I am a proud owner of a new Framework Laptop 13 with Ryzen 7 AI 350 CPU.
Previously I had a Dell XPS13 9360 with Intel Core i7-8550u CPU and did some mods with cooling and powerlimits and same I want to do with my new Framework Laptop.
Call me crazy, but here is what I did:
Steps:
remove the Fan and cooler and cut off some of the fins:
eGPU is a Razer Core X with a GeForce RTX 3090 (also watercooled)
The hole setup is completely silent (two 120mm Noctua fans on the radiator and Framework Fan @ 15% fixed) and CPU stays below 75°C even in Cinebench.
And here I thought I was doing extreme stuff putting lm on my framework (btw not really worth it, ptm performs basically the same in the power range the stock cooler can do) but this goes a few steps further.
Here’s an idea for a completely portable water cooling system. If you could fit a small pump where the fan goes, you could run tubes up to the back of the LCD, and then remachine the top cover out of two pieces of copper and squish a gasket in the middle and then that’s a radiator with a bunch of thermal mass. I’ve been looking to try it but copper is expensive and I would not want to make it out of aluminum and I don’t trust myself to make something that doesn’t leak.
That’s an interesting idea, but would add mass and volume to the device.
On the XPS13 the Mainboard is upside down compared to the Framework and I used the bottom shell to passively cool the components with thermal pads. That helped to keep the components cool, but heated the case.
But I used it portable with reduced power limits and that was fine.
this is kind of true, except for the fact that
a) watercooling is inherently cooler than air cooling (we’re talking swag value not temperatures)
b) heatpipes can’t bend.
c) the back of the laptop is a lot more surface area and thermal mass than framework can pack into an internal heatsink.
Ohhhh you mean the lid, not sure how much sense that makes, you get the performance of passive cooling with the noise of having a pump and the chance of leaks. I guess if you got an oled pannel you would gain a bunch of space in the lid.
hi crazy!
I think, if I were trying to use the lid for water cooling, I’d actually leave the lid as-is, and then machine a new cover that goes on top of the old one, make it a sandwich with the old cover on the bottom, the cooling pipes in the middle, and a new cover on top…this would, of course, make it much heavier and thicker, but should be less risk of damaging the screen, either from water damage, or from installing the new system…not sure how well the thermals would work for that set up though, not nearly enough knowledge of thermodynamics to even start to guess.
all that being said, if I was going to do that, I’d definitely use a FW16 for the base, even without the GPU module.
I would be making a really quiet custom peristaltic pump and putting it where the current fan is. Additionally, the lid would be completely custom to facilitate this and would probably be made out of copper or something electroplated with copper for corrosion reasons.
No, I’d rather have a two layer clamshell as the back of the lid so that I can have longer cooling channels and screw them together to keep pressure on the seal tight. Additionally, the stock lid is not great because it is made out of anodized aluminum and may not have a great tolerance. It’s much easier and maybe even cheaper to remachine a copper clamshell style lid (almost like a waterblock with two copper plates screwed together with an o-ring and channels in the middle) than to figure out how to use the current one.
I think all of this solutions add a lot weight and the stability of copper is worse too.
For mobile usage I prefer air cooling and reduced performance for silent operation or accept the noise. Physics is physics.
And for stationary use a dock for watercooling is perfect, at least for me, that’s why I build it.
Why two copper plates? One will be against the laptop lid, no? Use aluminum for that side for much easier machining, lower cost, lower weight. As a bonus you can machine your channels just into the aluminum side, then just use a minimally machined copper sheet for the air side. Overall much, much easier machining, lower cost, lower weight.
I don’t remeber peristaltics being particularly quiet.
Probably better to go with alu and a suitable coolant, the lid is going to get heavy enough, if you make it out of copper you have to make the base even heavier to compensate so it doesn’t tip over.
You could also check out the manufactring processes they use for regenerative cooling in rocket nozzles, they are pretty fasciating and have similar constraints.
Is it silly? yes, is it also really cools? also yes XD
I am assuming they were thinking about making the entire loop out of copper so there needs to be fewer considerations about mixed metal corrosion. Pretty sure the cost there is so high there isn’t much difference between alo or copper as the source material.
