Clevo P150 and P170 cooling systems neglected by Clevo! (solutions here)

It was with the Mobility HD2600, at that time I still don't have much knowledge about laptop cleaning, when I opened up, what's funny there is that 70% of the fins were blocked by dust and became like soild look. I had to use small screw driver's tip to shave the solid dust off.

By the way that HD2600 is still working fine right now, and full load temp peaks at 76C. 130C didn't break it . I've been cleaning the vent every 1-2 months after seeing the shocking solid dust on the fin.

 

I still don't believe that was reaching 130Cº...

I believe more in bad thermal sensors, which is very common, like I have seen lot's of laptops reporting 120Cº on idle...

Usually inside thermal sensors are not very accurate, and the worst is there's lot's of bad manufactured ones, which always report completely wrong temperatures.


And my Asus with Core 2 duo and Nvidia go7300 was shuting down at around 100Cº. (the plastic case even burned after lot's of times reaching that temp and always shutingdown)

Don't know how the GPU can reach 130Cº and not die, that is way too much heat for the 105Cº GPU to support, and the solder would probably start moving (you may had luck that the gpu didn't moved a single half millimetre or less giving a short under it).


ps: Also what kind of software did you use to watch the temps? Ati drivers?
Keep Cool

 

Things happen just you haven't seen it yourself yet . With 70% of the fins fully blocked it's possible to happen on the die that's produced in 65nm . And it's still alive and running strong also it's been 3 years after that solid dust is cleaned . I doubt the temp report is incorrect because it idles at 48C right now. If it's incorrectly reported and adds another 20 or 30C on top of the real temp, idle at 20C sounds unreal.

 

You lucky BAST*** .

I don't think any card has lived for 3 years on my hands, Dont know why, and it isn't because of dust. X1800GTO lasted around 3 years though, but in 2 years it started to give texture corruptions and a year later, black screen...

ps: I don't know why everything just die on me, grrrrrrr...
Keep Cool

 

I am reminded of this:
<iframe width='420' height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Sw9-aP__lJA" frameborder='0' allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

My previous sony vaio before the ASUS died on me in 2 years, was with a Mobility Radeon 9700, at that time I didn't even bother cleaning because of needing full disassembly just to access the vent. But this Asus was lucky that I decided to open up and have a look , because the access is just through a panel. After all that I clean it like every 1-2 months, at the moment it lives the longest from all my notebooks.

 

i dont like that video... what processor doesnt idle around 40*c? and it freezes? bs... take those readings again.

 

You're right, that could not be right.

 

Yeah, I remember that video pretty well .

But you should have used the other of cpu's exploding .


Imagine doing that to an intel extreme and in a GTX590... NUCLEAR BOOOOOOOM lol

Yep, looks odd, but hey they are old CPU's too which back then barely needed a fan. The pentium IV may be the most strange, even a 1600mhz goes lot above those temps too... It may be something detecting no heatsink in it so it locks and doesn't allow temperature to rise... who knows.

I had P1 and my PIII was from like 98 or so, but never remember my self to check the temperature back then.

Never cared about temperatures for them, so I never ever searched about it. But who know, it might really have a built in protection that makes the cpu to lock at like 45Cº? and so temperatures don't rise more... Or it may be because it's power consumption would be so low, that doesn't even let it go beyond 40Cº, or also some kind of cooler detector that freezes it...
Keep Cool

 

GTX680M 3DMark11 at stock clock temperature:

Before the mod: 69C
After the mod: 62C (air redirecting + foil + copper sink):

Mod inside the fan

Spoiler

Mod inside the case (Prevent used air at fin area from recycling)

Spoiler

 

Nice work. I liked the huge difference on such small thing. And people say blahblahblah it's not worth it, just put thermal compound and ur good (They don't have a clue how much problems there are related to heat . And also the less heat, the more vitality components should have, that's always a plus).

I think I still have those memory little coolers somewhere around, but don't know if they will fit into W110ER. And I would have to get a way to securely fix them in-place, because if the thermal sticker gets out they may short-out the board. (I take my laptop on my motorcycle, and it takes so much skaking...). Don't know if hot glue to the sides won't melt under heavy temps.

Thank you!
Keep Cool

 

Hot glue wouldn't be a good idea. You could remove all the adhesive and use thermal glue instead. It would be permanent though.

 

The thermal adhesive I used is 3M #8815 thermal tape, it's very secured. Doesn't stain after taken off too.

 

This may be more refined and effective than 3M tape:

Arctic Silver Thermal Adhesive

 

That one is a permanent adhesive though.

 

Yep, I know that one. But Idon't think it will be good, if you have a big problem, and have to send it back to repair?
Keep Cool

 

Yea.. If you are to remove the ram sinks it'd be really hard to do it.

