SSD to withstand heat generated in CF-19 Mk 6? (57 degrees Celsius)

Hello, this post is somewhat related to the conclusion from ( http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/tips-for-keeping-cf-19-mk6-cool.833137/).

I currently have a CF-19 Mk6 outfitted with an ADATA SU800 512GB SSD. Despite underclocking the toughbook, right now, if I do any kind of long-term operation with the AC adapter the toughbook ends up freezing and I have to hard-reboot it.

The most significant thing I notice in the logs during freeze/crash is that the SSD is heating up and the SSD decideds to call it quits.

Right now, I am only using the CF-19 with the HDD port and SD/wifi switch port open to let some air circulate (quite effective, CPU at ~80 degrees Celsius and SSD at ~50 degrees Celsius).

Are there special low power, metal SSDs that are supposed to be used for CF-19?

 

According to the data sheet your SU800 can handle up to 70 C.
https://www.adata.com/upload/downloadfile/Datasheet_SU800_EN_20180503.pdf

 

I am aware of the specs but I also know they are bologne. I've had 2 SU800s swapped out under warranty because they died on me. The one in toughbook actually is a brand new replaced one sent back from ADATA.

 

Maybe 70 C for a very very short time?

 

That is possible but even with a HDD, it never reached beyond 60 degrees Celsius, according to the internal HDD thermometer anyways.

 

I've had very good luck with Samsung SSDs. Have not dealt with your heat issue in a newer CF-19, no experience with heat issues, but overall Samsung SSD and memory stick quality has been very good.

 

Its ironic that high temperatures cause freezing!

 

Haha yes... Ironic how we call them.

 

Maybe taking the SSD out of it's factory case will allow it will cool better that way the heat isn't stuck inside the SSD case, or even add some passive cooling fins on the main SSD board, there is lots of room inside the hard drive caddy.

 

[QUOTE="ADOR, post: 11029613, member: 343410SSD " even add some passive cooling fins on the main SSD board, there is lots of room inside the hard drive caddy.[/QUOTE]


Tight fit!

Or maybe like this from a CF-31.

 

They make some really short ones for the raspberry pi. But first if take it out of it's aluminum case, as take the whole SSD board out of it's case. It can breath better and run it like that at first to see how it does.

IF you watch it you can see if all the chips, or just the "brain" or "logic" chip is the one that is getting hot.

Just have to make sure no connectors contact the sides of the metal hard drive caddy from the SSD.

I wasn't talking about not using the metal caddy, but removing the factory case from the SSD.

 

Right now on a CF-19Mk5
120gb Sanddisk ssd
Linux 20 on a 22 in monitor at 1680x1050

 

safn, what is your exact SSD model?

Also for others, I don't want to void the warranty on my current SSD, but I am not opposed to using one of my spare M2 SSD with SATA adapter and some form of cooling mod.

 

Right now I have been powered on and using my Mk5 for 4 hours, SSD at 45c. CPU at 70c. I am going to say you might need to change your CPU cooling pad, my temps dropped by using an SSD as the WD Blue was so hot it was hard to hold on to. I use my 19 for a desktop running a monitor as it has no battery and it runs all night doing torrents. I had a CF-F9 running 95c with a plugged fan outlet and it did not freeze, get rid of that brand of drive would be my next move.

SanDisk SSD PLUS 2.5 120GB SATA III Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) SDSSDA-120G

 

Any suggestions of thermal pads? I just tried one from a local store on the CPU, and the temperature pretty much stayed at 80~100 degrees Celsius. After that, I cleaned the original pads in isopropanol and re-applied it. It's back at 50 degrees Celsius now.

I know a bit about thermal paste, but pads. No clue...

 

Shawn is the guy with the info on thermal pads, lets see if he is around.

 

For CPU usage and if you need thickness your best bet will be Fujipoly Extreme XR-m:
https://www.amazon.com/mod-smart-Fujipoly-Extreme-Thermal/dp/B00ZSJQLME

Those are hard thermal pads, so only use them on CPU and GPU dies where the system heatsink already used thermal pads.

For the best thermal performance, you might want to instead buy a couple of cooper shims with 0.3, 0.5m and 1mm thickness and them match them to the thickness that the thermal pad is now covering and then use thermal paste betweem the shims and the heatsink and the CPU die, that will give you the best possible outcome, but the Fujipoly extreme pad will also perform almost as good as the cooper shim.

