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Alienware M18x GPU Cooling Design


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A little OT but i found it funny.

A tech came in today to replace a motherboard in my work HP ProBook 6540b laptop.

I was surprised to find that HP bundles a Shin-Etsu thermal paste with their motherboards and even more surprised when i saw the tech squeeze the whole freaking tube on top of the CPU before putting the heatsink on it. I didn't even start the argument because i knew i'd lose my time there :)

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That just proves HP doesn't know how to apply paste check my picture in the IC Diamond thread... There I show an HP motherboard 2 years in with core 2 quad 2ghz with a glob of paste over the CPU... Check it out its scary looking... It was probably worse at your work with that tech.

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Nice find apart from one thing, it says "glue" is there any chance it can be removed safely??? It happened with me a few times OEM paste burned into the cpu "nicely" gluing the heat sink and cpu as one ... when i tried to remove the heat sink, it just ripped the cpu off without i could open the zif socket. If you know you never going to touch it is good, but you cannot be sore.

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I never let any engineer touch my laptop since my XPS M1730 and 1st M17X,

In my XPS he broke my LCD.... In my M17X he broke my keyboard ESC+END key and scratched the lid with the screwdriver.... and he had no idea how to start take it apart... when i had my 2nd m17x and the 1st engeneer came i just told him i don't want him to touch my laptop, i explained the reason he called dell took 30min. When he finnished the call i already changed the motherboard and tested it. LOL he said is an hour job. (for him,not for me) next time he came, just dropped the parts and he disapeared in town... :D since than i had no problem, just need to explain them why i dont want him to do...

That just proves HP doesn't know how to apply paste check my picture in the IC Diamond thread... There I show an HP motherboard 2 years in with core 2 quad 2ghz with a glob of paste over the CPU... Check it out its scary looking... It was probably worse at your work with that tech.
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I never let any engineer touch my laptop since my XPS M1730 and 1st M17X,In my XPS he broke my LCD.... In my M17X he broke my keyboard ESC+END key and scratched the lid with the screwdriver.... and he had no idea how to start take it apart... when i had my 2nd m17x and the 1st engineer came i just told him i don't want him to touch my laptop, i explained the reason he called dell took 30min. When he finished the call i already changed the motherboard and tested it. LOL he said is an hour job. (for him,not for me) next time he came, just dropped the parts and he disappeared in town... :D since than i had no problem, just need to explain them why i dont want him to do...
hey I agree about not letting them do it. I was mainly referencing how badly laptops are pasted stock right out of factories. The thick glue paste does say on the site it can be removed easily. We need to stay on topic in the threads... this one is about the M18x cooling for the gpu. Back on topic I was thinking of using the IC diamond on my gpu and memory chips... If it doesn't help cool memory I'll try the Artic paste for replacing cooling pads.
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I agree SORRY. I dont have m18X and i dont think i'll, at least for now... LOL Factory goes by numbers, they doont care if your laptop hot you can cook eggs on it...for me always the 1st to repaste it OOBE ...LOL

I've seen the tech doc of m18x looks solid design on gpu cooling 3 heat-pipe. and dell uses the same HDD caddy from XPS M1730 Funny...LOL

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  • 7 months later...

heres a quick test mod i tried i plan to do a different one without soldering so others could emulate and not void warranty with obvious tickering and soldering left behind :)

here the one i did in past it doesnt show a lot as tape was used and i should have shown before tape... i was insulating electronically from other components which just added heat but the copper wire was used all over and i added must of been .5-1 lbs to the system overall over all cpu and gpu heatsinks. Ill post about future mod and test later. so next mod less invasive and hopefully more effective. the ones that were over gpu helped but they ned to lead to heatsink fins or they dont dissapate but trap heat. connecting more of the solver part of heatsink to the copper is smart and helped.... so that surrounding mem i/o of gpus didnt add as much total heat anymore... the most benefit after those was seen from having more total metal contacting and absorbing heat by the fins of the heatsinks in gaps i found above below on on each side.... i'll add pics of the intended areas of the second mod which will be more in depth on pics and all this is open discusssion would love to hear of others home made mods:) for mobile systems theres a few posts from other notebook mfg here... SSG mentioned a plan id love to hear about on his M17x R3 in future.

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one member suggested the connecting of the gpu heatsink to the cpu thats closest so i tried that too and is pictured but taped up.... i believe it will help if done in a better way and insulators are used to prevent electric discharge in a wrong area... as mentioned it was a test.

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  • 5 months later...
  • 1 month later...

My experience, for what its worth.

Ordered a QS 3960XM along with a triple pipe heat sink on my dual 680m R2. I took all pads off and applied a conservative amount of Arctic Silver to all my chips. As far as seating the video memory down, I used the ceramic Arctic material and a 0.5mm copper shim on both. Seats like a champ. I only level one my XM and flashed my 680's with OC vbios. Video card before with Kombuster maxed out 74C on GPU0, now its maxed out at 68C. The XM saw some improvement from a 10minute sustained 100% of about 87C to 83C.

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My experience, for what its worth.

Ordered a QS 3960XM along with a triple pipe heat sink on my dual 680m R2. I took all pads off and applied a conservative amount of Arctic Silver to all my chips. As far as seating the video memory down, I used the ceramic Arctic material and a 0.5mm copper shim on both. Seats like a champ. I only level one my XM and flashed my 680's with OC vbios. Video card before with Kombuster maxed out 74C on GPU0, now its maxed out at 68C. The XM saw some improvement from a 10minute sustained 100% of about 87C to 83C.

Great work thats a great improvement to cooling glad you saw such a difference from before to after.

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