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Alienware M17X R4 water cooling system


jackgarcia7

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I am starting a water cooling system for my R4. Before you ask why I am doing this I will give you the answer.

1. Better cooling system for the laptop (not a gamer so gpu is always idle)

2. Because someone told me it couldn't be done.

I am runnning my benchmarks right now. If you want me to do a benchmark for you with my specs let me know but so far this is what I am testing.

1. CPU stress test temperatures (100% at 3.8Ghz)

2. GPU stress test temperatures (100% at 1350Mhz)

3. Memory stress test temperatures (100% at 1600Mhz)

4. Idle temperatures (Idles around 1.2Ghz)

The cooling system will consist of a built-in water pump power at start up. I will also have a reservoir and about 2 feet of 1/4'' copper piping. The piping will not be the same size everywhere but overall it will be 1/4''.

Know for my questions

1. Will the water changes create condensation on the copper piping?

2. If yes, should the piping be coated in some material?

3. Is there a location on the motherboard where the pipes cannot cross over?

4. Is there a place where the motherboard shouldn't heat up.

Last but not least throw me some suggestions. After my testing is complete I will post my schematics. Wish me luck :).

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For testing cpu stress test i would use Intel Burn Test set to 8threads at max ram alloted/allowed. This will give you the best worst case scenario in temperatures.

Not had any liquid cooling myself but yes if cold interfaces with the copper pipes the external warm temperatures will create condensation. Another way to prevent this is don't cool your coolant lower than a certain temp im not sure of the temp somewhere between 35-40F. I used a ac converted to air cooler for a bit and i had a way to bypass the condenser on off and forced freezing temps. Condensation definitely showed heading close to freezing as i went passed that down to about 22F.

Best of luck we have a great user who modded M15x with liquid cooling but uses external unit instead of fitting the whole thing in the laptop.

Paranoid Galaxy S3 on Tapatalk 2

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This will be totally internal, and the temperature of the water should only go a few degrees below room temperature. So will the copper have any condensation at this level of water difference. I don't believe I will just like a second opinion.

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Talk to @Jahnsinn about it, he's WC'd an M15x already: http://forum.techinferno.com/alienware-m15x/2220-%5Bguide%5D-m15x-water-cooling.html Good luck with it and keep us updated!

I will send him a message, but my system will be an internal unit. The pump, reservoir and copper piping will all be internal. I might add the ability to use an external pump for when docked, but the overall goal will be portability.

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for burn test run both intel burn test and F@H/prime95. IBT is not consistant and is all over the place with power draw and the other two are far more consistent. Both play an important role in judging a cooling system. I rather not get into the details on why its good to see a consistent temp and an extreme one. I personally think its quit obvious. Well to put it short....some pastes/cooling systems work well to a point and after that they crap out. Also some are consistent some are not. Reborn is noticing for an example that H-S gives very consistent temps and does not fluctuate like other TIMs. Basically, just more not worthy information to get a better look into how a cooling system works and performs. I personally will be looking into down the road to a way to just modify a standard liquid cooling system to fit on a laptop. As in just redrilling holes in the laptop or the copper water block. From pictures and measurements they seem close....at least for a 920xm size to a desktop one.

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This will be totally internal, and the temperature of the water should only go a few degrees below room temperature. So will the copper have any condensation at this level of water difference. I don't believe I will just like a second opinion.

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I will send him a message, but my system will be an internal unit. The pump, reservoir and copper piping will all be internal. I might add the ability to use an external pump for when docked, but the overall goal will be portability.

Get the second opinion but if your stating your not going to cool it near freezing then your at little risk for condensation. @Jimbo might have insight as he uses below zero cooling perhaps he has a tip for protection of your components in these situations.

Paranoid Galaxy S3 on Tapatalk 2

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Could you post pictures of what you did?

Just started.

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Get the second opinion but if your stating your not going to cool it near freezing then your at little risk for condensation. @Jimbo might have insight as he uses below zero cooling perhaps he has a tip for protection of your components in these situations.

Paranoid Galaxy S3 on Tapatalk 2

I hope so, and thanks for the contact.

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Here all are all my pre water cooling scores and temperatures. All these test were done at around 22-23Celcius room temp.

