Drilling holes on bottom of case to improve cooling?

[claimui]

Looking at the bottom of my X61s laptop, there are a couple of small vents under the fan. Has anybody tried drilling a few more holes (in the direction of the heatsink) to improve CPU/GPU temperatures? Where are the other intake vents in the case? The only other one I know of is the small right side vent next to the PCIe slots (appears useless since I don't have the second WWAN fan).

As background, I'm trying to play games without throttling. Running Warcraft III for more than 15 or so minutes will lead to throttling and sometimes shutdown. I don't want to use a cooling pad and I've already applied Arctic Silver 5. For videos I installed a Broadcom Crystal HD card, which works great but doesn't help for gaming. Thanks in advance!

[Woodenspoon]

http://www.lenovoservicetraining.com/ion/
looking at the fan it has a regular circular inlet, and the laptop intake vents are nothing close to free flowing. so theoretically yes, opening more air space under it should be good. on the other hand the restricted flow vent might point to the fact that the fact that the fan also draws air through the rest of the system and the other tiny vents to possibly cool other components. So I hate to say this, but the safest route is to get a laptop cooling pad.

*edit, seems like the fan opening is actually top facing?

[Ollo]

Hm, I thought these machines were cool running, especially the s-model. What are your temps? I would suggest undervolting before drilling holes.

[claimui]

the restricted flow vent might point to the fact that the fact that the fan also draws air through the rest of the system and the other tiny vents to possibly cool other components.

Agree that this is a concern. I'm trying to figure out exactly where these vents are and how they work.

Example: I notice that the motherboard divides the case in half. The CPU and RAM are under the motherboard. The PCIe cards and some other components are on top. If I drill holes at the bottom, do you think it affects the airflow of the top? I think it would only affect the bottom. Secondhand laptop RAM is cheap and I'm certainly willing to risk those chips to improve my CPU/GPU temps.

I thought these machines were cool running, especially the s-model.

The "s" models actually run hotter, at least that is my understanding. The CPUs have lower TDP and generally give less heat, but it is offset by the smaller heatsink and generally smaller size of the case.

I could try undervolting but I don't think it would help. The X61s uses low-voltage processors, meaning they are already running lower voltage than normal. And the TDP is already so low, I think the difference has to be in the cooling.

I used to get CPU temps of 50 at idle but I'm now generally in the 40-45 range after some tweaks. Room temperature affects it a lot. At load the CPU/GPU goes to 80+ range before throttling kicks in. (Personally I would not mind running this laptop at 90 degrees all the time, I don't need it to last forever. I just don't want it to throttle and screw up my gaming.)

[Ollo]

I have an Acer laptop that I drilled a few holes in (I didn't even dismantle the system, drilled from the outside, plastic casing). We discussed the airflow at another form before that mod, and came to the conclusion that that particular laptop was poorly engineered (Acer 5536G, and others with the same body). In that case, I was willing to take the risk of ruining the computer. I also figured I could always tape the holes, if temps rose in other parts of the laptop (it has sensors near the HD I believe).

Anyway, the temps were lowered and the system never throttled or closed down after that, and I haven't noticed any other parts getting hotter afterwards.

However, I would not do that to an x60. If your CPU throttles down after merely 15 minutes it seems something is wrong. More experienced user will have to chime in here, but I would think it should handle more than that. Did it have the same problem before you applied the arctic silver? Perhaps the layer of goo wasnt optimal? I guess you also applied AS to the chipset as well. I have heard there is a greater distance between chipset and heatsink than it is between CPU and heatsink. If that is the case, perhaps there is not enough contact between chipset and heatsink. I have heard of people putting a sheet of copper in that space.

Undervolting my x60s has lowered my temps, so i would definately try that. Also, if your games are not online, you could turn wifi off in order to take away one heatsorce.

[ThinkRob]

You don't need to modify your case.

If your machine goes into thermal shutdown, there is something wrong with it. Period. That is not normal operation. I'm the owner of a two-year-old X61s that has been used quite heavily and I have never, ever seen CPU temps break 82C -- and that was during thermal stress testing (partial vent occlusion, CPU, GPU, disk, and wireless all under full load.)

Are you sure you seated the heatsink correctly? Did you use as little thermal paste as possible? Was it applied evenly? Is your fan clear of dust and debris?

[claimui]

Thanks for the recommendation on undervolting. I tried it again with RMClock and was able to get much better results. I really had to push the voltage as low as possible in order to see improvement in temperatures. In my case, I was able to undervolt the highest multiplier to 0.930 V. I also used tpfancontrol to increase fan speed at lower temperatures. I think the battery and AC adapter also makes a difference in keeping the system stable at low voltages.

I'm still testing, but now I'm generally seeing my CPU temp stay stable around 79 C and chipset at 75 C. No throttling thus far. My room temperatures right now are cooler than during the summer, but this is a good start.

[ThinkRob]

I'm still testing, but now I'm generally seeing my CPU temp stay stable around 79 C and chipset at 75 C. No throttling thus far. My room temperatures right now are cooler than during the summer, but this is a good start.

Again, if your machine is at 79C under light/idle load, there is something wrong with it.

[SHoTTa35]

Definitely something wrong with that system when it's idling at 79C!!! I don't have an X60 but I can't imagine that as "normal!" The Core CPU in my T series idles at say 31-36C for comparison while just typing on this page. I don't game on here but even under my more taxing apps it never goes that high!

[lead_org]

my X61s runs extremely cool around 40 to 45 degrees when idling... if you are getting to 70+ on idling, then this is a clear sign that either your thermal paste is too thick, or the heatsink is failing (probably a leak in the working fluid in the heatpipe). So have another shot at reapplying the thermal paste, if that fails, get a new heatsink unit.

[Woodenspoon]

well when idling it is 40c x60 1.8ghz@1ghz
kinda cold now though
it gets way hot when max performance though.. 75C..was running some 1080p trailer at 2x to load the cpu. isn't much of a gpu on the x60 so no games to test. the fans never spin very fast so that is probably the reason for the heat build up.

[claimui]

I should have clarified that when I said my CPU temps were "stable around 79 C and chipset at 75 C," I meant on heavy load. My idle temps are generally 45-50, which is normal for an X61s in a hot climate. In any case, I haven't seen any throttling or shutdown yet while running games and stress tests, so that's a good sign.

I'm pretty sure that throttling/shutdown when gaming on the X61s is fairly typical, particularly for systems without the second fan. I've seen other threads raising this issue. It's clear that the X61s was not designed for gaming or HTPC use, and I'm sure most people don't buy it for that purpose. But it's nice that with undervolting and some other tweaks, you can push this little laptop a bit farther than it was intended.