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Alienware fan and cooling mods


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Hello I thought I would start this thread to collect all the cooling mods people had come up with and maybe share new ideas.

 

I have an alienware m11x and a m18x and heat has always been a task to keep away.

 

Now I'm planning doing a fan mod for my m18x by putting a completely different kind of fans in it.

 

The problem is the alienware fans use 4pins and the Color code do not match any of the one finding on the internet.

No one actually now what cable do that do what.

 

Today I found out!

 

Red and Black is + & -/ground

Not sure which is what.

 

yellow cable = reads fan rpm (fan acts normally)

White cable = controlling fan speed.

 

Disconnecting white cable make the fan go to max speed.

 

The order is black, yellow, white and red.

Notice on the picture that it isn't the same order as at the fan!!! 

 

With that knowledge I can start looking for other fans with 4pins and 5voltages.

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Here is a small concept art.

Putting a regular desktop fan underneath the alienware, and remove the old fan and fill up the gab with something to direct the air through the heatsink, fill increase the airflow dramatically, sense a desktop fan can move much more air.

 

If the installation is airtight, the only way for the air to get out is through the heatsink and if the fan can suck more air in than it can escape through the heatsink, the pressure will rise and the heat will be forced out through the heatsink. Also the fan will not need to run so fast resulting in a more quite cooling system.

 

Keep in mind, even though it looks like it will have a small intake, it will not only get air from behind, it will take air in all around the fan.
Also because it can move so much air, the sucking will be big.

concept art.jpg

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Imagine a fan this size underneath. 

Yes I have checked, the fan has the right size to fill the gap there will be if I remove the old fan from the alienware. Only the cover around the fan is too big, so it will be mounted like it is shown at the concept art.

It´s a 12 volt fan so I dont think it will spin if I connect it to the laptop. It needs to be a 5 volt fan, also it is only a 3pin fan.

IMAG1856.jpg

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Okay today I made a nice and simple fan mod. Everyone can do it if the know how to access the fan.

 

I've seen some people talking about trying modding the wings/blades, but some clever person said it would make it worse because it is build 100% optimal.

 

I thought I would try anyway.

I always wondered why the fan didn't go out to the edges so I decided to make them bigger.

 

First I try aiming the outtake bellow my nose and spin it with my hand to feel how much air was flowing. To be hornest I didn't feel much.

 

I made few of the blades bigger by taking some thick paper, cut it out in a long strip and glued it on. The eye measure where to cut. 

 

For each piece I span the fan a couple of times making sure something did not touch.

 

When I thought I put enough on, I aimed it bellow my nose again and tried spinning it.

 

This time I could really feel it!

 

I mounted it in the alienware, forced the fan to go max speed using hwinfo64, and ran a benchmark.

 

The result was mind blowing!

 

I use a single AMD 8970m I've overclocked to 1,2 volt and is running 1120mhz coreclock stable.

The heatsink is for a amd 6870m so it's not perfectly for the 8970m.

 

Normally when running the benchmark with 100% gpuload overclocked, it will hit 100 degrees after 4 minutes and keep claiming if it wasn't because it throttles!

 

After the fanmod I ran the benchmark for 6 minutes and the temperature stayed at 85 degrees!!!

 

I can feel behind the laptop it's a storm. :P.

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Notice I didn't put it on all the wings and I still got that result.

 

Be sure to put on the BACK of the wings, because you are going to extend it not change it, because that might make it worse.

 

Try get it so close to the edges as possible without making touch.

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Notice at the right side of the fan there is a fan icon that indicates where the air will be coming from.

 

When putting your hand behind you can feel very little air coming in the left site, but as you get more in front of the fan icon there comes more and more air.

 

This I found stupid because then it doesn't blow on the whole heatsink, only on a spot.

 

After I tested the fan first time I decided to fix this problem too.

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I did another modification.

Now I had the air power I needed, now I just needed to get the most out of it.

 

I made a small reconstruction of the fan making, the air spread more.

 

When I tested it, yes indeed the air came trough the entire heatsink, but when starting the benchmark, the temps hit 90 degrees in 4 minutes and kept claiming.

 

So DO NOT MODIFY THE CONSTRUCTION! It makes it worse. Only make the wings wider.

IMG_20160617_010441.jpg

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By the way, it is a m18x r1 gpu fan with 4,8 CFM (it means how much it can blow)

 

One this you need to know when doing this mod. The noise get different.

I don't know if it's a littlebit louder or not. It doesn't have this typical hissing sound anymore, it's more like a buzzing.

 

I used some fast drying superglue to get it stick. I recommend using some very watery glue, because it's easier to work with and you don't need so much.

 

If you found my explanations confused or not understandable just say it and I will try again. Hope you found it usefull.

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This information is very interesting. Thank you for sharing it. Extending the length of the fan blades seems to have improved things and was a great idea to test. How is the fan balance with this mod? Are you able to detect any vibration after the mod? As the blades are closer to the housing on one side, I suspect this helps to compress the air and having the blades closer to the housing in those areas probably assists in the increase of air pressure.

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10 hours ago, Mr. Fox said:

This information is very interesting. Thank you for sharing it. Extending the length of the fan blades seems to have improved things and was a great idea to test. How is the fan balance with this mod? Are you able to detect any vibration after the mod? As the blades are closer to the housing on one side, I suspect this helps to compress the air and having the blades closer to the housing in those areas probably assists in the increase of air pressure.

I haven't tested the balance. I may try take one fan out and hold it in the hand while it spinning to feel if it's unbalanced. I can't feel any on the computer.

I can still compare because my right gpu fan hasn't been modified.

 

Also I don't know if it will improve even more to extend all the wings.  May it will fix the sound and if it's unbalanced it might fix this too.

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  • 1 year later...
  • 10 months later...
  • 3 weeks later...
On 11/9/2018 at 1:53 PM, MessiWessi said:

Oh... I was really excited as I read your fan modding post. But the last sentence made me sad. Is there any other possibility to increase the air flow? Maybe to buy another fan which fits in Alienware M18X R1/R2?

What you can do is look at the small sticker on the fans saying how much CFM it has.

There is made different types for the m18x. For the m18x you can upgrade your CPU fan from around 4.5 CFM to 11.5 CFM if I remember correctly.

 

Another Idea is to make my watercooling mod. ;)

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