Drilling holes in bottom of old notebook to decrease heat?

I have an old laptop that runs really well. It's an old Fujitsu.



2Ghz Single Core. 2GB of DDR2 RAM, 320GB HDD, WLAN, Bluetooth etc. More than enough for my wife.



The only deal is it gets pretty hot.. I've tried mounting it on a cooler which seems to decrease the heat by only about 3 degrees unfortunately. I also looked at the area for where the fan is to cool the CPU. The holes for the fan to breathe are absolutely tiny.. I was thinking of Drilling a couple of extra holes on the HDD cover bay and the CPU bay just for a start.



Would this make a difference or would I just make a mockery of the underside of my laptop? This cooler isn't really making any difference and the pc gets really hot regardless.. would a few drill holes help with heat dispersion?



I've cleaned out the entire computer with canned air and a high powered vacuum, it looks absolutely spotless.. No idea why it's getting so hot as of late...



Anyway would a few.. or many drill holes make a difference? Also, is there anything else that someone can suggest?



Thanks in advance

Reply 1 : Drilling holes in bottom of old notebook to decrease heat?

Did you put new thermal paste? I suggest you do that before any drill work. Also what are your temperatures?

Reply 2 : Drilling holes in bottom of old notebook to decrease heat?

HDD Temp is 51C

CPU Temp has gotten up to 77C

GPU Temp has gotten to 66C



I haven't replaced the CPU at all so no I haven't put on new paste. I don't want to open the laptop too much.. they're really hard to put back together and there are tons of wires and such that can come out that I can not notice and forget to put back in.



All in all the laptop is too hot to put your hand on almost.

Reply 3 : Drilling holes in bottom of old notebook to decrease heat?

Well depending on what paste was there you should replace it sooner or later. If laptop is old you better do that. I am not talking about Silver or Diamond pфste but... that temp status must be under 100% stress, not under usual work.

I had one old lappy. That paste became a ROCK! That is why my little 2cm fan was louder than desktop computer.

Look on youtube if someone already disassembled you model

Reply 4 : Drilling holes in bottom of old notebook to decrease heat?

Mmm I could try and dig up some *cough* public manual from the manufacturer that has been 'conviniently leaked' onto the internet. But that might work well too.. I'm just a little reluctant to open it up at this time.



I don't even know where I could buy thermal paste from in Finland... maybe I'd have to try ebay?



This good enough?: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/THERMAL-PASTE-...item19c05b59c7

Reply 5 : Drilling holes in bottom of old notebook to decrease heat?

I believe it must be some kind of "radio market" where people buy different computer and electronic parts, TV, pults, cables, diods, condensators, resistors, plugs and adapters and other tons of stuff... Well in my country it is usual. Try to find cooler master, zalman, titan or other.

That cheap e-bay thermal grease may be good only for a month if you are lucky. You will need to put new oftenly. Stars is cheap but not very bad as I heard but reviews did not check how long it will last. It is on eBay.

Try to google for Inet-shops which sell this.

Reply 6 : Drilling holes in bottom of old notebook to decrease heat?

Don't bother with no name thermal paste. Either IC Diamond 7, Arctic MX3, Or Arctic Silver 5.

Reply 7 : Drilling holes in bottom of old notebook to decrease heat?

Quote:

Originally Posted by ronnieb Don't bother with no name thermal paste. Either IC Diamond 7, Arctic MX3, Or Arctic Silver 5.

+1, you can usually buy thermal paste at almost any computer store (not at big block shops but more local shops).



Also if you drill be careful, you don't want to mess up the pressure of air inside your notebook. Basically what I mean is that the notebook chassis is designed along with the cooling system to get the air to flow a specific route, drill a hole in the wrong spot and airflow may be disrupted, or slowed down.



Also if I remember you bought a generic 3 fan notebook cooler off ebay. Consider getting something that is more appropriate for your notebook such as a Notepal U3, your vents are spread and the U3 should let you target individual vents better.

Reply 8 : Drilling holes in bottom of old notebook to decrease heat?

1. What notebook model do you have?



2. If you buy a thermal paste watch out for the thermal conductivity! A good one will be between 7 and 9 W/(m*K) and won't cost that much. Especially because you're so reluctant to take your laptop apart you shouldn't risk to do this twice because of some crappy paste that only has 5W/(m*K).



3. It seems like you have a dedicated graphics card. When reassembling the laptop watch out for the height difference between CPU and GPU! This is usually bridged by a thermal pad which unfortunately often doesn't survive such a replacement procedure and the gap can't be bridged by thermal paste alone. So you might need a new one. From a thermal point of view a piece of copper sheet would be much better than a new silicone pad. Usually you'll need one with a thickness of 0.6 to 0.8mm.

I've heard of so called liquid metal pads that are said to have the thermal conductivity of pure metal and the ease of use of a silicone pad and might therefore be an alternative for a copper sheet. On the other hand I've also heard that they tend to slip away from the die when trying to fix the heat pipe. Since I've never used them on my own I can't tell you any more about them.