled I agree there it looks really bad, sure it might work. But buying a new laptop with holes drilled and calling it a cooling mod, I wouldn´t be happy.

 

I have to agree that while it is innovative and apparently effective, the idea of drilling holes in the underside of the chassis to improve the thermals is a little ridiculous. The ODM should properly redesign the chassis' cooling to achieve better thermals. This notebook is good, but it still needs some re-engineering work--especially for the upcoming ATI 4XXX GPUs. BTW what about support for XP and Nvidia?

 

A notebook full of drilling holes costs a lot more then a brand new one with not a single hole? lol!

 

Somehow I doubt those photos were from a K|N notebook. I have an older Executioneer with the base plate mod. The holes he did on mine are 1/2" & 1/4", beveled edged, evenly spaced and dust screened with mesh. I find it hard to believe he'd change the methods on a new model.

 

I love this thread. I will show you a picture of the bottom of mine. Im not going to show you the inside as my temps speak for themselves A Quad core running 5C cooler than almost every duel out their except KN's Duel which are running cooler than mine.

Oh did I mention the bolt on GPU cooler.....You guys can chew on that a bit.

 

Its definately a K|N book. Notice the custom foot pedestools.. Those were designed by them for the OCZ. I actually really like them.

 

Regarding the heatsink mod, I would suggest the possibility that the inside may look somewhat rushed as Mark may have been rushing to get these machines to customers as soon as possible.

For his M570RU heatsink mod, he actually released several iterations of it, and if I recall correctly, also sent out the remodeled baseplates to users who had the older mods. According to him, he only charged shipping for the new baseplates.

Taken from his original thread here.
An example of the older iterations can be found here.


He may do the same for the OCZs, offering a more polished version as he gets more work done on it.

 

I have to agree, he was probably rushed. I mean, everyone wanted these computers when they came out. His cooling mods obviously help at least a little.

I like this quote "absolutely NO sales of heat sink/cooling modifications, proprietary software, tweaks, mods, patches, fixes, drivers, existing or future hardware, upgrades, customizations, support, trade-in or sales of hardware to non Killer Notebooks customers AT ALL so don't ask. We're tired of doing it to be attacked and have our work "piggy backed" and then no credit given."
Whats interesting about this is if you sell someone something, then they will technically be a K|N customer. And he when he says hardware, does he mean computers or the components? Because you can get components much cheaper elsewhere (which is true for anyone in his business. Hes a custom computer builder, not a parts salesman). If he means computers then he is cutting out any future buyers he may have that just learned about him.
I asked awhile back if he would do it for outside members because I was interested in getting some tweaks done with my computer. He said no, so I dont think he ever did sell them or if he did it was to preferred members. Thats understandable, it is his business to run, but I was taken aback by that because it made it seem like he had done those mods in the past to non K|N computers.

I have yet to see that his tweaks do much though. It seems like those speed up the system a little, but a lot of what I have heard from his customers seems to allow the users to do these things too. It works, bottom line, but if I can do it, then I would rather do it myself.

What I am most impressed is the K|N software. From what I understand of it, it seems like a solid software for speeding up the system.

 

Just as a guess based only on the description from their website could Killer Notebook's Core Optimization Program be an improved task manager or at least a program that works with Windows' default task manager to set affinities for apps to use specific cores?


Even if that is actually all it does than it's a real nice piece of software because it beats doing it manually. If it does more than that it's an even better piece of software.

 

I have a copy of KN COP. THe program essential allows you infinte control of program priorites and complete core management. in 2 words:

It Rocks

 

Does it allow a program that doesn't already utilize multiple cores to do so?

 

Do a google on "intel core optimization software" or "Quad core optimization software" - It' vague.. but from the research I did it appears that the software they're offering is just a skinned version of a mainstream mod. *shrugs* I could always be wrong.

 

Everything I've seen on the subject is about setting applications to run on specific cores...so for example you can reserve one core for games and another for background apps.

I haven't seen anything about allowing a program that isn't already written to use multiple cores to do so.

