Acer TravelMate 6594g Mod

I have an Acer TravelMate 6594g

Its specs are as follows:
Processor: iCore 7 620 VPRO 2.66GHz (3.33GHz with Turbo Boost)
Graphics: ATI Mobility Radeon™ HD 5650 1GB DDR3
Memory: 4GB DDR3
HDD: 750gb
Screen Size: 15.6"
Eezo Dock II

Problem:
When the laptop is over stressed, like playing games or rendering, it overheats and just switch off as if the power suddenly went away. I tired to use a cooling fan you can buy at regular shops that the laptop sits on top. It helps a bit to keep it cooler for longer, but still the same problem.

I suspect this laptop was Acer's first try at putting an iCore 7 chip in a laptop and the cooling seems lacking. If I take the laptop apart and just connect all the bits and pieces together outside the housing, it never overheats.

My plan is as follows:
Build a new standing case with perspex, but with 6cm width.
The back panel will have the docking station attached.
The middle panel will have the laptop motherboard attached, the middle panel will be exactly in the center, that is 3cm from the back and front.
The front panel will have the screen, keyboard, mouse and finger print reader attached.
Add a second heat sink over the top, with a fan.
Add an additional fan on the other side of the original fan.
Add a 32gb flash drive for an internal Restore Drive.

What I have done so far:
I have taken the docking station and laptop completely apart.

Since we lack the proper PC store here in Namibia, my option for small laptop sized nuts, screws and bolts are limited. I can't even find regular spacers for motherboards without buying a case. So I had to take out the small copper nuts which the screw are screwing in. This involved breaking the laptop and docking station case apart. Using a candle, pliers and precision screw drivers, I was able to warm up the plastic and take out the copper nuts. These copper nuts I will use to put into the new casing and use the original screws to keep everything in place.

I had two old broken laptops which I took apart, kept the fans since that was still working and also keeping the the heat sinks from both.

Now one of the heat sinks fit almost perfectly with the original Acer heat sink. though I had to bend the metal where it screws in over the processor to make it fit. I also bend the copper pipe so it touches the GPU before it reaches the cooling fins. The shape of the heat sink means that the cooling fins rest on top of the memory. So the second fan goes over the memory, that means it will pull in cool air over the memory and sends it over the heat sink. This works in my advantage as it will help keep the memory also cooler.

I will post some pictures in a little bit to show some of the things as I had done so far. If you have any ideas or questions, please feel free to ask.

 

This is how the original laptop looks like.


This is the original docking station.

 

I have had some other ideas which I can incorporate into what I am doing, like adding a heat sink over the GPU and also possibly over the CPU.

I picked up an old broken ATI graphics card at a dumping site, took off the heat sink. I think this will also help cooling both heat sinks.

[EDIT] i have checked it out and the old ATI heat sink is far to bulky, so this wont work, but i got some other heat sinks layout around which i can use

I also took off a heat sink of an old AGP 32mb graphics card. This I will also add the GPU.

I will check every thing out tomorrow morning and post some pics of how the disassembled laptop and docking station looks like. How the second heat sink fits over the original and how the additional heat sinks will fit over everything.

Also show how I am going to power the extra 2 fans using USB and add a 32gb Flash drive for a restore drive.

 

This is more or less what I had in mind.

Here is the link to the origional project from ac22297 -> http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=202281

Obviously mine will be very different, but the same basic idea.

 

Here is the docking station without the cover and extra pcb which lead to the extra USB connections and Audio inputs



Here is the laptop without the covers


Here is the other side of the laptop motherboard. Its still original without the modifications.

 

Here I added the old laptop heat sink over the Acer's stock heat sink.



Here you can see how the fins sits over the memory module.


This is the copper nuts i was talking about. I screwed it already to the screws so i know how much of them i have got to work with.

 

Here is how the second fan will fit and the two additional heatsinks.


On Monday I will buy the perspex sheets and start the real work.

If you guys knows of ways to permanently fix the extra two heat sinks over the top of the original, please let me know.
The 3 usb's i am going to sacrifice are the three that is connected via the ribbon cable. Since the docking station provides 6 additional USB, those three isn't really a sacrifice.

 

How you power up the second fan?