M15x Cooling Mod! KoI Style :)

With summer on the horizon and with a 920xm and 7970M on the inside I decided today to get on and complete my cooling mod I have been toying with for a year or so.

1.) Using a Stanley knife (yeah it took a looooong time!) I cut a rectangular slot exactly where the GPU/CPU heatsinks are located. I made certain it was fairly well centered to ensure the back door would still be structurally sound.

2.) I then used 3x desktop ram sinks and affixed them to the CPU heatsink. The sinks are exactly 5mm and that is the exact clearance allowed to still remain flush with the casing. Unfortunately I could not install them on the GPU heatsink as the sink sits higher and closer to the casing leaving only maybe 3mm clearance. Also along the CPU heatpipes clearance is also maybe only 4mm!

Here is a pic of what I have done:

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ImageShack® - Online Photo and Video Hosting

I also placed an order for a super cheap Notepal U2 cooler. This cooler is special as it allows you to move the fans to exactly where you want them. You can guess where I will have mine! Depending on the cooling results I may invest in other ram sinks that are "shorter" and litter the entire visible surface of both sinks with them.

There is still room for some enlargement towards the battery and of course towards the fan intake vents however I fear any enlargement of the slot might compromise the structural integrity of the casing!

Please comment and enjoy! I will post up results once the cooler arrives as this will make a HUGE difference!

EDIT

Update 1


I have continued the mod today. Hole is now enlarged and measures 17cm across and 8 cm wide. This perfectly exposes both CPU and GPU heatplates while the 2 fans 80x80mm will cover this hole almost exactly with airflow once they have arrived.

I have also removed and disposed of the memory metal cover. It's three metal tabs (ones resting on cpu heatsink) prevented me from placing 3 additional blue ram sinks. Now it's gone I was able to place them. In most laptops there is no cover. It isn't needed.

I am also thinking the cpu heatsink completely sourrounds the fan intake and is a large piece of metal. Perhaps placing the 2mm sinks around the intake will be prudent as there is always some airflow in that area.

Thoughts? I can't wait for the bits to arrive! Photos and further developments to come.

Update 2

Ok. The heatsinks arrived. Unfortunately the 4mm sinks are still too thick to be useful anywhere and also too large for placement. However the 2mm ones are brilliant.

I have placed 6 on the GPU heatpipes and 9 on the CPU heatpipes and heatplate. Unfortunately there is no other room to place more on the GPU while on the CPU I took care to not impede airflow while maximizing cooling.

If you notice I didn't place any 2mm sinks on the cpu heatpipes on the right hand side. This is because the pipes sit a little higher than the heatplate and thus the heatsinks would be very almost touching the case. This would effectively block airflow to this area and super heat the plastic case and nothing more.




I am still waiting on the fans but rest assured this will arrive soon

My next plan is to use adhesive magic tape strips and stick them down around the rectangular hole I cut. I will then attach the other magic tape material to each corner of the fan housings (both top and bottom. I will then be able to attach the fans directly to the chassis and remove them at will easily and cleanly. Magic tape (Velcro) strips are fantastic as they can be easily cut to size using scissors and can with their adhesive side can be used almost anywhere. Attaching the magic tape to both sides of the fan housing allows me to choose whether the fans are attached to blow air in or suck air out. Brilliant right?

This M15x will be a very cool cucumber!

Update 3

They have arrived.

1.) I hacked the fans right down to their base fan structure so as to slim their form factor as much as possible. Then I attached velco (fluffy side) to each corner of the fan housing)



2.) I attached strips of the other side of the velco to the laptop casing around the hole.



3.) I reversed the rubber/gel blue risers. So short at back and tall at front. This effectively levels out the laptop. Here are 2 pics showing how level the machine is now on table and on cooler.




With the fans attached there is about 5mm of space between fan and the table/cooler surface. I choose cooler as it will allow more airflow through the fans. As planned the fans with velco can easily be detached from the laptop for portability.

Here are 2 further pics showing an early part of the mod creation and the parts/tools used also shows what the fans look like attached with laptop flipped upside down.




Let me know what you think peeps. At idle my GPU is now loading at 35C without the laptop fans even switching on in ambient 22C! Yes summer is coming here in Japan.

Update 4

Flipped notepal cooler upside down. Much increased airflow. Will re-do tests and update accordingly



Update 5

*IDLE TEMPERATURE TESTS*

In ambient 22C on cooler

1.) Idle temps after 1 hour operation with new fans switched on. Laptop fans left to themselves (must be noted that due to extra cooling the system fans stay off meaning probably little difference in temps)

CPU - 45C,45C,49C,46C
GPU - 36C

Flipped cooler

CPU - 38C,38C,38C,38C
GPU - 33C

2.) Idle temps after 1 hour operation with new fans switched off. Laptop fans left to themselves.