 

Thanks senso. I will give Fujipoly a try.

On another topic. I am observing now that the lapto seems to freese at CPU ~80 degrees Celsius but SSD at 57 degrees Celsius. During the freeze the windows explorer doesn't respond until I open google chrome and several other functions and then finally un-freezes.

I am starting to wonder if this can be OS/software issue. I have already run sfc, chkdsk and a handful of other tools to check and non positive. Only worry is that this SSD has been cloned off of a HDD and the W10 installation might have gotten "funny" in process.

 

Fujipoly Ultra Extreme System Builder Thermal Pad Thermal Conductivity 17.0 W/mK

 

It'll take a while for me to find a supplier who can send it to Switzerland

 

How about this one?
https://www.ebay.ca/itm/EC360-GRAPH...=12402061521846192a0dffa046dfb37060238806ca14

 

I assumed that you where in US, because lots of people here are from the US..

Fujipoly is a bit hard to source in EU, when I bought it, it was from an eBay store, you can get the Thermal Grizzly Minus Pad 8, with a 8mW/K thermal conductivity that should also perform good:
https://www.caseking.de/en/thermal-grizzly-minus-pad-8-120-20-2-0-mm-zuwa-144.html

And caseking will ship to Switzerland.

What is the current thermal thickness pad that is on the CPU?

That thermal pad seems a bit two thin, its used to be used instead of thermal paste, so you might not be able to use that pad.

 

I am going to try this one: https://www.ebay.ca/itm/Alphacool-1...336837?hash=item1a0766f205:g:SdwAAOSwjCBd9~de
17W/mK seems reasonably good.

 

I am quite convinced that the freezing is the SSD issue. I've been compiling some heavy programs for the past hour.

The CF-19 has its SD card port and HDD ports open with a big man-size room fan. The SSD is at 37 degrees Celsius now, and the CPU at above 90 degrees Celsius constantly, but no freeze happening.

Going back to the topic. This is an issue with this specific SSD it seems like.

 

I agree. I have never had this problem. My CF-19 has over 10k hours on it and has seen better days.

 

here is a good thread to read.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/cf19-mk6-thermal-pads.820916/#post-10760226

 

Uhoh... Does that mean the 1mm thick pad I've ordered are too thin?

 

After reading what Shawn wrote, I've also ordered ( https://www.ebay.ca/itm/EC360-PLATI...938054?hash=item1a9485ac46:g:jgwAAOSwwJ1eR~4r).

I'll maybe try the 1mm one first and if there is not enough contact/heating issue, I will swap out to 1.5mm one. Shawn have you tried re-padding (such a weird thing to say) the heatpipe to chassis contact?

 

Yes I have installed new pads on the heat pipes.

 

Was it worth it at the end? I mean my CF-19 was ever serviced before.

 

Yes it was worth it. I already had the unit apart. Only took a few more minutes to replace ALL the pads.

 

I will consider it when I have thermal pads. I will have "some" left overs after applying it to PCH and CPU.

 

To answer myself. I just received and installd the 1mm thick thermal pad on the PCH and CPU. I am still testing but so far I am extremely impressed.

1. 1 mm may be thick enough as far as I screw the MB in tight. I may change if the results of the tests are not satisfactory.
2. On boot CPU reached ~ 70 degrees Celsius on boot, then idling at ~40 C and compiling using 4 cpu threads at ~90 C.
Weirdly the SSD is also running cooler at ~40 C compared to before ~55 C.

Before installing the new pad, it was
CPU: boot/idle/4 thread compile: 80 C/50 C/100 C
SSD: >55 C.

After installing the new pad:
CPU: boot/idle/4 thread compile: 70 C/45 C/85 C
SSD: <50 C.

I am writing and posting this while compiling using all 4 threads. Before the new pads, that would have been impossible!

I am confused as to why the SSD is running cooler. I have not yet replaced the thrmal pads to the frame. Just from the CPU and PCH to heatpipes (not enough pads to do that yet)

 

The extra heat may have been heat soak from the CPU to the SSD case.

