Worlds' first Water Cooled Dell XPS Gen1 Laptop.

[despat]

I've modded the XPS to accept an AQUARIOUS II Water cooling system and I finally settled on using the Koolance CPU-180 Waterblock. It has pipes sticking out on the same plan as the block itself and probably of the best waterblocks for the CPU.

Here are the pic.


Belows is the Water block in it's place.



Just incase some of you may be wondering what's the big copper piece, it's a custom heat sink that I created to cool the Nvidia 7800. It take heat away from the Core and the top (only) RAM chips to the left (where I've AS5ed the rectangular part of the heatsink over the left CPU heatsink assembly fins. Air from the fan (in the pic) also blow over that rectangular part (further cooling the GPU).









Below, you can see that I removed the battery (not much need for it, since this will be always sitting on my desktop anyway) from it's bay and lead the inlet and outlet tubes from the waterblock. Notice the AQUARIUS tubing has springs inside to avoid kinks (an absolute necessity esp if you're trying to water a laptop)!






Below is a closeup of the hole in the battery compartment that I channeled the outlet tubing. I found a nice little hole with a rectangular cover that can be removed (i'm not sure it this is for the Bluetooth or not, but it sure helped me).



Below, I've tried to take a closeup of the hole that I found to slot the inlet tube. Sorry about the confusing background; I took this in the kitchen so you might see some kitchen utensils through the larger holes in the bay. These holes are not covered by the palm rest (and are not available for the tubes)




Below is the outlet tube path from the block. I found a gap around the fans holding and down out the bottom. WIthout the spring in the tube, I'd have a kink in it.



Another pic of the waterblock. The outlet tube can't be seen as I ran it through a cavity (that directs air from the 3rd fan out towards the back). I also had to make a hole in the cavity of the 3rd fan, The fan cavity is really big so the tube does not obstruct the fan is you pass it along the sides. The hole is positioned next to the hole in the battery compartment (refer to the first picture in this post to see the hole).




Below is the whole setup (temporary as you can see). I'm going to mod the stand (that the XPS is sitting on) so that there is a small boxed area on the stands front-right side. The box will harbor the radiator (which will stick out the side for air) and pump. The stand is only 3.5 inches high so part of the pump (which must remain standing up) will stick up into the space of the battery comparment.



TThe beautiful :dance2: thing about this mod is that my system is basically the same (with it's original fan-runned cooling solution still intact), however now with the option to water cooler. If I ever get tired of water cooling, all I need to do is disconnect the cooling kit leave the two tubes dangling. Unlike a desktop cooling mod (where you must open up and replace the waterblock with a heatsink), my waterblock is here to stay and can be turned on or off at leisure.

Without cooler running (i.e. waterblock is installed but pump turned off) and with default fangui settings (gaming profile), the Max idle temps I get are 68 for CPU and 54 for GPU.



I've completed the Water-Air cooling station that hides away and enhances the cooling process. Here are the steps:

First I got a Dell Monitor stand for $10.00 on Ebay.

The image below shows that stand with the top cover removed and a square hold sawed out (use one of those round saws or a dremel cause this stuff if hard plastic). I also used a bit of intuition to create two passages leading from the center to the side (and covered them with the white plastic sheets which I glued. There will eventually be passages for air to be blown in from underneath and out directly into the right and left corner intake vents on the bottom of the XPS.



Below I've fitted a foodsaver in that square hole. If you've not guessed by now, it'll hold the Aquarius II Radiator (with an ThermalTake X-Blower fan blowing air on the the radiator) and the Pump/Reservoir.




Below is the stand now upside-down. Notice the hole I cut for the 80mm fan to blow air the passages (to the right and left).



Next, I screwed a 80mm ThermalTake Smart fan that has a temperature probe (which controls the speed of the fan). I'll probably tape the probe to the GPU copper heatsink (see my earlier posts) that I created.



Below is the side view of the stand where you can see that I had to cut a hole for the other fan.



Almost done now. I purchased a 12V AC adapter and attached the 2 fans (the Radiator and the 80mm fan) and the pump to that power source.

Remember (from my previous posts) that I'm not worried about having the water pump start with my system, cause the XPS does not depend entirely on the waterblock for its cooling (i.e the water cooling is an optional enhancement that further cools the system along with Dell's stock fans (3 of them).



Next, I attached the two fans to ThermalTake Total Watts Viewer panel. The X-blower (radiator fan) speed will be manually controlled by one of the knobs on the panel. The other knob will (optionally) allow me to control the other fan (that will blow air into the vents and can be Probe-controlled also). Notice I've put the top cover back on after cutting two holes corresponding to the areas under the laptop where the vents exist.




A closeup of the X-blower fan which pulls air from both the front and back and throws it into the radiator fins. Btw, the X-blower is a quiter fan then the original 80mm fan that came with the ThermalTake Aquarius II radiator.



Wiring was the most time consuming part of this project. I had to find a little housing for all the wires and cut holes in it so that the female sockets can stick out of them. I also connected the Molex 4 pin plug to the adapter (sorry can't see this part cause it's inside the white box (housing) that's now screwed on the bottom.

This mod makes it easy for me to connect the disconnect the power leads of the fans and the pump. I've also put a mesh over the 80mm fan to keep the dust out.



