Jump to content

Alienware M18x CPU Cooling Design


Recommended Posts

This is the CPU thread, and will become the thread for the CPU mod when me or someone else gets around to it.

From the looks of things, its a single thick heatpipe with less fin surface area than the GPU's. This means it should not really perform all that well...

The hardware heaven review seems to confirm this, with 83 degrees celcius for an entry level CPU (tj max is 99) so it doesnt have very much room at all. Factory overclocked 4ghz will probably throttle during prime/etc.

So we will most probably need to mod that sucker to set it right. The only thing I can think of doing to help it is to salvage some more heatpipes from something else and solder them on for more heat transfer.

-Ash

  • Thumbs Up 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Founder

If you see the pic, there is some space between the CPU and the right GPU, if an extra fan could fit in there, possibly a smaller thinner one.... ( I am not sure about the depth though, I can't tell from that pic). Another thought, some soldering could add a few extra thin layers of copper on the right side of the heatsink in case a fan doesn't fit...

alienware-m18x_inside.jpg

  • Thumbs Up 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

So far the soldering extra copper seems to be the best idea. Maybe some of the thermal anti-static foil wrapped in the right areas to help ensure there is no thermal heat transfer around surrounding pieces.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There is also the possibility of salvaging a heatpipe to join the left GPU fin stack with the CPU fin stack.

This would raise temps of the left GPU slightly, but lower the CPU temps slightly.

In fact, one could also use a longer salvaged heatpipe to join up the right GPU fin stack as well.

See, during certain tasks we have different levels of load. During gaming, GPU's load a lot more than CPU's. During CPU stuff (dev, compile, transcode, video) CPU load is much higher. Spreading this heat over all available surfaces will reduce noise significantly.

Im pretty confident this is the way forward for me at least. Just gotta find some heatpipes now.

This means to remove one heatsink you would have to remove them all, but the potential heat and noise reduction would make it very worth it.

I have an old shuttle CPU cooler and a bunch of unused GPU coolers... could be fun to do down the track when I pick up an m18x. I just need to get a soldering iron powerful enough.

-Ash

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Founder

The CPU heatsink should have been like the R3 with dual heatpipes. I just looked at the manual and it does appear to be a thicker single pipe which may work just fine if it has enough surface area. I don't get why Dell kept this shitty R2 layout and didn't opt to put everything on the bottom like the R3.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Ashtefere great idea I have a soldering iron and would be willing to attempt it too. Yes great idea if all 3 heatsinks are linked to eachother with copper overall temps accross the board would go down. Can't wait to see some first attempts.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 5 months later...

i just bought a 3k m18x alienware.. i hope this cpu and gpu really cools and not causing me problems. i truely believe furmark and prime95 are overkill programs, and i always put settings for game on lowest if possible so i dont overheat my system, nevertheless, i hope encoding movie will work fine on this new machine and wont overheat and die on me.

2.4ghz 2760qm, dual AMD 6990 2gb GDDR5 crossfire, and 16 gb ram at 1600.

i got a cooler master cooling pad with 3 adjustable fans just in case this alienware cant cool fast enough. any tips from the veteran here? ive been reading posts where the 2 GPUS have different temp, and cpu cant cool fast enough.. also i dont know anything about adjustable fan speed.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

i just bought a 3k m18x alienware.. i hope this cpu and gpu really cools and not causing me problems. i truely believe furmark and prime95 are overkill programs, and i always put settings for game on lowest if possible so i dont overheat my system, nevertheless, i hope encoding movie will work fine on this new machine and wont overheat and die on me.

2.4ghz 2760qm, dual AMD 6990 2gb GDDR5 crossfire, and 16 gb ram at 1600.

i got a cooler master cooling pad with 3 adjustable fans just in case this alienware cant cool fast enough. any tips from the veteran here? ive been reading posts where the 2 GPUS have different temp, and cpu cant cool fast enough.. also i dont know anything about adjustable fan speed.

Why did you spend 3K on a top end gaming rig to play games on the lowest settings?! The cooling is sufficient for all intents and purposes. Without heavy overclocking, this system will last no problem. I am on stock paste and have very average temps in my place. I game high 70s on the CPU and 70s on both GPU's (certain diodes MAY be in the 80s IF hwinfo is reporting correctly and I have heard conflicting reports). Rest assured you should be able to play your games as they were meant to be played...so to speak.

I do agree that furmark is not a good application to test games. Just because it has certain functions to stress GPU's it doesn't translate to every component of the GPU being stressed and I agree to the ideology to bench "in game." But man....3k to play at lowest settings and you bought it!? I have a bridge I'd like to sell you;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Why did you spend 3K on a top end gaming rig to play games on the lowest settings?! The cooling is sufficient for all intents and purposes. Without heavy overclocking, this system will last no problem. I am on stock paste and have very average temps in my place. I game high 70s on the CPU and 70s on both GPU's (certain diodes MAY be in the 80s IF hwinfo is reporting correctly and I have heard conflicting reports). Rest assured you should be able to play your games as they were meant to be played...so to speak.

I do agree that furmark is not a good application to test games. Just because it has certain functions to stress GPU's it doesn't translate to every component of the GPU being stressed and I agree to the ideology to bench "in game." But man....3k to play at lowest settings and you bought it!? I have a bridge I'd like to sell you;)

both my hp and sony overheated and fan died, had to replace both fans. and now, either gpu/cpu is dying probably due to long term overheating and i have to take off the bottom plate + coolingpad just to be able to use it to play some crappy games, really disapointed.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

both my hp and sony overheated and fan died, had to replace both fans. and now, either gpu/cpu is dying probably due to long term overheating and i have to take off the bottom plate + coolingpad just to be able to use it to play some crappy games, really disapointed.

Sorry to hear that i sold my HP HDX 18t because it was a one fan single heatsink for cpu and gpu setup... i'll never go back ... atleast the alienware has individual heatsinks and fans. I cleaned my brothers identical HP out and it was on verge of overheating just surfing the net... it wasn't as bad once I replaced the stock paste since it was already about 2 years old. He also accumulated a lot of dust. The whole system had to be take apart to clean whereas the Alienware is very easy to clean just the bottom plate of 4 screws. The fan speed controls of HWinfo are the best solution and will provide dramatic differences if you set them at max over the normal temperature setting of the stock fan control that Alienware sets. See this thread: http://forum.techinferno.com/hwinfo32-64-discussion/65-alienware-fan-control.html#post185

Download here:HWiNFO, HWiNFO32 & HWiNFO64 - Hardware Information and Analysis Tools

Edited by mw86
  • Thumbs Up 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use. We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.