CPU - 44C,44C,44C,44C
GPU - 38C

Flipped cooler

CPU - 40C,40C,40C,40C
GPU - 38C

3.) Idle temps after 5 mins all fans running (system fans manually set to max speed).

CPU - 35C,35C,35C,35C
GPU - 32C

Flipped Cooler

CPU - 33C,33C,34C,34C
GPU - 33C

Pretty impressive in 22-23C ambient temps here in the house!

4.) Idle temps after 5 mins system fans running full speed only.

CPU - 35C,35C,35C,35C
GPU - 33C

Very little difference here. Clearly the standard cooling at max speed on idle does an admirable job at cooling the components already. No room for improvement.

 

Wow, mate - that's pretty cool. How much did it make in difference in temps?

 

Considering the sinks are only passively cooled through the slot vent there isn't much difference under load. However I have noticed that my CPU and GPU are staying cooler at idle even after extensive use because cool air can get in and keep the heat from building up inside.

I have found some viable 17mm x 17mm x 2mm sinks that could easily be used to cover all surface area. I also found some 4mm thick ones. This mod could become interesting.

With the cooler blowing air directly into the slot with it's dual fans I expect temps to drop at least 10C under load This mod was only made with the notepal U2 being used in conjunction with it.

Ram sinks need active cooling to reach their cooling potential. Also if you look closely you can see both heatsinks have little bumps that are supposed to radiate heat. Unfortunately due to bad design this heat simply radiates straight in to the casing, reflects back and heats the inside of the laptop and therefore heatsink up! This mod also addresses this issue by giving these bumps the active cooling they require to be useful!

 

That is awesome! Thanks for sharing.

 

Thanks! Also I forgot to mention. Before doing this mod try stripping out the fan intake vents as shown in the photo. Used with the 9 cell battery and gel laptop feet for massive added elevation and airflow (about 3cm under fans) the cooling improvement is already impressive.

This mod is more for hardcore users that really want to OC both CPU and "high end" GPU's simultaneously without encountering any throttle or other problems. Also it is to future proof the machine against even more hot graphics cards - the 780M anyone! lol

 

Nice, I might do something similar once I get mine up and running.

 

You should purchase a vent/grill for that open area to help keep you from touching it and also to help with dust.

 

I am debating whether or not to get a grill. Dust however is not an issue with this laptop. The machine comes apart so easily. Cleaning it regularly for me is not a problem. Also a grill will restrict airflow. I will perhaps test with and without before I decide to install a grill.

 

Really nice mod! Interested to see how temperatures are reduced by more airflow and passive cooling from U2 pad. I've been super tempted to remove the mesh from the bottom case for some time now. Also tempted to run M15x without the bottom cover attached as I also have the U2 pad. I've been thinking about placing a Peltier cooler directly onto the gpu heatsink. This cooler has a small heat sink of its own and does get pretty darn cold to say it runs off USB power.

Here is a pic.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2654032/Photo 08-12-2012 13 14 37.jpg

 

The dangerous problem with peltier coolers is if the inside of the laptop gets colder than the outside then condensation will occur inside your lappy. A very dangerous problem and a likely one especially in summer! Also with the fan module that is pretty chunky. Even with the 9 cell and gel feet there won't be enough clearance under the laptop for it.

Doing the intake vent mod. Increases airflow by about 50%. However also 50% more dust will enter. Be prepared to clean more often. For me not a problem. A year ago I experimented taking out the metal exhaust vent covers while video encoding at 100% with 95C on the CPU. There was no difference. Although air flow increased because the covers are metal they act as a secondary heatfin absorbing heat from the hot air. Same effect but very ugly without the covers too. No point in removing them therefore.

 

Just ordered 18 x 2mm server heatsinks and 15 x 4mm server heatsinks.

From my measurements the 4mm heatsinks should fit anywhere, JUST! The 2 mm ones are to go everywhere else.

They are dirt cheap and can be bought at moddiy.com.

 

Peltier on usb? Is it like one of those soda coolers?

To get serious cooling out of peltiers, they need way more power than just usb can provide.

 

True. The hotter the thing to be cooled the more power they require. The 920xm or 7970M for example would require much more juice and probably the peltier would as suggested be totally useless at load.

