GX640 Cooling Mods?

Anyone know of any mods for the GX640 to make it run cooler? Currently at full load the fan blows a lot of hot air, and plus the video card runs up to 109 C using FurMark for a benchmark.

I got the barebone version too, I dunno if that makes a difference.

 

if the fan was only blowing cold air out of your laptop, then that wouldnt be a good sign would it?

you can do what everyone does - stick these ramsinks wherever they will fit DDR DDR2 RAM Cooler Heat Sink Heatsink f RAM VGA RHS-03 - eBay (item 250691673062 end time Sep-07-10 21:19:54 PDT)


...also drilling holes in your case (and nothing else) is always good. counter intuitive huh.

 

Make sure you change the thermal paste, it will make a difference (as long as you apply it correctly).
YouTube - How Thermal Compound Spreads

 

True, but it should be blowing warm air, not hot air, meaning its not pushing the hot air out quick enough.

I will try the ramsinks as well, I hope that will help too. Thanks!

 

I have a GX660R, but my cooling included lots of 1/16'' holes spaced 5mm apart and 16 copper heatsinks.

Took me damn near two hours for those 16 heatsinks.

 

Forge can You post some pictures please?

 

I seem to have lost my camera, but once I get it I will. I do have to get a review going, after all.

 

My MS-1727 has also modded cooling system, with lots of holes and added copper heatsinks. I wonder what clocks and what temps are You getting with Your lappy...

 

I was thinking about physically drilling holes in my gx640

 

Haha i was thinking something along those lines

 

I personally, instead of just drilling a few holes, I put holes literally everywhere. That way any problems with airflow will be fixed because a drilled-out backpanel emulates no backpanel.

 

i will try drilling holes tomoro. Anyhow i have removed my thermal pads and replaced with mx3. So far not a huge change for some reason. GPU idles around 57oC (used to be 60oC). Cpu is relatively the same overall but GPU load temperatures are a bit better. I max out around 90oC on furmark (dont know what it was before mod but it was definately near the 100oC mark). Also playing bc2 i max around 82oC, i used to reach temps of 90oC. I assume mx3 needs a small curing time as i have just done the mod 5 mins ago. My experience with mx3 tells me that it has a curing time of around 5hrs. I will do some more stress tests tomorow and see the final outcome.

 

Do you guys really get much lower temps after drilling?

I want to drill some holes in mine, but it already feels weak and does flex when I press on it.

Also if i drill holes right where the fan is, the air might not flow over my GPU.
But I guess I can always cover the holes back up if the temps don't change the way I want.

One thing I will do is add a switch to give me a turbo fan feature.

I already have a spare fan that I used to test how loud the fan is at it's max speed (connected to a usb port).

If I add a switch I could have normal fan behavior while not gaming, then flip the switch and have it run at full speed.

 

Lower Your GPU RAM frequency to the stock 1000 and check the temps in Furmark. If You top at 90*C with the frequencies in Your sig and without any copper mod (additional copper heatsinks on top of the GPU heatsink), it's a pretty good result. I have done a copper mod to my lappy (it's a GX740 though) and it tops at 82*C in Furmark (ambient temp around 28*C and with the clocks in my sig: 840/1050@1,02V).

 

Drilling right on top of the fan:



lowered my temps by 6-7*C. Drilling the holes on top of the GPU (after the copper mod) lowered my temps by another 8-10*C.

 

Here is what my backplate looks like:


Here are some photos of the black plastic I removed:








Before:


After:


As you can see, there are no holes right at the fan intake, I think I should add a few there.

 

Add holes on top of the fan. I guarantee that You will notice a huge temperature drop.

 

Looks like I have no choice, this 3700m does get really hot, it's like a 5870 but without the great performance

 

I don't know why manufacterer's keep doing that. Putting a wall of plastic in front of the fan just generates turbulence.

 

Probably they just want to create an air flow through motherboard components, ram etc.

 

Problem is that those were not my clocks. I used my standard 700/1000 clocks. I am starting to think I put too much paste on?