XTU Stress Test

CPU

CPU: 93 (Max)

86.5 (Average)

Intel Burn Test

CPU: 92 (Max)

87.5 (Average)

3DMark06

Score: 17980 3DMarks

SM2.0 Score: 6848

HDR/Sm3.0 Score: 7524

CPU Score: 7228

CPU Temp: 58.2 (Average)

GPU Temp: 70.9 (Average)

3DMark Vantage

Score: 12146 3DMarks

Graphics Score: 10379

CPU Score: 24819

CPU Temp: 57.4 (Average)

GPU Temp: 65.3 (Average)

3DMark 11

Score: P2676 3DMarks

Graphics Score: 2422

Physics Score: 8494

Combined Score: 2158

CPU Temp: 58.3 (Average)

GPU Temp: 59.4 (Average)

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Well here is my schematic finally finished up. The first picture is only the tear down. After that you will see picture 2 and 3. When I receive the pump I purchased I will see what fitting is more appropriate. So far I am pushing for the one with the submersible pump. If it won't fit I will settle for the one I ordered, which is not submersible. Side note pump will be powered by CD drive. Both 2 and 3 show the layout for the copper piping on the front of the motherboard. Picture 4 shows the layout on the back of the motherboard. The layout is a little unique so I will explain it as good as I can. I will solder a 1/2 inch pipe to the 1/4 inch copper pipe which is what will be used overall. If you see the picture you will notice that all the piping will be layered over with extra flat piping. As for the CPU heat sink, I will take it to a machine shop to cut a score instead of slant that it currently has. That way I can move over the current heat sink and add the water copper next to them. Then I will do the same procedure to the GPU heat sink. Allowing all the heat sinks to be merge to spread heat equally. Finally to explain how the piping will cross through the heat sinks. I will drill through and solder a flatten 1/2 inch piece of copper piping through. This will give me 2 built in radiators. If you have any question or want to follow along with me let me know. I will give you a list of what I have gotten so far. Current I am just waiting for the extra GPU and CPU heat sink so that I put everything together. Will update soon and wish me luck.

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wait so what is the purple lines? I too was thinking a long time ago about using current heatsink in a different laptop to do watercooling with but i was going to use an external system though with an external radiator. Something that could be unplugged like the V1 quick change but never drew anything up and was too busy to bother. I am still a fan of the idea of directly mounting a water block to the CPU but that is for a laptop that doesn't move ^^ The only benefit i see from this is really helping the CPU temps because my 7970m with 1.1v doesn't even break 70C with not even using a laptop cooler. The CPU though breaks 90 which is horrible. I don't understand why dell went with suck a crappy fan on the CPU. There is no way to use an XM chip unless some heat duty modding is done. my partially modified G51j cools better than my R4 :/

Also whast up with the 1/2-1/4 piping? why not just use 1/4 the whole way? The 1/2 seems pointless to me but i am a little lost on what your doing. Bullet points would help me follow what your saying ^^ i r trd -_-

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I thought they were blue? Any way they are the copper piping I will lay inside the laptop. They will be running water all the time. I am feel the same as you do about the CPU and GPU heat issues. I don't game and only do data parsing so my CPU is always running hot while the GPU is idle. As for the fan it sucks I tried to replace the inside of the fan without any success. So I did the next best thing water cooling. As for the XM CPU I plan to get the highest rated and overclock it if this mod works out. As for the 1/2 inch pipe I want to lay it out flat on top the existing heat pipes to extract heat. I also want to run it through the heat sinks. The larger the pipe in the heat sink will make the water stall a little longer then just running 1/4 through it. It will create a mini reservoir in the heat sink. Thoughts?

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@jackgarcia7

yea its a purple blue on my u2412m...get a better screen O.o

EDIT:whoa...is my colors off or is this normal for a accurate screen. The Blue in paint says indigo and it looks blue/pruple. Unreal is that how it looks for you?

yea no don't do that. Stalling is bad. You want flow because flow will extract more. errr i'll draw it out

Alright here is my drawing. Hope this helps. I personally think it'll work better but that is if you can fit it in it. These 1/2 pipes are very large ^^ You could also do a 1/3" split into 2 1/4" pipes. See my area numbers below:

1/4 in 0.04908738521234052

1/3 0.08726646259971647

1/2 in 0.19634954084936207

2 1/3 =~1/2 and 2 1/4 =~1/3

Your biggest problem as i stated in the picture are surface area contact plus space to fit it. You may need to cut the case so the pipes lay inside and stick out of the case a little to give it a little more room.

Read First!!!!

And my drawing:

http://img266.imageshack.us/img266/1783/personallymybetterdesig.jpg

I hope i helped! Don't listen to me though do what you think works best! Good luck! I doubt you have enough space for my idea.