 

You're wrong about a lot of things E-Wrecked.

This guy BLOWS AWAY any "record" you have, IN VISTA, WITH an X9100 and his highest CPU temp is 68... Obviously the cooling mods work.

The non stop bashing and negativity in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary makes you look completely stupid.

 

He's referring to the Quad Core Optimization thing...and he may be right. Intel demonstrated "Turbo Mode" with the QX9300 at IDF, which by purpose is similar to KN COP

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/idf-mobile-gaming-graphics-montevina,6216.html

 

He never said it didnt work RunningGunner. He just said it looked shoddy. Of course it works, he puts more holes in to let in and out air. He also adds on the foot extenders to leave more air circulation. The bottom line with his heat mods is they work. You may not want to pay for them, but they do work.

K|N-Cop seems like a really cool program like I thought. He did a good job at explaining it on his website and giving information about what it actually does. Even if there are other programs that do it like E-wrecked said, its still nice to have it provided with your computer when you buy it. Heck, I'd love to get a copy of it for my computer even if there were others like it.

So mhooper, how important are the tweaks to the system? How much speedier is the boot time and general flow of the computer compared to those without a tweak? Whats your boot time from start to when you see the desktop? I assume you have 64bit vista so I was going to compare it to me.

It seems to me that the tweaks by themselves would certainly be beneficial, but the KN Cop would be what makes those tweaks shine the most.

 

How can you see ANYTHING from those pictures? It looks like a camera phone picture of a picture on a computer monitor to me. It is so grainy you can tell what you are looking at? I can't.

 

My boot up tinme is super quick I will time it tommorow.

Kn Cop allwos me to set priorities of programs and also allows to to allocate task to different cores. Its super easy to use and has a memory back so will save all the data so when you reboot you dont have to do anything.

It is truly ****ing awesome.

 

mhooper1125, is that what your cooling modification done by Killer Notebooks looks like?

 

These tweaks sounds more like tweaked operating system. i.e removing unnecessary background processes etc etc. Just like I do myself. It´s nice to get it out of the box, however things like this is made easy by yourself.

I mean **** I have such an optimized XP system on my old XPS M170, it´s just ridiculous how fast that XP system runs and how smooth games run on it. I have my own tweaks and have done so for many years.

However I think killernotebooks have great notebooks. I would buy one if I didn´t live in Sweden. But who knows my next one might be a KN notebook. Mark seems like a nice guy and would ship the laptop to Sweden so I wouldn´t have to pay any tax for it if I recall that´s what he said. Could be wrong. That was before they banned him from these forums.

 

No mine does not look like that at all. Nothing like it. Mine are perfect on both side and have no rugged edges at all.

It was re-drilled form the underside as well.

The tweaks on Boot yes he does take th eitme to remove all teh bull**** but thats really off point.

His KN- Cop does amazing things. It is one of the most useful mods to optimize every program you would liek to use and get superior results in.

Lets not forget about the bolt on GPU mod in the works...Can we say ****ing insane low temps.

 

As far as other threads with grainy pictures of alleged cooling modifications done by Killer Notebooks. I would like to add this close-up picture of what my CPU cooling looks like. This is about as close as you can get. Your eye would have to be about an inch away to see it like this.


The person who has these "spy shots" has posted NON STOP smearing Killer Notebooks. I can not tell what is in his picture but this should clear up what they look like.

With all the other things this person has said, the one thing I remember clearly was that he modified his own system. I wonder if he had a camera phone nearby for that... or maybe, we've already seen them. What person spends $3,000+ on a notebook, then doesn't have a digital camera?

 

These two things are the ones that I want to talk about. What do you mean really off point? And the bolt gpu mod, whats up with that? I am not very technical so I guess I dont get what you are saying by bolt. Is it like an actual bolt thats going to do something or like an added attachable fan type deal?

 

Sorry for getting in here late.
I for one didnt mod my cpu cooler (heatsink)
I modified the intake manifolds, added massive feet, and upgraded the fans to high performance EBM PAPSTS.

