Cool tech: a solid-state fan for laptops

@Christoph_Straten yeah but that 20W is with multiple they say. Any more than that and the cooling surface area will be larger than the processor surface area. I do think it’s cool tech though and if laptops come designed for them you can channel the airflow better and save a lot of space inside the laptop. I think it’s for perfect for something like an ROG ally because i think that runs at 15-20W

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If they are to believe they should get really good in a couple generations, what they have now is first gen stuff so if they pull through this stuff could get pretty nice.

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To be honest. I created this topic to see what people think of this and see if it gets more relevant later. That said, I called the GPU module a “multipurpose” module as the data interface will be 8x PCIe 4.0 lanes and will not be for GPUs only. The idea is that Frore Systems cooling solutions could cool down the CPU and some additional SSDs or any hardware you want that does not require a lot of cooling and remaining silent. Happy to see people so implicated!

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Lol, I’m not affiliated with Frore Systems at all, I’m a French Part-time IT engineer student. Just assuming that is against two of the three main rules of framework community :
-“Constructive criticism is welcome, but criticize ideas, not people.”
-“Be kind to your fellow community members.”

If there is any other topic about this, I’m open to merge it, I don’t want it to be redundant on the forum. Sorry if my first topic isn’t relevant for you all. :confused:

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Since the community has not discussed this technology with respect to the upcoming Framework Laptop 16, this thread can stand on its own.

There does seem to be great interest in it judging from the responses, so it serves value allowing it to stay on its own.

@Pecorjunior, you’ve made it clear that you’re not affiliated with the company in any way, so the offending post has been removed.

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2 posts were merged into an existing topic: Sensel Force Haptic Touchpad?

Considering the laptop 16’s cooling is all in the expansion bay, this could be added one day when the tech is ready. Very cool.

Aren’t just the fans in the expansion bay? The heatsink for the cpu is still within the device and the airjets are not meant to be used as fans and are probably pretty shit at it.

Given the significant redesigning necessary to really take advantage of the AirJet/AirJet Pro (heatpipes extending horizontally across the whole rear of the case) it’s likely not to happen to keep compatibility between the existing 13" motherboards, and simply isn’t feasible to cool the (likely) 45-55w TDP chips of the 16".
We’ll (sadly) likely have to rely on community mods in the future, if anything, as you almost certainly can’t physically fit enough AirJet/AirJet Pros in the existing fan slot to provide adequate cooling for a 30-60w chip. The motherboard redesigns necessary would be pretty antithetical to Framework’s whole schtick.

Hello! I saw the video from The Verge where he mentioned that the only gaming module in the US got broken and couldn’t provide footage or information of its gaming performance it got me thinking if you guys have ever considered working with like frore systems to make fans for the laptop or a module (on the back) and try to get a “dust proof” laptop.

Theoretically, you could design a vapor chamber that replaces the existing heatsink setup and extends into the expansion bay area. Then you place the airjets on the chamber with what space is available in the expansion bay. The surface area of the vapor chamber itself is then the limiting factor of how many AirJets you can use, I’d assume the efficiency loss of conducting from the processor to the vapor chamber isn’t necessarily that big.

The improvement you get from this seems to primarily be the change from a finned heatsinks+fan assembly to a AirJet direct on vapor chamber, plus any noise differences. The Airjet sounds like it’d be more thermally efficient since you take the steps of transfer from: chamber/pipe > heatsink fins > Air > Fan > outside, and reduce it to: chamber > Airjet > Air > outside, but that’s not necessarily the whole issue with implementation.
There’s also the question of energy draw. With 2 fans, you might be drawing more than 1 or 2 Jets, but to reach the same maximum cooling capacity of those same 2 fans + heatsink, you may need 4-5 Jets, at which point you may be drawing a lot more power than just 2 fans.
You can push tons of air through a heatsink with just a bit more power to the fan. The air going through that heatsink isn’t removing heat at the same efficiency as an AirJet, but the sheer volume can make up for it. You end up paying through noise levels however.

The AirJet may be more thermally efficient at directly removing heat for a given power input, but it sounds like their current design might have an upper limit in terms of maximum output.

Maybe we could see a hybrid type of system in the future, with an AirJet placed on one side of a vapor chamber for low power/battery only operations, and a heatsink assembly on the other side paired with a single fan that will ramp up when loads exceed a thermal/processor utilization threshold to take care of heavy tasks.

I see a very good use case for this tech. If it ever becomes powerful enough to cool desktop PCs, then what if we at that point, put desktop class chips in the framework laptop? Doing so wouldn’t ruin backwards compatibility with previous boards, and the performance would be extraordinary. Plus, as framework grows, it’s ecosystem could become very versatile. Combine a strong ecosystem in partnership with many brands, and these desktop class framework laptops, and you have something that potential makes the traditional tower PC completely obsolete! Granted, this is a pretty optimistic view, but I think it’s still totally within the realm of being possible.

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I stumbled upon this and I am sooo hyped by it

I woud buy a solid state cooling module in a instant.

I have a 12thGen, frankly it’s fine but the thermal is the biggest pain point, it’s powerful but when it demands power it gets hot and noisy very quickly. Surely the new AMD boards will do better but I want to keep this one and if it can get better, it should

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Is there a way to buy that as a private person ?

But actually you would definitely need more than one of the Pro-Version. One Pro-Version can only exhaust 10.75Watts and the CPU is then 85° hot (25° ambient temperature).

But if you do a cooling-mod it could be quite nice. With some flat heatpipes and some of them, it could maybe be quite good. Escpecially if you look on the loudness. At least for below 30Watt CPUs (then you need 3-4 of them).

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This technology doesn’t yet seem to be powerful enough for the framework laptop, but I am confident it will get there eventually. Another potential use-case for this technology if it becomes powerful enough, it could be to make GPU’s possible in the Framework 13. As was my previous post on this thread, this is still a bit of an optimistic view, but perhaps it could be done, given enough time.

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This is so cool tbh maybe a FW 16 2nd Gen?

Obviously the time to design and test this would mean it would be a long time before we could see this, honestly they might even be looking at it already behind closed doors but hey, I wanna get some hype and interest in this idea known! Getting working with them early to make a design that would work with the Framework would be great! Cooling and noise has always been one of the Framework’s weaker points, this would be HUGE, especially if they get on it early before many other laptop companies do.

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There is already a thread about this, it may be under the Framework laptop 16 thread. The consensus there seemed to be that it would be such a hog of battery power that it would considerably reduce the run time of the laptop while on battery.

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Oh wow, I thought it took less battery, interesting

Cool tech, but didn’t farore need 3 of them just to cool a MacBook air?