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Adding small heatinks over copper heat pipe... bad idea

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wicked_sticky

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Oct 1, 2016
My MSI Bravo GPU Runs 85-90°C. CPU at 101° I can underclock the cpu and gpu is completely locked.

Im considering adding some copper heatsink on the heat pipes directly over the gpu and cpu. And connecting the other heat pipes with shims.

Photo show the bravo, I have enough clearance to add some heatsinks similar to what another user did to the Asus tuf. Question is, will this do anything noticeable?

View attachment 211859
 
Is there much airflow over that area? With such small heatsinks (compared to blowing over the heatpipe itself) I don't think it'll make much of a difference to be worth the effort.
 
I think that Bravo is only with Ryzen 4000H series CPUs.

If there is a limited airflow then heatsinks won't help much. On ASUS TUF is the same. If you won't modify bottom cover then it won't have enough airflow to remove the heat from heatsinks. In A15 TUF there were mods to cut larger holes what improved temps by about 5-10°C without additional heatsinks. At least this is an issue with RTX2060. I have GTX1660Ti version and it works fine ... except that in turbo mode it's really noisy. Most other laptop series make more noise so I guess that could be worse.

One question. Do you have MSI software installed and did you check additional power modes? My ASUS heats up significantly less on balanced or silent modes while silent is still not much slower and the CPU boosts up to 4.3GHz (4800H).
 
On the other hand, Ryzen 4000 has max temp of 105°C. Once it reaches it then starts to throttle or balance voltage/clock. It's still within' a safe range so I don't know if it requires any additional mods as long as there are no stability issues or anything else that causes work uncomfortable (excluding the fact you know how high is CPU's temp).
 
I didn't want to make the OP longer than it was, no one wants to read a 10 paragraph question. Ill try to be succinct: I've been using tried & true DIY OC/cooling Since Pentium 3 days. On this laptap I tried messing with the bios, MSI tuning software, 3rd party OC software, windows registry/power plan, repaste. 70cfm cooling pad, Running without the bottom on 2 strips of wood.



Is there much airflow over that area? With such small heatsinks (compared to blowing over the heatpipe itself) I don't think it'll make much of a difference to be worth the effort.

This is the pertinent question, about 75% percent of the air vents are directly over this area and its the only spot that has more than a few mm clearance between the board and case.
If it was just a plate/heatsink/air, it would def be worth the effort but Heat pipe are a different animal.
Would having extra copper in contact heat pipe pull a noticeable amount of heat from the heat pipe, and since a hunk of copper doesn't dissipate heat as well as a heatpipe; dowa the added heatsinks retain heat the would have been radiated away?. ie the heatsink lets the far end of the heat pipe stay cooler because the extra copper over the cpu is hotter. I don't know...

View attachment 211863

I think that Bravo is only with Ryzen 4000H series CPUs.
... On ASUS TUF is the same. If you won't modify bottom cover then it won't have enough airflow to remove the heat from heatsinks. In A15 TUF there were mods to cut larger holes what improved temps by about 5-10°C without additional heatsinks....
MSI Bravo and the Tuf both rely on air being pulled across the board to properly cool. The difference is even though the Bravo is thinner and lighter (less room for air flow and less copper for cooling) All the are vents are directly over the all the heat pipes. Adding Holes in the Tuf greatley decrease CPU/GPU temps but somewhat increase vrm/mobo temps. On the bravo, adding more holes still increases vrm/mobo temps, Avg cpu/gpu temps go down a bit BUT almost its cuts the air flow over most of the heat pipes. Using a flir, the back corner get much cooler, but the a much larger center are of the mobo get hotter. Adding a couple of pin sized holes might help mix colder air into the fan intake it would take a lot of trial and error to make holes small enough to not change the airflow pattern, and holes that small will create turbulence which would make the already loud fans even louder.
On the other hand, Ryzen 4000 has max temp of 105°C. Once it reaches it then starts to throttle or balance voltage/clock. It's still within' a safe range so I don't know if it requires any additional mods as long as there are no stability issues or anything else that causes work uncomfortable (excluding the fact you know how high is CPU's temp).

you can do some registry hacks to disable turbo to help control temps. here is a post of how to do that. Once those hacks are done, they are simple to make changes back and forth from the power options menu

I think that Bravo is only with Ryzen 4000H series CPUs.

...One question. Do you have MSI software installed and did you check additional power modes? My ASUS heats up significantly less on balanced or silent modes while silent is still not much slower and the CPU boosts up to 4.3GHz (4800H).






Replying to everything else at once -

The cpu runs fine even with aggressive boost clocks when using with internal GPU- shared heat pipe lets both CPU/GPU fans cool the cpu.
BIOS and MSI software don't have tuning options but 3rd party software (ryzen controller, ryzen adj) and registry/power plan can drop downclock the CPU to keep it cool when gaming.


The problem is nothing can be done with the dGPU.
[RANT: The dGPU is not unlockable. If its on, it will run games at 75watts. Non of the hacks for undervolting can even unlock the power/temp limit or clock speed adjusters (ostensibly because the 5500m was designed for apple pro. and MSI reused the drivers as is to cut cost) This is the only gpu ive seen that isn't compatible with MSI afterburner. Insanely I can even unlock the iGPU settings.
MSI Dragon Center software isn't optimized for AMD, no tuning options and the only thing the performance mode does is adjust how long turbo on the CPU is sustained. MSI DC can't make changes to the 5500m the different power options ONLY make the boost clock speed stay on longer or force games to run on the iGPU.


I bought this after reading 100's of reviews, none mention that it has a locked bios, cpu setting, and gpu drivers. I would have bought a crappier 1650 if I knew I couldnt tinker with it.
 
Won't make a damn bit of difference. Don't waste your time.
Mackerel is right on.
 
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