HP DV6z Cooling Mod Thread (warning - lots of photos!)

[HTWingNut]

Thought I'd start a new thread on this since my progress was shown helter skelter in the DV6z owner's thread and consolidate here.

First of all, special thanks to NBR user "some guy" for ideas on similar mod he made on the M11x R1. There are the components I bought (some already owned):

These are the heatsinks I bought (actually already had them): Newegg.com - Swiftech MC14 Copper Heatsinks only

The little stick on heatsinks took a lot more trimming that I expected. Just be sure to clean them off VERY well after you cut them. I had copper dust EVERYWHERE. So I used compressed air and then doused them with alcohol using a toothbrush. Just be sure not to get it on the adhesive pad. Or it will lose its stickiness.

Thermal Paste: IC Diamond

I ordered some of these from Fleabay: http://www.ebay.com/itm/280730211387

I figure these will be good on the vRAM chips and along the heatpipes.

Along with some thermal tape: http://www.ebay.com/itm/180592168677

and copper shims: http://www.ebay.com/itm/230511291628

I normally have a bunch of this stuff handy but was out of stock. I used the thermal double sided tape to secure my fan grille, and probably won't need the copper shims, but maybe in a couple tight places, like the one vRAM chip that's under the GPU heatpipe.

First thing I did was to repaste the CPU and GPU. The existing goop that was on there was as hard as a rock and thick, and temps would easily reach 90C when playing Bad Company 2.





I also confirmed physically that the video RAM in the laptop is GDDR5:

Samsung K4G10325FE-HC04
http://www.samsung.com/global/busine...R5_Lineup.html
http://www.samsung.com/global/busine...num=K4G10325FE



I also checked the airflow over the CPU and GPU from underneath and the tiny tiny slots that they put in the machine to allow airflow were so small very little air was moving over the CPU and GPU. To validate I took a small piece of tissue paper to see if there was enough suction to hold it in place, but it couldn't, it was like no airflow. So I hacked open the bottom of the case to open it up a bit. Copper stick-on heatsinks were added on the CPU and GPU heatsinks. This required sanding off the black paint that was on there, which was very tedious but necessary to get good heat transfer.





I then cut a slot in the fan shroud to help move air through the system and over the GPU and CPU. Unfortunately this only resulted in a hot palmrest, I guess because it was pushing the hot air through the compartment instead of being isolated within the fan shroud area. That being said it did help the CPU and GPU run cooler. I eventually used electrical tape to cover up the slot because the palmrest was becoming unbearably hot.

*** EDIT: I replaced my Heatsink/Fan assembly with a new one because the slot just made the rest of the laptop feel too hot. It did help with cooling the CPU/GPU temps but palmrest was unbearably hot.





Then I saw the Asus K53TA mod where he cut a hole beneath the fan to allow for cool air to enter from the bottom. Since I was in a hacking mood, I got out my Dremel cutting tool but did a horrible job, but hey it opened up the hole. For some reason I couldn't keep my hand steady and the Dremel was all over the place. I also added fan grate material over the fan, CPU, and GPU openings to protect it.

Here's the finished product.



After all this, I can now run Bad Company 2 at < 74C, usually 70-72C without a laptop cooler. Running WITHOUT Crossfire at 1080p med/low deatil at 45-55fps! I also bought a Notepal U3 cooler, but it's in the mail, curious to see how far I can push this now.

I still intend on putting heatsinks on the GPU RAM and along the heatpipes for further heat dissipation, and will probably open up the fan shroud slot again to see if adding the hole below the fan will not heat up the palmrest so much.

[kevmanw4301]

Great job! With that notebook cooler, it'll get even more ridiculous! If I get ken of these, unless I got one like Seer's, I'd do this. +rep.

[dwalk1989]

thats so awesome lol

[undeadrat]

Nice job, thanks for all the pics too!

[67tempest]

So in looking through the teardown guide, it looks like everything screws into the bottom tray and I would have to completely take everything out to get down there. Or is there a way to just pull the bottom panel off?

[gumba213]

great work

[JunkStory]

Nice work! It should be similar for the dv6t with sandy bridge, right?

How would you rank (rate) each individual modification in terms of effectiveness?
i.e.

1) heatsinks
2) new thermal paste
3) holes beneath heat sinks
4) holes beneath the fan
etc.

[HTWingNut]

It's hard to say the level of effectiveness. I really think its a combination of everything that helps.

Paste depends on the job they did with the laptop from the factory. Of course with the factory crap they put on there it isn't a bad idea to change it out anyhow. Some users are getting cool running laptops straight from the factory.

The heatsinks are probably the biggest contributor, but need airflow to be effective, so the clearance holes are almost a necessity. Plus on the CPU you almost have to cut away the plastic to get any amount of height on the heatsinks since its so close to the plastic. I mounted the fan grille on the bottom of the laptop instead of inside like I did with the GPU and fan, only because of clearance.

The hole under the fan also definitely helps with letting more cool air into the laptop.

But if you just repasted with a quality paste like IC Diamond or Arctic MX4 (both non electrically conductive), and added the heatsinks, it would be non-destructive to the laptop and gain a little bit of improvement.

However to add the heatsinks you will need to sand off the black paint. You could do without sanding, but then you'd lose some heat transfer effectiveness.

[HTWingNut]

So in looking through the teardown guide, it looks like everything screws into the bottom tray and I would have to completely take everything out to get down there. Or is there a way to just pull the bottom panel off?

You have to disassemble everything. Although I've done it so much now I can get it torn down in less than 15 minutes.

[HTWingNut]

I have since made a few more minor changes:

- added heatsinks to the GPU RAM. Could only add it to three of them, but the third is obscured by the GPU heatpipe. I ordered some copper shims from eBay for a few bucks, but have got lost in the mail somehow I guess. I was going to at least put a copper shim on that last one to help with heat dissipation at least.

- cleaned up the fan hole on bottom of laptop a bit and made it a little bigger.

- opened up the slot on the fan shroud that let air pass over the CPU and GPU, but then taped it up because it didn't help temps much and only made the palmrest too hot.

Forgot to take photos but will next time I open it up to put the shim on the last GPU RAM chip. I wish I had a shim somewhere here, but nothing handy.