Below I'm just about to settle the XPS on it's cooling station (or a pretty permanent nest until I find a smaller cooling kit that'll fit entirely inside the battery compartment. Notice that the vents are aligned with the holes and that the pump stick out about an inch into the battery compartment of the XPS. The battery is expandable cause it's pretty useless to me now.:$



Below is the my silent rig now cooled entirely by the externally "pushed-in" air (to the vents) and I guess also air that's seeping in from the battery compartment and water over the cpu.

If it weren't for the two tubes sticking out (as you see in the pic) to meet the backup reservoir, no one would have noticed the mod.







SOME TEST RESULTS:

With all 3 fans on full speed plus cooler fans(i.e. radiator fan and 80mm fan underneath on slowest, quietest speed) and my idle temps are 48 for the CPU (don't forget that's a 3.4 Ghz P4 prescott - the hotter running cpu) and GPU at 52 degrees.


The question is, can I benchmark or play games with all 3 stock fans off? My guess is that with my external fans on slowest speed, there won't be enough pressure to push air into the laptop at load conditions. I'm going to try loading this rig slightly with 3DMark06 with the 2 external fans turn on slow speed and leaving the 3 stock fans off.

Here's an interesting comparison between 2 different test settings using 3DMark06.


CONSTANTS:
39 processes and 40 services running,


TEST SETTING A: With all 3 stock fans set on SLOW on all 4 levels in FANGUI (Games profile) and the pump on, the CPU and GPU max at 73 and 65 respectively, when I run 3DMark 06.

At SETTING A the idle temp is 50 for CPU and 54 for GPU. (obtiained after 1/2 running)

TEST SETTING B: With all 3 stock fans set on OFF on all 4 levels in FANGUI (Games profile) and ofcourse turned off using the BIOS CONTROL UTILITY and ONLY the pump running with both cooler fans on slowest speed, the CPU and GPU max at 73 and 54 respectively, when I run 3DMark 06.

At SETTING B the idle temp is 54 for CPU and 55 for GPU. (obtiained after 1/2 running) .



At SETTING B, it was nice to not have to hear those fans (running high). The Aquarius II pump and fan (for radiator) together make up for one of the quietest water cooling solutions (though not for hardcore ocing which is not really the objective of my mod).

ANALYSIS and CONCLUSIONS:

I'm don't mean to open up another discussion on the "push cold air in" verses "pull hot air out" topic, but with all 3 Dell fans turned OFF plus 39 processes and 40 services running, my CPU temps are stable at 54 and most of the time a degree or two below the GPU temp. I think the "push cold air in" is working for me, because I've provide sufficient surface area (via other mods within the laptop) to remove the heat from within the laptop before it reaches the fins.

It's a know fact that the CPU in the XPS generally get about 5-10 degrees hotter then the GPU (which also gets hotter due to heat dispersed by the CPU. By watercooling the CPU I've isolated the CPUs heat from the GPU. I forgot to mention that I managed to mod (put holes in the cover to run tubes into and out of) the aluminum cover that originally covers on the cpu heatsink assembly. (So when I remove the keyboard the Waterblock is enclosed by that cover). The original intent of the cover was to create a passage for the air coming from the 3rd fan so that it's directed over the fins (that I replaced with the waterblock) just above the CPU's as it exits from the vent in the back of the XPS. The air passage is still intact, except now the air servers to cool the water coming into the waterblock (as the tube runs through the passage) as well as the waterblock itself.

The point is that when I've got all 3 Dell fans off, there is almost no air felt blowing out from the back (of course). But the questions is where is the air that I'm blowing into the laptop gong? I do, however, feel more cooler air being blow out from the two top vents on the right and left sides of the keyboard (esp, when I remove the little plastic covers that easily slide out). Apparently, the air that's being push into the the laptop (via the external fans) is now entering into the cavity of the laptop and directly cooling the heatsink and any metal that's in direct contact with the CPU and GPU.

I bet that a large part of the heat emitted by the CPU and GPU is now being take up by the cooler air that is going into the laptop even before it reaches the three fins (there is one GPU fin on the left and 2 CPU fins (one on each side)). Note, I've already increased the surface area for air cooing by including a finned custom copper GPU Heatsink (see my previous post for pics).

Here's (what I think is) the key to the cooler GPU temps (on TEST SETTING B) and a reason to explain why my CPU temps is a degree lower then my GPU temp: With dell's fans off (TEST SETTING B), the air that I'm blowing into the laptop plus any air going in from the holes in the battery compartment can more easily find it's way into the laptop (rather then get caught by the Dell fans and exits while cooling the fins only). The Dell fans are counter-productive (at least in my case), as I am more interested in getting cooler air into the laptop then expelling hot air outside. Also, my guess is that running the Dell fans leads to more current and ultimately more heat.


Boy, I must have done something right! :scratch: I'm now able to run an Dell XPS Gen1 3.4 Ghz Laptop with a 16 pipeline modded 9800 ATI will ALL 3 STOCK FANS COMPLETELY OFF. The two fans of the Cooling stand are blowing enough cool air to keep both the water and air inside the laptop cool enought to keep the CPUS Stable at 54 and GPU stable at 55! And both my external fans are running on the slowest (quietest modes). :headbang:

[Joe]

Wow nice work, sorta removes the portablility aspect of a lappy, but damn impressive fitting the goods in there!

[unreal]

Sweet, huge tho!