Oh yeah, thanks for stealing my image, anyone with the DW840 would notice that my Clevo D900K does not look like your system at all. Plus that image was taken when I did not have a shell for my laptop. It was bing painted.

The images of the system from the bottom is plain unacceptable in my book. Drilling holes in the case. Come on that is just plain pathetic. Why wouldnt the company just install perforated plastic sheets, and trim them to fit into the cavity of the notebook?
Perforated plastic panels are very cheap to come by and they look much more professional. (Perforated meaning round holes punched into the substrate by a machine- usually on a grid)

I would like to say that those feet are pretty bad. They look like they are made out of metal from the image, which is another bad move. You want to have rubber feet for a few reasons:
1) the rubber creates a lot of grip for the surface - so your laptop doesnt slide
2) has great antivibration properties
3) can be attached with adhesives rather than a screw.

I used heavy rubber grommets as laptop feet on my system. They are designed as rubber feet for gasoline powered power washers. They are designed to take a ton of vibration from the engine and the pump themselves. My rubber grommets were made in the USA, and cost me $12.80 for 4 rubber feet. I used an asphalt based epoxy to mount the feet to my laptop, so they are permanently connected.
If you try to push my system when its on the surface, it is not moving anywhere. Trust me. The 26lb weight and the rubber practically affix the system to the table. You can only move it by picking it up.

If Killer Notebooks wanted to do something productive to cooling their systems, they would have increased the size of the heatsinks, or installed better fans to the system.
Their is no substitute for a good fan, their really isnt.

Also why in the world would any computer manufacturer use 1 fan to cool 2 graphics cards. That is plain silly. Two separate cooling systems, and two separate fans would have been a much better design. The grainy pictures of the inside really shocked me. I guess thats why the system is so cheap, they seem to cut a lot of little corners.

K-TRON

 

Ok..not sure who you think you are, and why you seem to think I am bashing anyone. Obviously you're still stuck in the mentality of "read by pictures".. cause if I browsed a thread such as this..and then saw the pics, I'd also think someone was bashing, until I read that persons comments. I offered pictures that were provided by an unnamed K|N customer. And, I actually made, and restated, that the idea is great. The concept is there..the finished product looks like crap. But, if it's effective..then more power to ya. And as far as the XP run, I could care less. That person still hasn't made their way over here to chat me up and offer a friendly competition. *shrugs* Doesn't hurt my feelings. But, get off your pony-of-a-high-horse and realize that I've got much more talent in my pinky finger that I use to tap my "Enter" key, than you do in your 2 fingers you use to peck on your home-row. I'm not here to be flamed by you, and I do not appreciate it. I simply post the truth, and if you dislike that..then I suggest you go look at other pics, and overlook that writer's comments..Seriously, how old are you? 12? Grow up son, there's better things to do than attack me for posting a random persons' "customized swiss book". Move on.


And by the way, your photoshopped pics need to be touched up. The shading is a bit off.

 

Running Gunner, would you mind calming down?

I understand that you're defending Mark, but being belligerent about it doesn't really help either party.

K-Tron, if you read my earlier post, you will notice that this work was done on very short notice, and K|N has demonstrated a history of working on and improving mods.

 

K-TRON, thaks for the pic, by the way.. It was fitting, and I found it quite humorous given the conversation at the time. And yea, I read that entire thread.. your rig is definately pumped up for pumping out heat. Would be nice to have some custom fans like that.

 

I did see that it was done on short notice, but it would have been better if they just didnt do it at all, and offered their external add on thing later.
In my books, cutting corners or doing a bad job just never cuts it. There is no point to doing something if you dont put your heart into it. Those who want to get the upgraded cooling system would need to send that entire panel in, and that panel would have to be scraped cause of the holes. Waste of material and time to me.
They should have done these mods before the system was offered, but I guess thats just my personal feeling.

By no means am I undermining that they do cool stuff. I just feel that it should have been done right, or not at all. I am all for the modding, cause thats what makes the system that much more unique.

It will be interesting to see what they come up with.

K-TRON