 

The 1.5mm 16.6W/mK pad ( https://www.ebay.ca/itm/EC360-PLATI...938054?hash=item1a9485ac46:g:jgwAAOSwwJ1eR~4r) arrived and while installing new pads from heatpipes to chassis I've noticed several things:

1. The 1mm thremal pad (https://www.ebay.ca/itm/Alphacool-1...336837?hash=item1a0766f205:g:SdwAAOSwjCBd9~de) does make "decent" thermal contact for CPU and PCH chips. I can tell by the indentations left on the pad.
   
   
2. The contact is not strong and not very uniform as the texture of the pads (for the non-stick plastic film) remained. Furthermore no "sticky" resistance when I was pulling the motherboard out. Such resistance was present when I was taking out the original pads.
   
   
3. As a result, I replaced the 1mm 17W/mK pads with 1.5mm 16.6W/mK pads.
   
   
4. The Alphacool 1mm 17W/mK is not realy reusable. Optimally anyways, it turns into puddy.
   
   
5. Heatpipe to chassis only had 1 very old, thin thermal pad. I replaced it with rolled up small pieces of the Alphacool 17W/mK thermal pads.

Overall after re-padding heatpipes to chassies and swapping out the 1mm 17W/mK thermal pads with 1.5mm 16.6W/mK thermal pads results in the following condition:

Original stock pads:
CPU: boot/idle/4 thread compile: 80 C/50 C/100 C
SSD: >55 C.

1mm 17W/mK pads without re-padding thermal pads from heatpipe to chassis
CPU: boot/idle/4 thread compile: 70 C/45 C/85 C
SSD: <50 C.

1.5mm 16.6W/mK pads with re-padding thermal pads from heatpipe to chassis
CPU: boot/idle/4 thread compile: 60 C/40 C/80 C
SSD: <40 C.

Testing will resume but so far, I am very happy to see such improvement.

 

Results of 24 hours testing:
My CF-19 can now 100% function as expected out from a i5-3320m laptop. 4 thread compiling and simulating does reach up to 100 degrees Celsius at short times. I can even game (Empire Total war) while resting it on my bed without too much issue.

It feels like I finally have a working CF-19 since I left Canada (I'm in Switzerland now).

Until now, due to overheating issue (not a problem in Canada for most of the year since everyone uses A/C and it is much cooler in Canada. Europe doesn't use A/C, not even in cars, and is much warmer), most I used the CF-19 for was using it as a router and firewall. I felt it was a shame because it even has 16GB of RAM, and overheating prevented it from being used as anything. Now I think I am going to use it as a serious laptop again.

Unrelated though is that I may end up getting an emissive chiclet keyboard ( https://www.ebay.ca/itm/Panasonic-C...417666?hash=item2ac5a2f582:g:nFYAAOSwoFNcOvsU) because I do really want to keep the backlight, and the current rubber backlit keyboard is seriously annoying me. I do have two non-backlit chiclet keyboards in Canada but they were impossible to use in the dark.

 

I have the rubber backlit keyboard on a cf19mk6 It looks cool and such but not really practical to use typing. It is great for waterproof though

 

I too have the rubber backlit keyboard installed. I can kind of get used to it, but when I switch back to other computers I typically "attack" the keyboard maybe too aggressively.

I'm almost perfectly fine with this keyboard except when I am typing in passwords or writing programs.

 

And today and yesterday, my 6 yr old managed to overheat the SSD in a CF-30Mk1 and crash it,they leave it on the bed or sofa until its so hot you can hardly touch the bottom, mind you it is 35c here all year. So it got a 5400 rpm drive thats old as dirt. When it fails it will get a 32gb nano usb running Linux. If it can be broke,he is the little man to do it.

 

I can't comment at all about how to deal with your overheating SSD, or the 5400rpm HDD because my problem went away by changing thermal pads but external USB, I use ( https://www.ebay.ca/itm/SSD-Enclosu...var=424998637721&_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649) for external-OS. It does get hot, but at least it's outside the chassis.

Now that I can think of it, I did have a 5400rpm and a 7200rpm 2.5" HDD in my CF-19 before, and both overheated at some point but I don't think either froze or crashed ever.

