Just a new Cooling Mod for the T43 type 2668

[cluca_alex]

Hello community lovers of IBM old fashion laptops.

Last night I've worked on something special for my IBM T43 2668 type model. I've actually moded the cooling system and some other things just to get the new heating pipes to fit inside without bending the outer plastic.

This came out:

https://s7.postimg.org/h6usobohn/DSC_0136.jpg

Temperatures with music and some web browsing on. CPU and GPU never cross the 70 C line.

https://s31.postimg.org/58m7rq2a3/tpfc.jpg

The aimed result:

To cool down the north and the south bridges. I actually don't know if I have succeed. The bottom of the laptop is hot, maybe hotter then it used to be, but this is also because TPFC keeps the fan very low. Can someone explain me what are the other different temperature values in TPFC? And also, maybe one of you have a TPFC temp readings of a normal T43 type 2668, just to compare does with mine because I didn't run TPFC before the modding was done.

Things that I've needed:

A cooler from a wrecked T43. I used parts of the heating pipes and also the big copper part *which in the wrecked T43 was hovering on top of the north bridge* I've mounted underneath the GPU to the underneath of the south bridge.

Soldering wire, soldering wax, soldering iron, double taped paper, and isolating paper.

The reason for me not uniting with a big plate of copper all three hot spots (north bridge, GPU and south bridge) is that I didn't wanted to overload the GPU with two more sources of heating. Instead I only gave it "half" of the heating of the south bridge which also has a heating pipe leading to the fan. On the north side I keeped everything simple since the original problem of the T43 2668 is that GPU and south bridge are getting very hot.

The cooper plate on the south bridge is standing on top of a piece of grey pad (which you can find on all T models cooling systems between the keyboard and the top of the heating pipes) which is sticking on both sides thanks to some conductive paste. This way I could bring the south bridge and the GPU on the level and didn't needed to bend the cooper plate so that it fits. I've tested the grey pads which I've used for termal constructiveness and they seem alright.

Other things that I've done:

After soldering the heating pipes and the cooper plates to them, I have isolated them from the above keyboard with isolating paper from the wrecked T43's cooling system.

https://s12.postimg.org/au8jw4h7x/DSC_0114.jpg

https://s17.postimg.org/s01hbeytb/DSC_0117.jpg

For the north side I used a piece of metal which I soldered to the heating pipe.

https://s18.postimg.org/rg7g17gy1/DSC_0119.jpg

I have also applied some household sticking pads to the side of the GPU, also to the south and north bridge, both on them and on the keyboard. In that way, when I fit the keyboard the pads will push on top of the GPU and north bridge. For the south bridge the WIFI card is pushing on top of it.

https://s14.postimg.org/s6lp8y7sx/DSC_0130.jpg

https://s10.postimg.org/3slpo5bzd/DSC_0131.jpg

For the WIFI card I had to raise the two metal hands that hold her because the heating pipe from the south bridge was touching the card and didn't permit it to go in it's place. I have also trimmed the plastic case a little on the left of the touchpad but nothing that would show outside.

And that's about it. If you have any questions I am happy to answer. And please don't forget to post a TPFC reading of a normal T43 2668, I am very curios about the difference.

Thank you for this great forum,


Disclaimer: If you want to use or not to use this mode on your laptop is your choose, I am not responsible for nothing relating damage to your laptop or similar.


ADMIN Warning: pictures are WAY too big, tags removed. Read the Forum Rules, especially Section 5. http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=14339

[cluca_alex]

Sorry for that. I think the post can stay as it is edited now, without tags. Again, sorry.

[RealBlackStuff]

I very much doubt that your "mods" have any temp-lowering effect, rather I think they'll do the opposite.
The "pipes" from North- and South-bridge don't do anything, there is no cooling liquid or gas inside them.
All they do is get hot, with nowhere to go.
The gunk on the Southbridge will probably soon start to smell due to overheating...

My advice: get a long fan (M10) from the T42p and dump what you have in there now.
This from someone who has worked on many dozens of T43 machines.

[axur-delmeria]

You seem to have cut the heat pipes, which would have destroyed its heat-carrying ability. Heat pipes are sealed tubes with a small amount of working fluid inside (usually water). When heated, the water evaporates and carries the heat, then condenses after transferring the heat to the cooling fins at the other end.

[shawross]

Not trying to rain on your parade and nothing ventured nothing gained but IBM engineers had a idea what they were doing and did a fairly good job and to improve on what they did isn't easy.

I would think you can get more gains by running the best drivers , tweaking ATI settings, undervolting the CPU , using better thermal paste , not running web site flash , run a lean OS by running only absolute essential services and a light browser. There are other things I have missed but I would concentrate on these areas first.
I am not running my T43 ATM but I would think around 55 - 65 degrees celcius for music playing and light web browsing but it depends on the graphic content in web browsing and your ambient air temperature.

Good luck experimenting

[TPFanatic]

Were you able to compare temperatures before and after the mod?

While you did attach both heatpipes to the copper of the heatsink, they end nowhere near the outlet vents (since the space is already taken up by the original heatpipes) so if they're working at all, it's blowing the heat back inside the laptop.

Also there are no heatsink fins on those parts of the heatsink. Fins draw the heat out of the heatpipes so the fan can best blow it out.

I imagine there might be room for a thin heatpipe (like the one for dedicated graphics on T410) to be put over the Northbridge and attached next to the small vents above the audio jacks. Of course I'm just eyeballing it, I haven't measured anything. Theoretically it should direct heat to go out in the little vent above the audio jacks, here, with the rest of the heat: https://s9.postimg.org/8d5davhjj/t42leftside.jpg Although you also run the risk that the heatpipe will serve to direct CPU+GPU heat onto the northbridge if it's reaching max capacity by not being blown out fast enough. T40 series, especially p suffix models with OnFireGL graphics, have a lot of heat to deal with as is.

Is the Northbridge even a point that gets hot in ATI T40 series? Only the Intel GMA 900 models came with a heatpipe on the Northbridge because that's where the Intel GPU is. It's otherwise deactivated on ATI models which instead put secondary cooling on the ATI GPU. Although it is true that Z60,T60,61,400/500 models extend cooling to the Northbridge even on Dedicated only, sans-Switchable graphics models, so it's possible it would help, if done effectively.

[kfzhu1229]

How much better is a M10 fan? I now have a T43p with undervolted CPU but boiling hot GPU with its stock heatsink!
I have a long fan from T41p (Radeon FireGL T2), will that work better or something?