Cooling Problems

[bigben4]

Hey there!

 

I've been thinking about over locking my laptop's CPU - I have a maxed out Alienware m14x 2012 edition.

 

My processor has a standard clock speed of 3.0 GHz and Turbo boosts up to 3.8 GHz...

 

That's a good speed, and I have already unlocked the multiplier in the BIOS. The bad thing - the temps. They get up in the 90s, and I really don't like it going above 80. I already have a cooling pad, it's a really bad one made by the company "onn". It's not getting the job done for me. Are there any cooling solutions/better cooling pads that you guys would recommend?

 

Thanks.

 

- Ben

[Stonerboy779]

Your not going to find a mat that will drop the temps enough to let you clock higher. The mat just won't get rid of the thermal load. Hacking the laptop apart and liquid cooling it etc would haha

 

If you want a better mat look for something from the trusted big brands, cooler master, thermal take, salmon etc with a large single fan as it'll work much more quietly and push more air. Also having a metal surface can help as it can dissipate a little heat too.

[wevsspot]

You're only real option that "might" provide a small (likely very small) improvement, would be to disassemble the laptop and replace the OEM thermal interface with a higher quality TIM.  However, a lot of that will depend on whether the current heatsink assembly is using pads or paste.  

 

The other consideration, is that often times your particular laptop will utilize an integrated cooler that cools both the cpu and the gpu.  If the current cooling solution is using thermal pads, then the height of the cooler is designed to accommodate the height of the pads and not the lower height of a paste solution.  Likely causing a poor contact between the cooling solution and the cpu/gpu cores.

 

If it were me I'd leave well enough alone.  Laptops simply aren't designed to overclock, and if you insist on doing so you're going to run into an overheating problem (like you already are).

 

Hell, 3.8Ghz is plenty fast enough for most anything you need to do.

[Kiro]

Unfortunately, your options are currently pretty limited if you're looking to retain laptop portability.

 

You can read up a lot about the debate between positive and negative air pressure cooling setups.  All laptops I've opened up have fans that pulls the hot air out, creating a negative air pressure system.

 

Cooling pads, for the most part, are designed to force air through the bottom vents in the laptop, effectively converting it to a positive air pressure system (assuming more air is pushed into the laptop than is pulled out).  I'd follow Stonerboy's suggestions if you're looking to purchase another one.

 

Some argue that because laptops were designed with negative air pressure cooling in mind, the effectiveness of cooling pads is limited.  For those people, other cooling accessories were created to attach to the existing exhaust vent and aid the existing exhaust fan in drawing the hot air out.  Otherwise, people have modified laptops with positive air pressure cooling in mind: enlarging bottom intake vents around cpu/gpu, adding miniture heatsinks to increase surface area for convection, and going with a single fan cooling pad.

 

I'd have to agree with wevsspot on all points.

 

Personally, I bought a used Asus G51VX with an overheating GPU, despite replacing the thermal pads (PO tried using a lot of thermal paste with no positive result).  For experimental purposes, I used a Scythe Ultra-Kaze 120mm fan to act as an accessory fan.  Tried a few configurations, but these two stick out:

1) Coolest CPU temperatures with the bottom cover off and the fan blowing directly onto the motherboard

2) Coolest GPU temperatures with the bottom cover off and the fan blowing directly into the exhaust vent (against the exhaust fan)

 

Removing the bottom cover essentially creates an open air system.  By blowing air onto the motherboard, you're simultaneously pushing the hot air away and supplying cool air.

 

The second point had to do with the design of the cooling system.  The CPU and GPU both had their own heat pipes, which each had their own set of heatsinks.  The CPU heatsink was closest to the exhaust fan, effectively supplying the GPU heatsink with hot air.  Supplying the GPU heatsink with fresh cool air took the temps down a lot, at the expense of effectively forcing hot air into the system.

 

Turns out that the optimum (most effective with least amount of effort) cooling modification for my particular laptop was to place an on/off switch on the PWM fan control wire.  Apparently, the fan wasn't ever on at lower temperatures, and never ran at 100% even when the GPU was overheating.  By using a switch, I have the ability to allow the motherboard to control the fan during normal, low intensity tasks, and have the fan on at full blast for more intensive tasks.  No software fan controller worked for this laptop at the time I was looking.

 

In the end, I guess, it's laptop-dependent.  Best of luck figuring out what works best for yours.

Edited September 25, 2013 by Kiro

[EuroFight]

Just a thought, and this is more of a question than an answer, but would it be possible to cool the actual bottom surface of the laptop using an active cooling solution?

[wevsspot]

Sure, do all your laptop overclocking while your sitting in a walk in frig  

[Stonerboy779]

Just a thought, and this is more of a question than an answer, but would it be possible to cool the actual bottom surface of the laptop using an active cooling solution?

If the Alienware laptop is metal yes if its plastic then little to no because the plastic just sucks for transferring heat.

 

What the cooling pads do mainly is keep the fans fed with air so that they aren't getting blocked up by clothing or covers etc. A lot of laptops will see little diver dance from being used on a table to being used on a mat.

[bigben4]

Hmmmm.... I've been thinking a bit, and I might try rigging up my laptop with some water-cooling. I'll have to do a little bit more research, because I still want the laptop to be portable. Any suggestions, anyone? I honestly don't really care how expensive it will get.... money is not the issue here, but let's keep it at a reasonable price, under 200 bucks.

[EuroFight]

It's going to be very difficult to create a cooling loop whilst remaining portable including rad, reservoir and tubing...

[Kiro]

You've probably Googled it already, but one of the top results is of a laptop with an all-in-one water cooler with its original cooling system removed.  It also required an external power source.  You'd essentially be carrying around a laptop and a shoebox with you everywhere, and you lose the ability to be without an outlet.

 

A really cool one that I saw, though, was a dockable water cooling station.  I don't remember the details, but I believe he placed the water cooling system on top of the existing air cooling system and routed the tubing out to a custom docking station that contained the rest of the water cooling components.  This allowed him to have water cooling at his desk and still retain portability for when he wanted to use his laptop elsewhere.

 

Otherwise, Asetek has/had been working on liquid cooling laptops.  Don't really know its current status or plans for the technology.