 

Also a peltier needs its other side cool as well, so can't just drop it in and expect to get magical results. Peltier will need a much bigger heat sink and active cooling, how much active cooling is there will also determine how much colder peltier's other side get, plus how much power one gives to the peltier.

 

This mod is truly interesting. Would this be fine if my place is ... naturally dusty and that it's really REALLY hot? I Idle at 60C on TS shader over extensive use kind of hot.
My 6990m has to be underclocked to 500/900 in this room without Air conditioning and it still hits 88C on TS shader. I'm avoiding hitting 90C at all on that sensor

 

Peltier is from a usb fridge It has its own heatsink and fan and I'm using it to cool my psu brick at the moment. Condensation is an issue but I would likely cover it in thermal pads or something similar.
Also going to try running it at 12v see if it can give me more cooling performance! Even at 5v the heatsink does get pretty hot.

Do you notice reduced temps underload with intake mesh/grille removed? Also looking at some RAM heatsinks (especially some cheap VRAM heatsinks) so please report back on how well these mods reduce temps.

 

Big difference yes. 50% increased airflow makes a big difference.

 

To be honest, it might just work and shave off few degrees, I will be keeping an eye on this one

 

Yeah. I won't be a lot to be fair. However I am doing this mainly for the community here and my own fun! I am thinking of making the hole bigger actually and mount the fans on the bottom of the casing lol. Have them draw air out! Will wait and see

 

Don't you think making the heatsink directly on top on of the gpu chip have a bigger surface area will have the greatest effect so long as it is being actively cooled by fans?
Probably going to take intake grilles off today

 

That is why I intend to add many ram sinks on it. Ram sinks will increase surface area for heat to be radiated. Fans take away heat. A basic secondary active heatsink is installed ;D

My only worry is will the fans blow the heated air into the rest of the laptop, thus heating it up just as much or more if I didn't do this cooling mod! I am thinking something along the lines of blocking the original intake vents on both cpu and gpu fans with tape so that the two system fans act also as a kind of case exhaust. Should stop any heat build up within the laptop as the air taken would be from within the laptop and from the new intake port which is firstly massive and secondly over the parts we want to cool; the gpu and cpu. The question is by blocking the original intake vents will the normal fans still be able to deliver as much airflow through the normal sinks without their primary intake intact. I hope yes albeit with slightly warmer air.

I look forward to testing this and then carrying out a much better final mod. For now I will enlarge the hole so it is roughly the same at 16cms8cm (the same area as the two U2 fans) and to continue covering with heatsinks making sure none protrude (hence variety of sizes).

Then once the cooler arrives. Lots of testing (rubs hands with glee)

My goal is to have the 7970M never even touch 75C at the clocks in my sig and 1.05V. Yes I am looking for a good 5C-10C temp drop and we will have this work

 

I'm thinking taping the intake fans is a bad idea. You could just seal the gaps around the new holes you've made so that air can't be blown into the system that way.

I really hope you find a solution that lowers temps. Played Far Cry 3 with OC on gpu and got a thermal shutdown after about 25 minutes. Granted I probably need to apply the ICD24 I just got and more thermal pads!!!!

KoI did you have any success with lower voltage with 7970m?

 

Taping the back of fans might work, as fans do suck hot air from underneath the keyboard, it's something will need trial and error.

If you look under the keyboard, there are holes for the fans to suck air from, I am assuming this is to suck a bit of air over wifi card as wifi cards can get pretty hot. Also there will be some heat build up inside chassis and a bit of air flow from back of fans will help that.

EDIT: After spending alot of time, examining M15x design and with a computer engineer, we came to conclusion that fan intakes should not be taped from back.

 

I won't be touching the fans themselves. Will simply tape of the intake holes on the chassis. Sorry if I was somewhat unclear lol.

Good to know there is a route for the air via the keyboard. Should help the fans maintain airflow even with the main chassis intake vents shut off.

 

I have continued the mod today. Hole is now enlarged and measures 17cm across and 8 cm wide. This perfectly exposes both CPU and GPU heatplates while the 2 fans 80x80mm will cover this hole almost exactly with airflow once they have arrived.

I have also removed and disposed of the memory metal cover. It's three metal tabs (ones resting on cpu heatsink) prevented me from placing 3 additional blue ram sinks. Now it's gone I was able to place them. In most laptops there is no cover. It isn't needed.

I am also thinking the cpu heatsink completely sourrounds the fan intake and is a large piece of metal. Perhaps placing the 2mm sinks around the intake will be prudent as there is always some airflow in that area.

Thoughts? I can't wait for the bits to arrive! Photos and further developments to come.

 

Awesome, King. I'd love to attempt this on my own if it works.

