Hey folks, how are you all doing.
I have an ageing Acer 4535G that I'll be pulling apart soon for a fan replacement. I hate to say it but in the 18 months of owning it this will be the third fan that's getting put in. I got a laptop repair crowd (can't remember who.. Some folks last time I was in Singapore) to replace the factory fan at the 1yr mark. Unfortunately the one they put in it barely even lasted 6 months without the old bearing problems coming back..
I'm now starting to think that there's a design flaw with the thermal module, and it's up to me to try and fix it or prolong the next time I have to go replacing things.. My thinking is that the less the fan runs, the better, so doing some heatsink modding to increase passive cooling would be a good idea.
While I have no qualms with stuff like building and pulling apart systems, I've never actually modified factory or aftermarket parts before, let alone those for a lappy. I admit I'm a little unsure whether my plans for this little job of mine are alright or not. Hence, I made this account to tap the minds of those greater than I for advice and inspiration.
Basically the idea is to (aside from replacing the fan, of course) remove the stock aluminum base(?) from the CPU/GPU and grind down these little circular burs outside the fan shroud, placing cheap copper ramsinks on top of the now flat surface. While I'm at it I might put a couple ramsinks directly on the heatpipe in a couple places where there is room, but all this leads to a few questions:
Well.. that's the main points I wanted to ask, but is there anything else that might be useful to know/do or potential issues that am overseeing? All the parts I need are are already ordered and (apparently) posted, so it's just a matter of time before my little mod starts!
Oh, and my apologies if this more suited to the cooling or laptop sections. A quick browse through there though didn't find anything like what I'm planning to do, and I also wanted to go to where the expert hardware modders are!
I have an ageing Acer 4535G that I'll be pulling apart soon for a fan replacement. I hate to say it but in the 18 months of owning it this will be the third fan that's getting put in. I got a laptop repair crowd (can't remember who.. Some folks last time I was in Singapore) to replace the factory fan at the 1yr mark. Unfortunately the one they put in it barely even lasted 6 months without the old bearing problems coming back..
I'm now starting to think that there's a design flaw with the thermal module, and it's up to me to try and fix it or prolong the next time I have to go replacing things.. My thinking is that the less the fan runs, the better, so doing some heatsink modding to increase passive cooling would be a good idea.
While I have no qualms with stuff like building and pulling apart systems, I've never actually modified factory or aftermarket parts before, let alone those for a lappy. I admit I'm a little unsure whether my plans for this little job of mine are alright or not. Hence, I made this account to tap the minds of those greater than I for advice and inspiration.
Basically the idea is to (aside from replacing the fan, of course) remove the stock aluminum base(?) from the CPU/GPU and grind down these little circular burs outside the fan shroud, placing cheap copper ramsinks on top of the now flat surface. While I'm at it I might put a couple ramsinks directly on the heatpipe in a couple places where there is room, but all this leads to a few questions:
- Is the effort of grinding down the factory burs and making this weird combination alu/copper heatsink worth it? I know those burs are to increase surface area, but they just seem like some afterthought by the Acer design team. The things are too shallow and widely spaced IMO to have any significant heatsink effect (there is space BTW), and they don't even cover the whole flat side around the fan shroud. On the other hand, could the alu/copper connection that Ill be making be worse than the stock design? If anything I'll be adding more mass, but I'd like peoples opinions on this.
- Will putting ramsinks directly onto the heatpipe have a beneficial effect, specifically if they are put somewhere towards the middle of the heatpipe length? I've looked a little into how heatpipes work, but my search-fu is low. The main page I've looked at describes heating and cooling 'ends', and my fear is that I might screw up the circulation of the internal fluid and actually make the pipe's cooling efficiency worse.
- I'm humming and harring between using the the thermal tape coming with the ramsinks or using AS5 with superglue in the corners. Which would be better for heat transfer? Once they're on I'm not intending to take them off, so the permanence of the superglue isn't an issue..
Well.. that's the main points I wanted to ask, but is there anything else that might be useful to know/do or potential issues that am overseeing? All the parts I need are are already ordered and (apparently) posted, so it's just a matter of time before my little mod starts!
Oh, and my apologies if this more suited to the cooling or laptop sections. A quick browse through there though didn't find anything like what I'm planning to do, and I also wanted to go to where the expert hardware modders are!
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