Edit: By the way I think there's a reason why the back panel's air intake is smaller than the actual fan intake. To create stronger suction for the cool air coming from the subwoofer hole and the vent above the VRAM area? I notice the temperature got better after I allow it to only the open path facing the GPU area and the subwoofer hole/VRAM vent, I could feel the air movement around the subwoofer hole/VRAM vent got stronger. And it surely helps to take away the heat dissipated from the high fin copper sinks I put on the copper plate in that position.

 

What kind of settings do people generally choose when stress-testing with Kombustor?

Just clicking "Burn-In" on 1080p maxes my card out at 90C in a minute and a half.
On the other hand, using the 3D Tests tab with 1080p and 8x MSAA, only gets me to 90C after six minutes.

I'm confused as to the numbers people are posting on here. What kind of Kombustor runs are you doing?

 

I use the 720p "burn in" test which comes bundled with the latest Afterburner anyway, AA off. I reach 95 Celsius after 5 minutes on stock paste and cooling. GPU util is 83%

Strangely enough on 1080p with 8x MSAA I get 82 Celsius max after 5 minutes .... on 97% GPU util how is that possible?

The point of kombustor is just to stress the dGPU to see how hot it can get and if it's within the margins that everyone is reporting I'm satisfied. It also provides you with a before-after indicator of how good your mods/paste/case cleanliness are.

 

I pushed down on the gpu lightly, cut out the grill entirely for both fans(no mesh at all) and left them open. I also add tape to hr heat sink fan area. Are there any programs that monitor the cpu/gpu and harddrive tempratures all in one freeware?

I have no mesh on my fans, I hope it wont be a problem. I clean the are of dust every so often. I also have a notepal slim laptop cooler under it. Anything else I should do? I have no way of controlling the fans I am not sure how you guys are doing it.

 

I use HWmonitor. Works fine for me.
There is no way of controlling the fans, other than the Fn+1 for max fans if your system allows it.
I would really consider getting some mesh, at least to prevent anything from getting caught in the fans.

 

What exactly is that black foam stuff you used? It looks like a worthwhile mod because it would stop the used air from being sucked back in while allowing the CPU/GPU fans still pull the standing air from around the memory sticks/etc due to the suction created by the small intake vents(perhaps this was purposely designed this way).

 

I was using closed cell foam sheet 3mm thick ones, but I'm sure 2mm will work better, for 3 mm ones it's kinda hard to fit the back panel back on unless it's been compressed. And yes that was their purpose of making the back panel intake smaller than the actual fan intake.

The reason I choosed closed cell foam is because those have great heat resistance up to at least 90C, some can even take up to 110C.

 

Alright, thanks for the information. I'll probably pick some up and arrange it in a similar way to what you have. Mind telling me what you used to stick it on? Or does it have a sticky side like tape on one side?

EDIT: Also, where did you get yours?

 

1 side was self-adhesive, was using the search term closed cell foam sheets on Ebay.

 

My W110 has a similar gap between the cooler and fan, but on inside of the bottom cover, is a well position piece of foam, that closes this game completely. Similarly the holes for the fan are not ever so large, but this is done by design to draw air in through other holes in the case - usually around the RAM and chipset. I'd have to see one to properly assess the thermodynamics but I suspect Clevo have already run thermal simulations and tweaked the design/airflow to suit.

There is no excuse for bad contact though, the design should incorporate tolerances for poorly manufactured parts.

I wish I had time to re-design and manufacture an improved system for you guys, but I need a few months to clear existing projects, and have already started working on the W110 cooler in my spare time for some fun.
.

 

I found some but the shipping to canada is 44 dollars, not really worth it. I'll need to have a look around local stores to see if I can find it somewhere here first.

Sintra PVC Closed Cell Foam Sheet .080" x 24" x 48" - White | eBay

 

I'd really like to get my Dremel to that plastic bottom and aspirate the fan.
But I also like my warranty.. can I get a replacement bottom somewhere to work on instead of marking for life the original one?

 

Any reseller should able to get hold of one.

 

I did my mod and found something interesting by accident. Basically, you do not need to do the pressure thingy and washer mod. I'm not trying to debunk this mod, but I just want to share my findings. Please feel free to comment.

Basically, when you removed the heatsink and exposed the video card, you can see a metallic ring that goes all around the GPU. Right in the center is the die of the GPU. The metallic ring is where the heatsink sits and all pressure is applied. When I removed the heatsink, I found Sager had only apply the thermal paste to the die, not around the metallic ring. The mod taught us to first test it by applying pressure around the 4 corners in order to determine which location is the best to apply the pressure. That allows better contact between the heatsink to the ring, and the result is a drop in temperature. I didn't realize until after I applied the thermal paste. I tried to do the pressure test and found there is no drop/difference in temperature,

In conclusion (for my case), all you need to do is to apply thermal paste to the metallic ring.

I tried to upload a picture, but it's not allowing me.

 

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This is my mod, nothing but aluminum tape was used and temperature did gone down considerably.