 

Heres a pic of wat my furmark test looks like.
http://img195.imageshack.us/img195/8329/furmarkmax.jpg
Room temperature is at normal as well. Any ideas to why mine is so high?

 

90*C in Furmark is a pretty good temperature, especially that You haven't done any copper mod or hole drilling mod. I'm pretty sure that before the heatpads removal Your card would go over 100*C in Furmark.

 

hmmm i guess so. I will try drilling holes soon and report back.

 

I want to make holes that look like the stock holes, but I don't know how to do it or if it's even possible without taking a very long time to do.

 

99% of the time You don't look at the bottom cover, so why bother? Just make the normal, round holes symmetrical, and they will look good. "My holes" are 4mm.

 

From: Msi GX640 unable to OC gpu

Why wouldn't they both work together?
Is this why?:
Do you think the copper shim will raise the heatsink to much?
There are thinner shims and replacing some paste for copper is a better way to transfer heat!

Everything counts and it all adds up lol

 

The copper shim helped a ton, I had previously up to 105 C temps, I hit 80-90 C high with Furmark now.

I am waiting for my copper heatsinks as mentioned in the first page to come in.

A couple things I noticed, the fan needs to spin better or it needs more air comming in, airflow is quite poor.

I have also removed the black cover as mentioned on the second page.

I am considering looking for a good fan that I could replace for this notebook.

 

How long was your furmark on to get 90c?
I already have my copper shim(not in laptop yet), just waiting for my MX-3 and a new laptop cooler to arrive.
Then I should finally be able to OC a bit more!

If you get a new fan to upgrade:
Can you let us know what fan you get and your temps?
I though just getting manual control(in overdrive) of the fan would be better(force it to run at 100%). I haven't done that yet, because I heard that wasn't good?
Should be fine to try if your going to get rid of it lol!

 

Here's what one of the mods listed is good for:

Without any mods or overclocking done, my GX640 I would get 61-62c on desktop(nothing more than internet and videos).

Just taking the bottom plate off, now I get 55-56c on desktop.
I'll be drilling lots of holes on my bottom plate for sure!
Just in case I need to put it back on lol!

 

wow thats around 5oC, big difference eh? I will try drill some holes soon when i get round a drill press at the workshop

 

6oC!!!
Ya, that's a HUGE difference! I didn't even have my laptop cooler on lol!
Cant wait to see how the MX-3 does, but I'm still waitning for my MX-3 to arrive.

 

seems like a good idea. now ill just have to find the right tools, and order a copper shim so i can do it all in one go;D too bad i have to order it all the way to norway, shipping cost will be 5 times the price for the copper shim

 

So, if I do these mods, my temps should be lower? and what are the best?

1- add holes over the fan on the back panel
2- add copper heatsink on memory/gpu (where to put??)
3- downclock the gpu to 100/100 on startup
4- copper shim (how it works?)
5- thermal paste (I don't want to void warranty..)
6- others

 

If you want to spend minimal amount of money, take an extremely sharp razor and take off the thermal pads(put them back for warranty purposes). Add thermal paste on the ram chips and reapply the paste. I re-did it yesterday with completely high quality paste and playing Mass Effect 2 my temps Hovered for the gpu at 80C then after about an hour it hit 82 MAX, which I believe is amazing. However the ram chips kind of color fade and soak in the paste , but once you remove the paste on it for warranty purposes, rub it really hard with your finger and it looks like nothing happened.

 

Here's where the tutorial on adding a copper shim to the heatsink is:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/msi/482836-thermal-past-upgrade-worth-12.html

Then find the pictures that are missing on page 12 on page 16.

 

thermal paste will be you best bet. i used some goopy stuff from best buy the first time around, and it wasn't the best. went to radioshack and picked up some arctic silver, and now my fan barely kicks in ever. but this is on my 1722, which already had a good cooling system to start with. but really, you should give AS5 a try.

 

Arctic: Silver 5 is good, but there is even better now:

Statistics show that Arctic's new invention, the Arctic: MX-3 is even better. They averaged a 2.4c difference.

