Guide to lowering high pch temperature in w860/w870cu

The pch temperature (mb southbridge) in my w860cu has always been on the high side idling in the 70s and getting to the high 80's at load (you can use hwinfo64 to check it). However, after swapping the 5870m for a 7970m, it started breaking 100°C at load prompting some action. I've found a pretty easy way to lower it about ~10°C during idle and ~20°C! at load so I've written this quick guide in case anyone else wishes to lower their pch temps. Laptop PCH's are known to run a bit warm, but with the location of this chip underneath the video card in this model, I wouldn't be surprised if others have similar issues with "extra" warm.

What you'll need:
w8xxcu service manual available here
Screwdriver
thermal pads (check the specs to make sure they're not electrically conductive)
canned air
10 minutes

Fine print first: I take no responsibility if you somehow manage to mess your laptop up in this process. Having said though, it is a very straightforward mod, has given me great results, and can be undone easily if you so wish.


1. On the w860cu mb, the pch (marked 1) is actually located on the topside so you can't access it by just popping the back cover off. However, clevo was nice enough to make a hole underneath the keyboard which is quite easy to remove. There are detailed instructions on keyboard removal in the service manual. All you have to do is take the back cover off, push on a peg to pop the top bezel off, and then unscrew the keyboard. Unlike what the manual says, you do not need to remove the gpu or cpu heatsinks.


2. Now that the keyboard is off, you can see the pch through the hole. Even though I do monthly dust cleanings for the fans, I never thought to clean the topside of my mb...so my pch had some dust on it. Get some canned air and clean anywhere you can see through to the mb while making sure to get the pch area extra clean. You can use some isopropyl alcohol on the pch die if you want to go the extra mile.


3. So how do we cool this down? Instead of counting on the tiny amounts of air flow there to cool it, we can help by using our nice aluminum backed keyboard as a heatsink. I find it does a good job of spreading that heat out. We will need to bridge the gap between the pch and keyboard with some thermal pads so cut some to size and squish them onto the pch. I had to use two layers of 1mm pads, but depending on how squishy yours are, you may have to use more/less. Just make sure it's high enough to make good contact with the keyboard casing.


4. Put it all back together, boot up, and check the temps. Before, doing this, my idle/load was 73/101°C after an hour of bf3. Now it has dropped to 60/83°C! While still a bit toasty at load, the drop was significant and the temps are now much more comfortable. I don't notice any extra heat on the keyboard. Hope this helps your pch temps!

 

This is the same trick acer pull, nice guide

 

using the aluminum-backed keyboard as a heatsink! ingenious good job buddy

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

 

Yeah, have to do the same with P150EM. I reduced the temp from 95C to 60C on this machine. I also used thermal pad and used some aluminum tape. Worked fine here.

 

typical, the PCH on the P150HM is not readily accessible as it seems... would probably have to dismantle the whole machine before i can get to it

 

Same on the P150EM. I had cut away the piece of plastic covering it.

 

well thats another option Ill check and see what kinda temps i get first before i start cutting away at the chassis ^^ seems to be idling around 64°C, looking good so far.

 

Try playing a game. It rocketed to 95C for me.

 

yeah sure, im planning to check on load temps as well, of course. ill come back to you guys once i got some data.

 

in my W370ET, the PCH is veeery easy to access trough the back plate.
Its under the 2-nd SATA-3 slot (and it was the reason I moved my HDD to the ODD caddy).
Its toasting-hot but Im too lazy to try any mods on it.
Let it melt for all I care.
Damn thing is a nuclear powerplant by itself.

 

looking good, just did a one and a half hour gaming session and the PCH peaked out at 81°C no need to take my machine completely apart i guess

 

Wierd, Mine has never broke 54c... Even with the 7970m. Any reasons for such high temps on your part?

 

SSDs will stress the chip more with all the IO.

 

makes sense

 

You can see similar jumps with things like raid, or titles that stream data as you move.

 

Hi
I have clevo 150SM with msata SSD and 780m and i am having high temepratures for PCH ~ 90C while playing for example Battlefield 3.
High temps on PCH makes fans blast full speed, while GPU and CPU are ~ 80C

What do I need to take out to get to the PCH?

Cause what i saw from the service manual it is not going to be easy way

 

The fans will fully ramp up when the CPU/GPU hit 80C, this is a good thing.

 

So the fan table in EC does not take into account PCH temps?

 

Typically not as they are specced to run even above 100C (which you want to avoid but it can operate normally).