EDIT: after though. I also don't know how well this will work. The only way i see this helping are these:

1. It increases overall surface area

2. it allows heat from CPU to be put onto GPU heatsink/fan (This is only big benefit in my eyes. Circulating heat does nothing unless it has an escape route and with no increased heat fin surface air and no increased air flow. I am not sure how much this will help. Granted the extra heat to heat fins and spreading heat between two heatsinks will help but I don't know how much it will.)*

*An after thought to that statement. Someone else used the common idea of using ram heatsinks on the heat pipes and it made it worse. Reason for this was most likely the ram heatsinks ruined the flow of heat in the heat pipes and caused them to not function normally. So if you get any ideas or anyone else gets ideas on using ram heatsinks they are almost useless or detrimental if you don't drill bottom cause and use a laptop cooler since they screw with the heat pipes. He is the one cause i heard/saw ram heatsinks on the heat pipes caused issues. He was also the only one that didn't drill bottom case and not use a cooler. Something worth noting. BTW this was that NBR if i remember.

If you can't tell i have put a lot of thought into this topic and it interests me a lot ^^ If your idea works i may follow whenever i get an XM chip when the prices drop in a year ^^

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Hi have a few questions after reading your reply.

1. In your diagram does the piping go through the heat sinks? (refer to the pictures attached)

2.Will water that runs faster absorb more heat? Or will the reservoir effect in the heat sink fins cool the water down more since it is hit with more air flow?

As for your idea, it may be a little difficult to fit it the way you laid it out. That's why I went from one side of the motherboard to the other. On a side note do you think the movement of the current heat pipes and the grinding down of the heat sink to allow 2 other pipes to be in contact with the surface will increase heat removal?

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1. yes

2....it moving faster should pull more heat off

3.with your design its confusing....i don't know how you complete the circular for flowing water. It could but you need to get a actual heat pipe for that to work....also heatsinks have to be perfectly smooth. i doubt you have the equipment to do that. I would by some pressure paper to use to see how even it is after doing something...you could have it worse

EDIT: to 2. Energy/heat trasnfers faster when there is the greatest different in temps. so slow moving 60c water will do less than fast moving 50C water because it is moving faster and is cooler. Think of wind. Does 60 degree 20 mph wind pull more heat from you than 60 degree 50 mph wind? Of course not ^^

EDIT: also.......with drilling holes to fit heat pipes in heat fins you need contact so i am not sure how you will make good contact.....would you reflow solder down it to make contact?

Also at this rate would you be better off taking heatfins off of the heatpipes and make custom heatsinks that fit the stock heat pipes and water pipes? You could maybe almost make a custom heatsink and that you can properly solder it all together.

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I have been trying to work on this mod as much as possible, but it is a bit difficult right now since I graduate in December and everything needs to be done by then. So far I have made my own water pump that will run from the CD drive power source. I have also bought my materials to make the acrylic reservoir and have started looking for fitting for the pipes. As for the matter of the piping flow rate I will have to look further into that issue since I haven't had much success receiving my spare heat sinks. I will be doing some extensive testing on the spare heat sinks and will report results.

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BTW if you get an XM chip and this works let me know. I'll send you a sample of Heat-Spring to see if it helps.

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also thats the pump right?

EDIT: how do you have 24GB of ram? i could only find two ram slots in the laptop but i thought there was 4. Is there a set under keyboard?

What's a heat spring? Yes, that my extra quiet mini pump, and on the R4 the other 2 ram slots are under the keyboard.

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What's a heat spring? Yes, that my extra quiet mini pump, and on the R4 the other 2 ram slots are under the keyboard.

ah figured...i'll have to add my other 6GB back when i get a chance. It is a special TIM. Check my Heat-Spring testing thread for more info. I should be doing my R4 soon. Need to fix my truck and other stuff since it is SOL

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ah figured...i'll have to add my other 6GB back when i get a chance. It is a special TIM. Check my Heat-Spring testing thread for more info. I should be doing my R4 soon. Need to fix my truck and other stuff since it is SOL

Does that replace the thermal paste?

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10 char? and how much temp difference is there

NBR has a 10 character minimum post so i assumed this had one too so i typed 10 char to add characters. Only one person responding back so far and it ranged from 5-10C better over mx5 or tx5 or whatever

HS is highly dependent on heatsink quality and high temps and high pressure. I doubt the R4 will have issues

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  • 3 weeks later...

Update. Well I have been busy with finals and graduation, but I now free and have some progress. Here a submersible pump that I have converted into a non submersible. Also I have started the water reservoir. Alongside I have also shaved off some of the casing to give the reservoir clearance. I have also moved the power source connection now it will be extracted from the old speaker connection. Thoughts?

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