Cheap 13.3" Atom laptop - but can the noise be reduced ?

osl · **Joined:** Sun May 16, 2004 11:08 am **Posts:** 28

Degee 13.3" Atom 455 laptop can be obtained for as low as $250-300.
It is a nice looking, slim white laptop/netbook with surprisingly good quality and performance.
It has a nice, big 13.3" screen, a somewhat limited battery time, BUT IT HAS ONE MAJOR FLAW:
The cooling fan/solution is unbearable noisy !
For this reason I have started disassembling it. My ultimate goal is replacing the cooling fan/solution with something more silent.
Any advice or comments are very welcome

ces · **Posted:** Thu May 12, 2011 3:42 am

If you are looking for high quality fans in smaller formats, its hard to beat Noiseblocker.
http://www.noiseblocker.de/en/index.php
http://www.noiseblocker.de/en/Products.php

What size fan do you need?

osl · **Joined:** Sun May 16, 2004 11:08 am **Posts:** 28

Disassembled more ...

There is no heatpipe, but metalshielding seems to act as heatsink.
I will try to improve the heat transfer from the CPU/Chipset to the metalshield with copper shims and install a more quiet 40x40x7 mm 5v fan

Applying 1 mm copper shims and pro cooling paste lowered CPU/Chipset temperatures significantly.
PC can now run for a long time without even reaching fan start temperatures

Installing a more quiet fan is still work in progress ...

osl · **Joined:** Sun May 16, 2004 11:08 am **Posts:** 28

Success. SSD helps too

HFat · **Posted:** Tue May 31, 2011 11:50 pm

This laptop's cooling system is bizarre. It could run fanless with halfway-decent heatsinks.

What is the role of the paste in your picture? Is there a contact between you copper and the keyboard support? The depressions in the metal sheet don't look deep enough.

osl · **Joined:** Sun May 16, 2004 11:08 am **Posts:** 28

I totally agree that the cooling system is bizarre at best. Basically the laptop is so flat (I guess the designers wanted too achieve Airbook thickness), that there is no room for a heatsink (the distance between the motherboard and metalshield with the keyboad directly on top is only appr. 3 mm - in the depressions less than 1 mm)

The thermal paste is to achieve the best contact between the 1 mm copper shims and the metalshield depressions.
Initially there was some very inadequate thermal pad 1 mm. thick between the cpu/chipset and the metalshield depressions, producing terrible cpu/chipset temperatures in load.

Strangely when installing the replacement fan, I noticed that sucking in air (rather than blowing out) produced better temperatures, thus the reason for the fan configuration.

At least the noise is bearable now.

HFat · **Posted:** Wed Jun 01, 2011 12:36 am

osl wrote:

Initially there was some very inadequate heat tape 1 mm. thick between the cpu/chipset and the metalshield depressions, producing terrible cpu/chipset temperatures in load.

You mean a thermal pad? They usually work OK (not good but not terrible) and these chips should be very easy to cool. Maybe the pas wasn't thick enough and the contact wasn't reliable.
I think I would have used a thin but wider piece of copper plus a pad to make contact with the keyboard support more reliable. But my intuition failed me before...

Is there a pad underneath the board like the one used in the D945GSEJT case reviewed by SPCR?

osl · **Joined:** Sun May 16, 2004 11:08 am **Posts:** 28

Yes, thick thermal pad. I guess I could have used some wider copper shims (maybe even one piece covering both cpu/chipset), but it would also reduce the limited space for airflow. I don't think there is a pad under the motherboard (not quite sure what you mean)

HFat · **Posted:** Wed Jun 01, 2011 2:10 am

Like a thick thermal pad but big enough to cover the whole board. A ghetto heatspreader.

osl · **Joined:** Sun May 16, 2004 11:08 am **Posts:** 28

Nope. The memory and wifi slots are mounted directly on the underside of the MB and would be in the way for a heat pad covering the whole MB.

Cheap 13.3" Atom laptop - but can the noise be reduced ?

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