Heatmodding GX640

Hey guys,
So lately I've been thinking about making some modifications to my GX640 to make it run cooler. Lately my processor has been running so hot that it actually slows down (~90 degrees celsius or more when playing the Battlefield 3 beta), and I was thinking of overclocking my gpu a little to get better performance on Battlefield 3 when it comes out.

Since I've never done any heat modifications to a computer before (or any other kind of modifications for that matter), I've spent some time looking around here and some other sites for heatmodding guides, but all I've really come across are short guides or tips for people who already know what they're doing. I don't want to go into this without knowing exactly what I'm doing, so I was wondering if you guys could help me out. Does anyone know of any good guides for absolute beginners? What do I need to make my computer run as cool as possible?

Thanks!

 

Hi there.

check out this video this has (most) of the mods you can possibly do to a laptop to cool it down.

Asus G60VX 3 Cooling Mods - YouTube

 

Thanks for the video, but it still doesn't help me that much. How did he keep the pieces of metal in place? How applicable is this mod to the GX640? Are the locations and sizes of the metal the same for the GX640? And where would I get the supplies?

Thanks, and sorry if I'm a little slow with this, but I'm completely new to modifying laptops, and I don't want to do this wrong.

 

well in the video he cut a hole on the bottom cover and placed a metal mesh in its place to increase airflow. the basis for this is that the more air that the heatsinks come in contact with the cooler the heatsinks become, this is because the heat of the copper heatsinks are always trying to establish thermal equilibrium with the molecules directly in contact with it. so heat will transfer to the air and air is always being expelled causing a shift in thermal equilibrium.

the pieces of copper are held by a double sided thermal tape(i presume) the idea behind it is that it increases surface area in contact with the air. so the heat is dispersed around the large network of copper which has a greater surface area in contact with air thus more heat is transfered out of the system. !!!i dont recomend this mod without holes cut out of the bottom cover!!! because it can block airflow and will retain heat inside the laptop. also if you dont have tools to cut the copper into well defined shapes it can get knocked out of place and cause a short.

the last mod is easy and works. cut the wire controlling the fan. you can even place a small switch so you can have controlable fan speeds from auto or 100%. people say this will decrease the life of the fan. well from my stand point the fan is useless if the gpu is fried.

there are lots of other things out there. you can try undervolting cpu and gpu, and replacing the thermal paste thse are actually very easy to do. lots of guides out there. but can lead to instability depending on the card you have(all are different due to small differences and flaws even if its from the same batch make and model).

these mods are applicable to the gx640, car engines, electrical motors and more. because it uses principles of thermodynamics. the problem you have is that there is hardly any detailed guides for your make and model of laptop and your new to modding. if you have great analytical skills and think everything through. you should not have a problem applying these mods to any model but there is a risk in everything.




kinda very drunk when typing this.....

 

Dont cut any holes

if you have got 100$ you can make propper cooling without destroying your laptop.

I have Q9200ES overclocked to 3.33Ghz
the temp idle 29C
100% load 60C
HDD 29C
Graphic ati 38 to 40C idle when 100% load never more than 55 to 60C

 

Actually there are some things you can do with some 20$ blowtorch & solder, and heatsink scrap.

You can replace the radiator with a copper one if you find one that will fit the chassis and heatpipes, you can replace the copper plate of the 5850 with a much bigger and better piece of copper [while your at it making the heatsink compatible with gtx 460m and 560m cards] or you could even add a heatpipe on top of the original and the fan shroud.

Thing is you have to strip your heatsink of all meltable/flammable materials, and be very careful because the whole thing heats up very quickly. Its good to clamp or wrap with wire the parts that you don't want to mess with like the CPU heatsink.

Not to discourage andy.lowels suggestion, by all means find his thread [awesome mod ] but I don't know where 100$ could have went exactly, also thermal epoxy is honestly not necessarily easier to use than solder.

 

You gave away that you were drunk, wouldn't have guessed [some users here get more blackout with laptop use rather than alcohol]

Just wanted to say that all heatsinks are soldered together. This is the proper way to integrate any more copper or thermal material into the heatsink. While you might not think solder itself has good thermal conductivity, it does, although close copper contact is still a good thing.

Stuff like thermal tape and epoxy can only go so far in my opinion. Heatsinks would be horrible if they were all taped together. Also keep in mind the concept of a heatpipe which uses a sealed vacuum of vaporized liquid to transfer the heat... Copper itself has a very high thermal conductivity, capacity, and dissipation, aluminum has a slightly higher dissipation but lower capacity and conductivity. Dissipation is arguably the most important part of a heatsink past the conductivity at contact.

The way laptops are designed, the dissipation is only meant to happen in 1 place. Airflow also only goes so far, unless you end up literally making the fan spin faster.

 

My GX640 started slowing down in games as well and getting extremely hot. I took some compressed air and blew out the vent on the right side of the machine and my game performance went back to normal. Worth a try, if you haven't done this already.