Before mod playing GW2 would get my GPU to 74+ degrees at best situation, now my temp floats within 67-70 degrees, peaking at 75. Great results.

 

^^ very nice +rep

 

I'm thinking about bending my heatsink for better pressure but before I do that; 83C at Furmark (with open lid and extra pressure on core) is normal? I'll reinstall thermal paste anyway but I'm scared about doing something to copper parts.

 

Your tape is positioned in different areas than was discussed in the OP. Would you explain why you put the tape in the spots you did?

 

Don't bend the pipes. You will screw up your system.

Also, do read my post in page 28 about the pressure test. I personally don't believe it's a pressure problem. It's a matter of applying the thermal paste.

there is a metallic ring surrounding the GPU die, and that is where all the heat sink sits on, and where all the pressure of the heat sink applies to. If all the pressure applies to the die of the GPU, it will crack it. All the pressure test did was allowing better contact between the ring surrounding the GPU to the hest sink. By adding thermal paste to the ring, it does exactly the same thing by allowing better contact from the ring to the heatsink.

* THE PRESSURE TEST HAS NOTING TO DEAL WITH THE CONTACT BETWEEN THE DIE OF THE GPU TO THE COPPER HEATSINK ONE YOU APPLY THE THERMAL TEST*

After I applied thermal paste around the ring, the pressure test did absolutely nothing.

 

By looking at the picture, I think that is the only place where there is room to add the tape.

Interesting approach by adding thermal mass to the heatsink to help dissipate heat. However, I'm more concern with the aluminum tape that's located on the inner pipe. Directly at the bottom is the circuitry of the vid card. The aluminum tape is kind of flapping around, By a stroke of bad luck and if the tape does get into contact with the circuit board, it's bye bye vid card.

 

So heres my problem... Can someone tell me what is that thing on heatsink? It's definitely not thermal material because they are not that little. It must be dirt... Yes!
But seriously... Who is responsible for this? Clevo or reseller?



I reappllied thermal paste Furmark is at least 5C cooler and it'll definitely drop with time. Temperature increases very very slow. I don't think I'll ever see 80 in game right now.

 

I'm going to make use of the picture from post 287.

The ring I mentioned is as marked on the picture.

Also, you can remove the insulator. It does not need to be there if you apply your thermal paste correctly. Be really careful if the thermal paste you use is electrically conductive (e.g. Artic Silver 5). It's purpose is there, just in case people over apply thermal paste and over flow to the circuits below.

 

Just want to update my previous comment about adding thermal paste to the ring. It does not work. I bought new thermal paste, Tuniq TX-2 and want to try it out. I removed the heatsink and found that the thermal paste on the ring did not come in contact with the heatsink. I did a further check and found that the die of the GPU is actually higher than the ring. So, I apologize and retract my comment about adding the thermal paste to the ring.

 

I found it interesting that no one really mentioned the fact that the factory applies too much thermal paste. After changing my thermal paste myself, I saw temperatures drop from 85 celcius to 65 celcius. (P170HM3)

 

just bought a clevo p150em. Been testing with the video card and cooling. My system runs stable with an oc of 980 and 1350 on the memory (forgot to mention, 7970m).

I did change the original cooler paste, with noctua coolerpaste that came with my desktop nd-h14, and also did the aluminium tape mod. With this overclock, if I play far cry 3, in ultra settings (DX9 off course, because of the artifacts in dx11), I have a stable temperature of 81 degrees. That is the game that stresses the clevo the most...

Is this a safe temperature, or should I look into modding more?

 

81C when overclocked and running an intensive title is fine

 

Is there a custom backplate out there, where the rubber bumpers have been moved away from the fans and with more holes open? or has everyone been doing it themselves?

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk HD

 

The ones that have done it have done it by themselves as far as I know.

 

Images not working :/

 

My images or did he post something?

 

i was going to actually mod some for some people but i just havent had time. ive been building and refining my 3d printer, which would actually allow me to manufacture a better backplate from scratch. but i havent had the time to design a new one, not to mention that my printer isnt large enough yet to make that large of a piece. i have however had some time to design some feet that would stick over the existing ones and would flip out to allow more airflow.

also i still find it funny that there are no heatsinks on half of the ram chips on the nvidia cards. i have some little micro heatsinks that i want to try but they would have to be lower than 4mm to fit into that little space, without shorting stuff out. actually it says they are like 3.3mm so it should work, and would allow for more overclocking on the ram...

 

3D printers are so cool! If you ever do make a really good real-world functional grate design I think I'd be a client.

 

GDDR5 and DDR3 don't need additional cooling, even the new Nvidia Titan has exposed ram chips at the back and they expect them to be sandwiched next to a second card.

 

The Titan and all Desktop GPU also have huge fans that blow air across the whole card and out the back of the case, and this includes the heat from the ram. And most of the cases do in fact provide cooling for the GDDR5, which is why they are often arranged close to the core.