Good laptop cooling design? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: frenky
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 21, 2018, 01:55:07 pm
content: I have recently bought laptop with Intel i7-8550U and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050.I noticed that fan gets really loud so I opened bottom panel to see what is going on...To me this thermal design looks really bad but I am no expert of the field.It seems to be designed in a way that fan would suck air from vents on the left and bottom and then out through copper fins on the edge of laptop.But fan seems to struggle with this and is really noisy and whistling.Most of laptops have different design with an air intake right above fan so it can suck cold ambient air from outside.I think i'll design a replacement panel and ask a friend to 3D print it for me.This panel will have a big air intake above fan. I'll do a stress test before and after the mod to see what happens with temps inside and fan speed.What do you guys think about this?

author: glarsson
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 21, 2018, 01:58:36 pm
content: What happens to the cooling of the pcb? If the fan takes air through your big hole and immediately blows it through the cooler then the pcb will not see any airflow.

author: senso
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 21, 2018, 02:00:04 pm
content: That is to force air through the whole motherboard cooling the RAM, VRM's and the SSD, if you drill the cover or do one with vents you will still feel it hot on the underside, due to lack of airflow in the inside.Its just a cheap laptop, doesn't matter what you paid for it, its a cheapo model, with a crap cooling system, as is the norm in almost all laptops.Repaste it with Kryonaut or IC-Gelid and you will see that it works a lot cooler(expect 5ºC of temp drop), because the stock thermal paste is crap.

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 21, 2018, 03:59:44 pm
content: If the cover plate is aluminum, add thermal pads on the heatpipes so the plate acts as additional heatsink area.

author: Ampera
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 21, 2018, 04:22:43 pm
content: If it's a laptop and not the size of a tombstone, it has a terrible cooling solution.

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 21, 2018, 04:37:10 pm
content: Modern compact laptops and good thermals aren't compatible. You either have one or the other. In the case of your laptop, it seems that it's designed to pull air over the motherboard, though the fan and out the vent. Adding an additional cooling slot over the fan might reduce the temperature of the processor and sound production, but is likely to cause extra stress to the other components on the board, like the VRMs. That's a common problem in water cooled computers that don't have any airflow over the board.Motherboards are designed to have some airflow over them and removing it causes trouble.

author: KhronX
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 22, 2018, 07:02:27 pm
content: ... But hey, look how slim and light the laptop is!..Yeah, i'm sticking with my "big 'n ugly" Precision M4800, thankyouverymuch...

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 23, 2018, 01:30:44 am
content: An easy way to greatly improve thermals is to make as much of the bottom part as possible out of aluminum in order to use it as a big heatsink. But that would increase costs which the OEMs try to trim off every cent they can get away with.

author: frenky
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 23, 2018, 08:34:31 am
content: Thank you guys for your input.My to-do:- change thermal paste with better one- disable dedicated graphics card (I bought laptop for cpu not gpu...)- try to find source of whistling and reduce it if possible (perhaps find better quality fan)- replace backplate with alu version- maybe remove backplate and buy cheap cooling pad and replace it's fan with Noctua 140mm silent fan

author: senso
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 23, 2018, 01:21:11 pm
content: your GPU is off already, it has Optimus and the dGPU only works when it is needed, aka only gaming and or if you run a CAD with the GPU(right click select GPU adapter), besides that, the Intel HD something does everything else.Repaste with good thermal paste, UNDERVOLT your cpu, it will make a lot more difference than you think.

author: hli
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 23, 2018, 01:41:55 pm
content: What sometimes happens with these coolers is that dirt accumulates in the fine fins of the exhaust. This reduces the airflow, and makes the fan work harder (since warm air cannot be transported fast enough out of the case). So try to clean that up (using compressed air maybe - but gently stop the fan from rotating when doing so).

author: frenky
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 23, 2018, 01:45:32 pm
content: Laptop is completly new. (1 week old)It seems that undervolting will even help with performance:https://www.reddit.com/r/laptops/comments/77qfuk/undervolting_8th_genu_cpu_more_performance/

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 23, 2018, 04:07:21 pm
content: Quote from: frenky on February 23, 2018, 01:45:32 pmThat makes sense. As long as you don't undervolt it to the point where it becomes unstable, less power piped into the processor means less heat and less heat means less throttling.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 24, 2018, 12:13:15 am
content: Quote from: Mr. Scram on February 23, 2018, 04:07:21 pmIts an interesting space where reducing the voltage can keep the chip from reaching thermal and/or power limits depending on the specific system.

author: Vgkid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 24, 2018, 06:45:35 am
content: Quote from: KhronX on February 22, 2018, 07:02:27 pmA fellow m4800 owner.How do you like it , and how is it specced?