DIY laptop cooler, icepacks?

Hey guys, I'm in the process of building a laptop cooler out of a clear plastic tote. The idea is to have L.E.D. strips with switches, and two 80mm case fans on a switch, and another 80mm for intake into the tote. It would also be nice to contain all of my laptop peripherals in said tote for easy organization and transportation.



I'll be strategically attaching case fans on the underside of the lid, matching up with my laptops intake vents. I'll have some switches and electronics in the box as well.

I'd like to know what you guys think about placing an ice pack at the bottom of the tote to cool the ambient air and provide even more cooling effect.

I'm concerned about the humidity change that will occur within the tote. Do you think that is something that can have an adverse affect on my laptop or other electronic components? I'm not worried about water coming in contact with anything because everything will be sealed, and the ice pack itself will be wrapped in a towel.

Do you even think this ice pack will add a significant cooling effect? Should I worry about humidity levels?

Thanks!

 

I'd also like your opinions on airflow in general. I'm planning on using 2 fans for exhaust and 1 fan for intake. Obviously this will produce some kind of pressure imbalance.

Would this imbalance prove to be advantageous, or would I rather the airflow be equal? If an imbalance is desirable, would I want the exhaust fans pushing more air out than is being supplied, or would I rather the intake fan pulling in more air than is required?

Thanks some more.

 

Dry ice would be perfect - just keep a window open

 

Cool. Any idea how much dry ice costs, or how to store it for multiple uses? I figured regular ice would work well just because it's easy to acquire. I'd love to use dry ice. I just don't know much about keeping it "fresh", for lack of a better word.

Thanks for the advice. I'll read up about it.

 

Dry ice is not cheap and not easy to obtain and store.it's dangerous if not handle properly. So be careful. Plus honestly, do you really want to keep putting pack of ices after another in there every time you use ? And I don't think it's safe for 60-90% humid air to meet the computer components

 

I'd only put ice in while gaming. I wouldn't really even use ice. I'd use one of those blue cooling gel packs that last longer than ice.There's no real reason to do it other than I could, but I was unsure about the humidity factor.

I'm not really that concerned about my cooling because I'll be applying some nice thermal paste, cleaning out all the dust, and making this cooler. I'm just exploring other, easy, ways I can increase the cooling during certain gaming sessions, and just to see how much temps change.

I've become quite addicted to cooling and testing, and I'd just like to see how far I can take it without taking it to the extreme.

 

Get this fan

 

Why not do some internal mods, I did some copper mod on my previous laptop. If there are space in your laptop, you can get some thin copper shim, along with adhesive tape and place some in there

 

To store dry ice you have to keep it in an insulated box. Normally this is just a polystyrene box an inch or so thick with a decent lid. Provided it's got decent insulation then it should keep for a while.

As for the delta fan, those things are probably more dangerous than the dry ice. They're pretty beastly.

 

I did a similar thing, however i used a cold plate from an old icebox. Man my laptop stayed cool.. Much better than having noisy fans running all the time.

 

You can purchase dry ice at walmart, they might ID you as its very very fun to 'experiment' with.

It will keep in your freezer fairly well.

 

Awesome. I'll be buying some for sure. Nice to know Walmart has it.

 

I've done some research on dry ice and one thing concerns me. I read that you want to make sure you use it it a well ventilated area to prevent CO2 imbalance and potential CO2 poisoning.

I'm planning on being in my basement, which is finished at about 700 sq. feet. Anyone know just how ventilated my room needs to be?

I don't want my tombstone to read, "Died playing Diablo III".

 

If you're choking on carbon dioxide, you'd notice. The body regulates how much you need to breathe based on how much carbon dioxide is in your blood, hence why shallow water blackout can be a problem. If there's an inbalence caused by carbon dioxide then you'd know pretty quickly.

Try breathing in the air left in the bottom of a coke bottle and you'll understand.

 

The risk to reward factor does not look to good for this experiment haha.

Sent from my DROID RAZR

 

Maybe you could do something like this..?
Dell XPS M1330 Notebook watercooling MOD, the little How to - YouTube

 

That's really cool. I always wondered how hard it would be to water cool a laptop. The problem I kept thinking about was how to mount a water block to a motherboard with no mounting holes. I guess the answer is to rig something that lines up with some screw hole somewhere, and thermal paste it together.

 

What most people have done is soldered a copper loop to the existing heatsink.

 

Yeah, that would be the best way to do it. That way you could maintain the existing cooling to keep the laptop portable. And what laptop are you using? If you're interested in persuing this water cooling, maybe we could help you draw up a route for the copper. Post up a pic of the cooling system..