 

what speeds are you getting with the nvme drive on usb 3. I use sata ssd on usb 3

 

Honestly, USB3 and heat are the limiting factor for NVMe enclosure. I have several configurations:

• 2 x 2242 Toshiba 240GB Sata B+M key, for Linux and backup.
• 2 x 2280 512GB NVMe M key, for Linux and backup.
• All adapter I bought have USB 3.0 and USB 3.1 Type-C (most expensive version).
• Warning, the USB 3.0 port on CF-19 needs a bit of extension (I use a spare antenna extender that I got from Logitech wireless keyboard/mouse) to accommodate the enclosure.

I cannot give you any numbers because crystaldiskinfo is not recognizing the interface board.

From a quick test from moving my system SSD <-> USB3.0/3.1-C 100GB transfer, we're looking at on average 200MB/s either ways for any configurations.

I didn't get these adapters for speed, I only got them because adapters for M key M2 SSDs are impossible to find elsewhere. Most manufactureres and sellers mislabel them. Even my supplier on e-bay, despite I told him that the enclosure works for M and B+M keys, he hasn't corrected it. He says it only works for M key but not for B+M or B.

 

That is what i was wondering about the nvme usb. I will get on in the future just for computer repair. Now i been using msata. I never fixed a computer so far with the nvme. Msata are cheap where i live. Was even using msata to sata boards for internal drives. Now ssd sata drives the prices are cheap. I can easily get 350 speeds on that and its probably usb limit. Fast enough though.
You are running linux off usb on a cf-19? I tested many and so far on the Debian line, mint is the best, or manjaro if you like arch. On the cf-19 i left windows on it though, .

 

Honestly if you have the money and it's more economical to go for SATA or mSATA + enclosure + USB3 adapter, there is no real advantage of buying USB3 enclosure for NVMe...

I only got them because I have spare M key and B+M NVMe cards, but it's really to not waste the drives, not for the speed.

I use OpenSUSE. I did try Mint/Ubuntu/Debian a long time ago (on other computers) but I haven't since I switched to OpenSUSE.

 

I've recently acquireda CAT S60 phone with built-in FLIR and decided to have some fun. I took thermal images of the toughbook by the keyboard at idle with and without PSU attached, and also at 100% performance for extended periods of time. Pictures go in the following order:

1. Keyboard while Idle with PSU unattached.
2. Keyboard at 100% usage (without undervolting and without hyperthreading off) for 30 minutes.
3. HDD/battery ports from 2.
4. MicroSD+Expresscard ports from 2.

For some reason I didn't realize that the heatpipe actually runs on top of the HDD caddy. That explains how the SSD/HDD has been heating up a lot and how the thermal pad change cooled things up. Also, it explains why the left corner of the keyboard gets heat up.

All tests done with all ports closed other than the side USB 3.0 port and power port. I opened the microSD/HDD/battery ports only for the picture.

 

Just a follow up to ( http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/tips-for-keeping-cf-19-mk6-cool.833137/page-2) and this thread;
The EC360 Platinum ( https://www.coolsierra.com/collections/thermal-pad/products/ec360-platinum?variant=39855892594828) pad somehow "dried up" after a year or so and now I idle at 50~80C at ambient 10~15C and I am unimpressed.

I have now ordered the Alphacool 17W/mK 1.5mm ( https://www.coolsierra.com/collecti...r-m-17w-mk-thermal-pad?variant=39855941025932) and will see if that dries up the same. The Alphacool I had ordered before was 1.0mm and it seemed to not contact very well but still outperformed EC360 right from the get go and I hpe it also lasts longer.

I am surprised that the thermal PADs dry up!

 

I opened the CF-19 to find out that the old crums from rolled up 1.0mm Alphacool 17W/mK falling off of the contact to chassis, EC360 was actually fully intact and "wet" but I still decided to replace it with Alphacool 17W/mK 1.5mm just because of the rating. At first the results were horrible and that was my fault because I forgot the take the plastic film off the CPU pad, after I removed it, everything is ice cool once again.

I've also replaced and reinforced all of the thermal pads contacting to the chassis with Phobya 1mm 7W/mK ( https://www.galaxus.ch/en/s1/produc...7-wm-k-thermal-grease-2448095?supplier=406802) left over from repasting/padding my ASUS ROG 702VSK. Mind you these Phobya are not adhesive so I made sure they are held tight in place by the screws.

The results now are better than anything recorded before.

~30C idle, ~65C on boot, under 95C even after 6 hours of continuous 4 thread compiling at 100%CPU, no thermal/power throttling.