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This is my first post and I thought I would share my little “Cool” thermal experiment.
So I think we have all experienced, in some form or another, the extreme thermal numbers that NVMe drives can achieve in the AW15 R3’s. The numbers can be down right shocking. I had heard of people using small thermal pads or even heatsinks to quell the dragon fire that was created when you decided to move some Steam games from a Sata SSD to your Inferno creation stick.
So, I went in search of a solution…. It pretty much involved the same principle as anything else. Move heat away through a heat conductive solution to a passive heatsink.
I tested a few different ones but only one really fit perfectly within the AW15 R3 chassis.
-From EBAY https://www.ebay.com/itm/M-2-NGFF-NVMe-2280-PCIE-SSD-Aluminum-Cooling-Heat-Sink-With-Thermal-Pad-Black/272864673596?ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649
- You can use any non electrically conductive thermal paste as well. I used Arctic silver - I had an old tube sitting around.
Remove the sticker on the front chipset side and move it to the back. Apply a thin, very thin, layer of TIM to the black IC modules. Now, it is important to note that the chips are actually not even and the backside of the stick is a few smidgens higher than the front. This can be solved two ways: Bend the heatsink or put a very thin copper shim between the heatsink and the NVMe stick.
Carefully, put the heatsink on and secure it with the three rubber “Bands” provided in the kit. Hook her back in and watch the temps drop before your eyes.
Before this test I saw temps at upwards of 80c at max burn. Now she never surpasses 60c.
The 950 PRO (Unmodded) breaches 76c running the same test as the PM961, which only reaches 60c.
They also idle at about 10 degrees diferent, the PRO, of course, being higher.
I tried to run a comparison by putting in another comparable NVMe drive of equal size and from the same manufacturer. The results speak for themselves.
I also ran this experiment with another 950 Pro with the thermal pad in-between the heatsink and the stick. I did witness improved temperatures but not as great and, additionally, the drive sat not as flush as it did with TIM applied.
A 16c delta is observed between the two running the same benchmark for the same period, as a matter of fact I ran the PM961(With mod) a few times more to try to lesson the gap - not the best testing methodology, but I was after numbers, not apples to apples comparisons.
Anyways, a fun little way to drop some temps and run your drive cooler.
NVMe Cooling mod - Easy and good results.
Discussion in '2015+ Alienware 13 / 15 / 17' started by FastMover, Apr 29, 2018.