I got mine, but now I'm waiting tell I go to get some sand paper(for the copper shim). Then I'll put everything in and hopefully get it right the first time.

 

Another drop! (55-56c to 49-50c)
I added a shim and replaced the thermal pads with MX-3. Then I took off the shim, because it didnt help.

With the MX-3 thermal paste on the GPU, CPU, and GDDR5 RAM.

My GX640 gets 49-50c on desktop with the stock 625/1000. I'll do some tests to see how long I can play at 700/1000 now

I started the program after the computer has been on for about 1hr+.


Total:
61-62c to 49-50c

Edit: updated results after one night to sit.

 

Is that with that bottom panel removed? I get about 56 before I used to get to 63-65. I'm about to take off the bottom panel and see my results.

 

Yes, and a small laptop cooler(2 very weak fans(usb powered), but improve airflow and you cant tell its on(its so quiet)).

The only time I'll put the bottom panel back on, is when i'm traveling.

Now it doesnt get past 50c
(Its been about 2hrs+ now)

 

With OC to 700/1000:

I played BF:BC2 on high(max) settings for 30mins and my temp was almost always on 80c (79-81c). It rarely went to 81c, but when it did. It went back to 80c and then stayed there longer.

Same with Crysis:WH! (80c on "very high" settings)

The mod worked very well and now there's a lot more room to OC!

I dont have any more mods I can do, exept to add holes in the bottom panel for when I travel.

 

I played BF:BC2 on high(over40fps now) settings for over 2hr at 79-84c. With the laptop gpu OC to 800/1000, its about the same as the desktop ati 5770 card! =D

Here's the temps(max/min), starting just before I played BF:BC2



Why is my fan always at 30%?

 

programs cannot read or adjust fan settings in a laptop because they work differently. However assuming its a pwn fan you probably could hardmod it to adjust its rpm.

 

Why is your card idling at full speed (625/1000)?
My 5870 idles at 100/100@0,7V. Just 44°C with backcover. Now 40°C (with some other mods )

 

I forgot: I might add some extra heat sinks around the GPU and GDDR5 RAM.

When you watch a video/movie, will it go back to 625/1000 or 500/1000(youtube)?
Is it only 100/100@0,7V when the screen darkens?(idle)

If its not always going to be 100/100@0,7V when I'm not gaming:
I'm not sure how to do that with rbe? What boxes do you fill out, for just idle temps?

Did someone already ask this on another thread?

 

OK, I had posted something similar earlier here (#11).

My almost current settings are as follows (5870!).

It's the newest GX740-vBIOS with slight modifications.
Now clock 01 is 100/100, but there is no difference to 100/150. You can also use 0,8V without any drawback. Imo there is an internal voltage wall. You might also set it to 0,3V. But please, dont try this.
ALL IS AT YOUR OWN RISK!

I see you have the working powerplay vbios for your GX640. So have you enabled powerplay too? On desktop it should clock at 100/150 also right now.

FYI, here are my thoughts about the clockinfos:
Powerplay-Setting in brackets.

Clock 00: Boot, 3D (power)
Clock 01: Idle (power)
Clock 02: 2D-HighLoad (power)
Clock 03: UVD, youtube etc. (power)
Clock 04: Idle (energy saving)
Clock 05: 3D (energy saving)
Clock 06: Idle with connected ext. display (power)
Clock 07: Idle with connected ext. display (energy saving)

 

I dont know why its not 100/150 right now then.

When it's on maximize battery life: It goes to 300/400, but then it won't oc for games.


I reinstalled ati catalyst 10.8:
Some how it idles at 405/1000 now? When I scroll on a webpage, it goes to 800/1000(overdrive settings), so I put it back to 625/1000 tell I'm about to play games.

Does anyone know why its not 100/150 or why "Clock 06" works for idle when theres no external monitor connected?

 

got the copper shim in the mail today, 2cm x2cm x o,8mm. now how much ocz freeze should i add between the gpu copper shim and heatsink? i have never done this before.