Powerful DIY Laptop Cooler

Hi to all,

this is my first post and I just want to share with everyone how i managed to control the temperature of my used to be problematic hp dv2000 laptop with my custom laptop cooler.

For a long time i had an intel cpu fan lying around which i initially used to exhaust air from the back of my laptop far away so the expelled heat doesn't linger around. But it didn't do much and my laptop kept reaching 70 degrees which i thought was alright until my video card started failing. I eventually had my motherboard upgraded to a higher spec but i still had the heat problem.

Btw, i live in the Philippines and a typical day here ranges from 31C to 37C in summer.

I always believed the best way to cool a laptop is to take out the heat and not blow cooler air in, because there's no guarantee the cool air will go the the right places. so i kept looking for the proper materials for a while and here's what i came up with.

My idea in general was to use the access panel for the memory modules as an opening or access to the internals on the case. with this i was lucky because right beside the panel are the heat sink for the video card and CPU (see images) i just had to find a way to put a fan there that would create a vacuum to blow out the heat from these components.

So i got a plastic desk organizer for pens etc and laid it out to match the holes in my laptop. I have an extended battery so i made a hole for that as well. The CPU fan needs a duct so it can draw out the air more efficiently similar to how a radiator fan shroud works. I used a cut out paper cup for this and it does the job well. but take note that you must leave a space a space at the bottom so the air can move out.

I got a heavy duty 12v power supply for the fan so it won't have any problems even when running at full power.

Upon assebly, the laptop would be raised by about 40mm which can be bothersome, but when rendering and doing heavy work, it's really helps keep the temps down even on a hot summer day.

Along with the laptop cooler i also cut out the intake of the laptop fan so it's a bout 5x larger in area, and i used IC diamond thermal paste and a copper shim which i ordered online.

The difference: without the cooler my cpu and video temps would easily heat up to 72C even with the IC Diamond and shim, and my hard drives would heat up to 60C all in high performance mode, not even under heavy use, but with the cooler it never goes beyond 55 degrees. Under heavy use it can go up to 58C but the hard drives never heat up to more than 45C which to me is a huge huge difference.

Thanks, i hope my post was able to give you an idea, and probably help some power users out there in need of a customized cooler.

 

More images:


I forgot to add, the intel fan IS NOISY but most of the time i'd rather have that than to fry my gpu and overheat my hard drives. Thanks

 

Posting screen shots taken playing a full hd movie at 2560x1600 in powerdvd with all cinematic options on, from start to about 3:40, marking a 15C difference. Ambient temp is 31C. The dv2000's cooling system design is very poor in general so the temps are very high to begin with compared to other laptops. CPU: Intel t7500