Do you think it will be possible (and if so how easily) to have the 16 be water cooled?

Title, I think it would be cool to be able to water cool the laptop since I know some laptops can already do that. I’m wondering if the 16 will be able to do that and if so could it be internal or would it have to be external and how complicated the process would be, thoughts?

1 Like

What is your reason for wanting to try?
Because it does not seem you’re able to get better performance just through better cooling

We could hope that Framework is able to change things in the Framework-16, but it seems that it’s intel and AMD’s fault.

Because why not and it’s cool in my opinion

A lot of things are possible if you have enough determination. If you are willing to use the expansion bay to host it, then it could be “internal”. You could extend the size of the expansion bay module as large as you need to fit it all.

2 Likes

Yes, it’s possible. It’s been done on laptops that are far less friendly to modifications than the Framework. Whether or not someone will develop and market that though… dubious.

1 Like

No. Not possible. Ever. Even if they’ll design it this way.

Laptop fans are loud. The Framework 16’s laptop fans are loud. It wouldn’t be about performance - it would be about silence.

I’m sure it’s possible. Whether or not it will have any value is up in the air until someone tries it. My guess is that it wouldn’t improve performance to any degree, but would be more efficient in cooling, allowing the fans not to spin up as often.

I’d be more interested in finding a more silent air cooled solution first. Maybe replace the stock fans with noctua fans or something… Maybe another side project that will wind up in my bin of unfinished side projects.

The only use I can think of for a water-cooled laptop would be some hybrid system that was water-cooled while stationary with radiator/pump built into the laptop docking station, and then normal air-cooled when on the go. Otherwise it defeats the purpose of a laptop; lightweight, portable, computer.
But with that, you might as well use an eGPU as well.

Water-cooling is entering the datacenter with all the new high-density GPU servers out now, so we are already at the limit of heat in small enclosed places. But even in the datacenter, you need a separate pump and radiator set up to handle the heat offloading.

This sounds like an idea for an LTT video. :laughing: I know they’ve done stuff with laptops that have liquid cooling connections to a radiator to bring the heat outside of the laptop when it’s stationary. I think they may have done a custom water cooling on a laptop before.

I could see a potential use case having a liquid cooled GPU (not the RX 7700S of course, something more powerful that could actually use it) set up like a dock to bring heat out of the laptop. Basically, a modified GPU that goes in the expansion module that has liquid cooling. Think an AIO GPU but rather than a desktop card that goes in a PCIe slot one that would go into the expansion bay. This would render the laptop stationary but options for remedying that would be to swap the GPU (not great for pickup and go), or quick disconnects connecting the tubes to the GPU.

The unfortunate part about all of this is that the expansion bay module would need to have the GPU and the fans (they are also used to cool the CPU so are basically required), and the plumbing for the liquid cooling.