Precision M4800 CPU upgrade, TDP concerns

Just sat down and did about 1/6 of the work on the CPU fan grill. It's tedious, so, taking a break.
Pretty happy with how it is turning out. I picked this pattern to avoid drilling into two adjacent holes, but you can see that I messed it up in one spot and the grill is still intact.



Will finish as I work on it on and off over the next few days...
I'm only going to consider working on the GPU fan grill if I see any sort of decent improvement on the CPU temperatures after this is done. I have minor issues with the CPU throttling but the P5000 GPU hits the power limit before it heat throttles.

 

Went ahead and finished it up this evening. Once I figured out what I was doing and got into a "groove" it progressed much more quickly.





If my math is right, doubling the diameter of 1/3 of the holes should actually double the total area of all of the holes.
Anyway. It did improve temperatures. Idle / light background activity temperature seems to have dropped from mid/upper 40's to right around 40 or upper 30's. (Fan running 50%, a number of background apps running but no serious work being done.) Under full load (Handbrake video encoding, fans running 100%) it is able to hold the temperature at right around 80 and it is now spending almost all of its time at max turbo.

 

@Aaron44126

Don't bother with this seller. I bought the two fans for the M6800 from him via eBay, as I don't usually trust China sellers.

The fans are indeed Delta fans as per the eBay auctions. However, the next part is the surprise or more like a shock.

I was expecting Grade B parts as a bare minimum since it wasn't mentioned in his auctions. The seller doesn't have a concept of Grade A, B, C or D for the parts.

The GPU fan was Grade C physically, with two rust spots on the black metal plate which I can sort of accept. On the other side, where the metal is gray, there were scuff marks and all but still ok. However the item was DOA.

The CPU fan was worst than Grade C, I would place it at Grade D-. The black metal plate had so many rust spots it wasn't funny! Even the screws holding the black metal plate to the fan body was rusted and it was extremely bad! I didn't even bothered to test it as it is clearly not fit for purpose. Imagine the damage the rust can do to the internals of a laptop if it were to fall off and cause short circuits! Pushing a Grade D- on a customer without even mentioning!

Wrote to the seller and his reply was I never mentioned to him that I require items that were physically in good condition. He says the CPU fan works and that's all he covers for and reminds me the items are "Used". He just palmed off the DOA GPU fan by saying all items were tested prior to shipping.

I replied and gave him another chance to send me replacements. If he doesn't bother then I'm referring the two items to eBay for full refund. The two items belong in the bin IMHO.

Lucky for me, due to my mistrust of such China sellers, I bought the items off eBay just for the buyer's protection. Although it costs a bit more than directly from the seller's website, the buyer's protection is well worth it in my situation.

 

Glad I didn't end up going with this one. I ended up getting a GPU fan from eBay seller "hk-part" — it is a Chinese seller but they sent me what was promised — and a CPU fan one-off from a UK seller. I also tried a different China seller for the CPU fan who sent me the "DBJBA" fan that I mentioned, after promising a Delta fan, I got a refund for that one from eBay; and I ordered another CPU fan from Latvia that ended up being Sunon.

I did end up with a Delta M6800 GPU fan, detailed above, I was trying to fit it in for a M6700 CPU fan (they are mostly the same shape). I'd offer to send it to you but I basically destroyed the power connector when trying different wire combinations, trying to get it working in the M6700... Anyway, it came from here. It didn't seem like M6800 Delta GPU fans were hard to find.

 

I'm going back with my usual Dell parts suppliers in the US. They have the best customer service and quality parts but shipping is a bit dear at times. At least they will indicate in their listings regarding the part's physical condition.

I will take you up on your kind offer! I can reuse your fan by recycling the parts from the other Delta fan! I'll pay you for shipping.

Let's take this offline.

 

Yeah I got a GPU fan from this seller, it is in bad condition cosmetic wise.
Rust spots and bent cage but that was easy to bend back, there was some rust spots on the stator but the windings was not damaged so I cleaned it off with IPA and lubricated the center and shaft and put it together.
Apart from the cosmetic it is in new condition, no bad sound or unbalanced as it is a sleeve bearing, I ordered another one to see if I will receive the same item again.
The seller is not very cooperative and seem to not understand anything you ask them...the only answer they have for everything is "look at the image for reference".
For me it was about cost and availability, yes its possible to keep an eye on ebay day in and day out and there are maybe three gpu fans on sale at the moment that indicate that the image is what you get and not only a stock reference photo.

I have maybe three or four US based sellers who are reliable because they take a real image of the actual item being sold, however it seems to pop up quite a few more fans since the last month.
I went for china because at the time of ordering there was nothing on ebay and Parts-people often never have anything in stock so you have to be very fast indeed to place an order for what you need if you see they have some in stock.
I just bought an AMD heatsink from Parts-people and got it the other day so they are very good to deal with.

https://www.ebay.com/usr/electro_bego
https://www.ebay.com/str/dynamictechdirect <-- this store uses stock image for ads with more than 1 stocked item and real image for ads on a single item
https://www.ebay.com/usr/gotlaptopparts
https://www.ebay.com/usr/tx_trading5129

 

Parts people is great! I buy from them too. I also use:

https://www.ebay.com/usr/kpbooking-upperedgetech

Their website is a bit cumbersome and has a lot of missing pictures that are surprisingly available in their eBay auctions and their eBay auctions allows for Best Offer which might result in a cheaper price than their website (a bit odd if you ask me):
http://www.upperedgetech.com/

 

@Aaron44126 what's the drill bit size that you used for enlarging the CPU fan grill holes?

 

@unnoticed recommended 1.5mm. Here in the US everything is in imperial measurements, so I used a 1/16 inch bit which is about 1.59 mm. You can see the results in my post further up. It made a minor difference in temperature and putting my hand near the grill I can tell that the airflow is different before.
I think that technically it would be OK to enlarge all of the holes instead of only 1/3 of them like I did. I did mess up my "pattern" in a couple of places and there was no crack for enlarging adjacent holes. It leaves just a tiny amount of material between holes though so I wasn't comfortable doing it across the entire grill.

 

I like the method you used and the nice looking pattern it creates. I will give it a go when I get the chance.