 

Ok. The heatsinks arrived. Unfortunately the 4mm sinks are still too thick to be useful anywhere and also too large for placement. However the 2mm ones are brilliant.

I have placed 6 on the GPU heatpipes and 9 on the CPU heatpipes and heatplate. Unfortunately there is no other room to place more on the GPU while on the CPU I took care to not impede airflow while maximizing cooling.

If you notice I didn't place any 2mm sinks on the cpu heatpipes on the right hand side. This is because the pipes sit a little higher than the heatplate and thus the heatsinks would be very almost touching the case. This would effectively block airflow to this area and super heat the plastic case and nothing more.




I am still waiting on the fans but rest assured this will arrive soon

My next plan is to use adhesive magic tape strips and stick them down around the rectangular hole I cut. I will then attach the other magic tape material to each corner of the fan housings (both top and bottom. I will then be able to attach the fans directly to the chassis and remove them at will easily and cleanly. Magic tape (Velcro) strips are fantastic as they can be easily cut to size using scissors and can with their adhesive side can be used almost anywhere. Attaching the magic tape to both sides of the fan housing allows me to choose whether the fans are attached to blow air in or suck air out. Brilliant right?

This M15x will be a very cool cucumber!

 

As soon as those fans arrive we want gaming temperature benchmarks! Logically this should drop temperatures by quite a bit but I want evidence before I hack my precious M15x to bits.
I knew what you meant about taking the opening for the current fans but I still don't think it'll work to use them as case exhaust fans. Prove me wrong

 

They have arrived.

1.) I hacked the fans right down to their base fan structure so as to slim their form factor as much as possible. Then I attached velco (fluffy side) to each corner of the fan housing)



2.) I attached strips of the other side of the velco to the laptop casing around the hole.



3.) I reversed the rubber/gel blue risers. So short at back and tall at front. This effectively levels out the laptop. Here are 2 pics showing how level the machine is now on table and on cooler.




With the fans attached there is about 5mm of space between fan and the table/cooler surface. I choose cooler as it will allow more airflow through the fans. As planned the fans with velco can easily be detached from the laptop for portability.

Here are 2 further pics showing an early part of the mod creation and the parts/tools used also shows what the fans look like attached with laptop flipped upside down.




Let me know what you think peeps. At idle my GPU is now loading at 35C without the laptop fans even switching on in ambient 22C! Yes summer is coming here in Japan.

 

That looks super awesome! If I copy your mod, one idea would be to remove that rectangle of bottom case as one piece and add some velco tabs to it so you can velco it back on when transporting. Probably too late for you if you removed them as several pieces? Played Bioshock Infinite today on a 27" monitor for about an hour with average temperature around 74 and max 77. I think we're all dying to know what temps you get under full load with something like Crysis 3 or FC 3!

I have the exact same cooling pad plus fans so hopefully I can copy and paste when I have some time

 

All updates and results will now be put in the OP. Please check the first post for further details.

Thanks dude. It is awesome. I am just now allowing waiting for an hour to pass without the fans running to see what idle temps are with just system fans. Once that test is done I shall start the load tests then finally the gaming tests.

 

Idle temp tests are done. Conclusion is for idle temps just with elevation and plenty of aeration the M15x's standard cooling does a perfectly good job of cooling the CPU and GPU. The cooling mod didn't have a huge effect here which was expected.

Now onto the stress tests!!!!

 

Big update!!

I just realized that the new fans sat too close to the notepal cooler even with its aeration holes starving the new fans airflow. I have now flipped the notepal upside down and it seems the fans are drawing in MUCH more air. I will re-do the tests lol! Not tonight though

Wow. This is a huge difference. Now the mod is actually working and thanks to my gel thingies the laptop is still rock stable!! Check the first thread to see updates to idle temps! From a cold boot idle temps might not even get as high as that!

It was my attention to focus as much as possible on cooling the CPU. The GPU we can upgrade and they get cooler and cooler lol. The 920xm is a hot beast and we are stuck with it. The cooler we get it the more we can ultimately squeeze out of this old dog!

 

KoI I've been considering removing circular sections of my cooling pad directly above where the fans will be positioned using a coping saw (where wire blade can be unclipped and put inside one of the holes) but leaving enough holes for the fans to clip on properly. I also think airflow is impeded despite aeration holes.

I'd probably mount the fans on the cooling pad under these cut away sections inline with the heat sinks with the section of bottom case cut away from M15x.

Just an idea.

 

A good idea. You could always use velco on the cooler and attach the fans to it using that lol. I haven't got any tools suitable for cutting metal so I won't be doing this. I have also destroyed and thrown away the fan housings anyway, deemed to impede airflow anyways haha

However I can tell you that even your plan will not leave as much room under the fans as with my current setup. Therefore a little less airflow. Plus when the 2 system fans are spooled up the system fans will also be somewhat starved. One needs as much air as possible under the laptop. My setup now leaves a huge space around all 4 intake areas. Even at max rpm all fans can now draw their best! I can't wait to test tomorrow.

Now to bed...

Now that this works. The next upgrade is the fans themselves. I am sure there are more powerful usb case fans out there!!!
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835106140 120mm vs 80mm. However it features over twice the airflow of both 80mm fans combined! 66cfm vs 15.4x2 = 30.8cfm!

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811999130
Or 2x of these bad boys. Total of nearly 100cfm!! A 70cfm improvement but would need 2 usb ports! Thinking I would cut away that fan controller and the chassis and use as is! Maybe worth trying out! Hmm kinda thick though. 2.5cm vs the 1cm of the current fans. Not really a viable upgrade!

 

I am thinking seriously to buy 1 or 2 of the 80mm TT fans. With the flipped cooler there is 7cm of space under the laptop. Even with the chunky 2.5cm fans there will still be 4.5cm left so probably plenty of air. Can't pass up 47cfm x 2 lol. Currently at 15.4cfm x 2.

Basically to climb 63.76cfm from the current 30.8cfm to a massive 94.56cfm we will firstly have to sacrifice an extra usb port leaving only one standard port left! and the fans would have to be removed after use every time due to extra 1.5cm thickness.
The cooling benefits would be huge though!! What do we all think?

 

I use those Thermaltake Fans under my laptop cooler. They are really powerful considering they just run off of the usb. I recommend them. :thumbsup: If you need to free up a usb port you can always buy an outlet to usb adapter too.

 

Flipped notebook cooler is totally genius! Won't work as well for me as I only have the 6 cell battery so I'll need to purchase some gel feet.
Its just an airflow dream!

King we are all dying to see temperatures under full load! We are talking a 24 hours of prime95 small FTT torture test!!!
Followed by an equivalent gpu burn-in test!

 

Been really busy at the work this week. Hopefully tomorrow I will find some time to do some proper testing!

 

King I can't find any decent ram heatsinks that have 2mm height. Most are around 5-6mm.
The best I found were these off Amazon UK but they look pretty crappy


Do you remember the brand or where you purchased your heatsinks from?

 

Thanks for sharing!

 

Here you go. Moddiy

3M 8810 Thermally Conductive Adhesive 2mm Ultra-Thin Heatsink (6 Pack) - modDIY.com

 

I'm going to try an intermediate mod seeing as how I already have the laptop cooler. Going to make a few air intake holes directly where gpu and cpu heatsinks are and point my notebook cooler fans at them.

Thanks for that link. Postage is going to cost triple the price of the heatsinks. Might be a few to make it worthwhile.

 

King if you're still after some better fans I wouldn't bother with those thermaltake ones.
I found a cable that does 3-pin to usb allowing you to use any fans lying around.
Phobya external USB adapter to 3-pin fan 30cm - black [81132] from WCUK Online

 

Pictures to follow up I've had a genius idea. If you remove the metal ID plate from the bottom, that area is pretty much right over the gpu heatsink.
I've started cutting that bit of plastic out but leaving screw sockets in place so I can get some airflow in there from my cooling pad. Then when I need to travel just screw ID plate back on
Won't be as effective but surely a bit of airflow to that area will help from reaching those peak temperatures, given the heatsink design.

 

I have got new 7970 coming in few days and some really nice (read: loud, really really loud) avc 80mm 8900rpm(as told, not 100% sure) fans with it. Supposed to sound like a jet engine, and I have just the place to install them

 

King do you think your low profile heat sinks would fit with the plastic cover was still in place i.e. if you hadn't cut that section out?

That may be too loud! The fans on my cooling pad are a bit loud (a high pitched whine) when on full. Tempted to try some Noctua 80mm fans that can run at USB voltage.
Or this fan http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FG-015-BQ&groupid=701&catid=2331&subcat=819 which can run at 5v.

 

If case is closed passive heatsinks are useless as there is no airflow over them. Moreover the extra heat given out by them would heat up the area around the gpu further.

 

If you look a few posts up King I've started making holes in my bottom case where ID plate is. Airflow from cooling pad will enter case there and exit via modified heat sink fan intakes.

 

That's really cool. Wait...I recognise that M15x...