Cooling the Blade

lcpiper

[H]F Junkie
Joined
Jul 16, 2008
Messages
10,611
I have a new Razer Blade 14" Laptop and it's running hotter then I am happy with. I am looking for suggestions guys.

Here are the basic conditions;
I mostly use it as a desktop replacement at home in AZ.
Wife get's cold easy, ambient temp not lower then 78F.
Under heavy prolonged gaming the system climbs upwards of >95F
Two days ago it started acting like it was effecting game performance and I know it can't be good for the system life.
I bought a cheap cooling pad from Best Buy but I know it's only doing a little to help.
Pulling the battery from my ASUS 75JH really help it with this problem but the Blade's battery is internal.

Suggestions are requested, Thank You.
 
Place a damp towel underneath the cooling pad. Assuming the cooling pad blows upwards, you'll be slightly cooling the air going into the computer. Aside from this, the only other suggestion I would have is possibly try to undervolt the CPU/GPU.

These suckers are known to run hot, so there's not too much you can do.
 
Replace the TIM with some Diamond 7. Or do like my buddy used to do and put a bowl of ice under in air inlet lol. FYI crushed ice works better than cubed,
 
The Blade has an aluminum shell and the bottom has some large smooth areas. I was thinking more along the lines of a custom cooling pad that has heat pipes and make sure the design doesn't interfere with the existing cooling vents, etc. But I was looking for other options I hadn't thought of.
 
Do you mean 95 C, or is it 95f? If it is 95 F, then you have nothing to worry about, thats nothing......cooling pad wise check amazon and newegg, there are several out there that are the standard lift, but include 2x 120mm fans for circulation help, rather than the small shitty fans on BB pads.
 
If it is 95 F, then you have nothing to worry about, that's nothing.
95F is nothing in a desktop, not so in a laptop. And the temp is just a guess, I only know that you can't touch it for longer then a moment cause your sense of touch will warn you that it is hot enough to cause harm.

If it wasn't too hot I wouldn't be asking for suggestions. I was seeing performance issues while gaming that suggested a heat problem, the pad seemed to help but I am sure I am still close to a problem threshold. My wife will come back from vacation soon and what I gained with the pad will likely be lost when the ambient goes back up. The only real alternative I think I have is adding a window mount Ac unit to maintain a lower localized ambient that she can live with, at least till she sees the electric bill. I am looking for alternatives and not temporary gimmicks.

You don't know me cause I am an old timer here and elsewhere on the cooling scene but got away from it several years ago. I'll add some things, I know cooling, My first water-block was for a Thunderbird chip. My craziest was an Arctic Web on a 3.2Gig P4 cooled to -17C, in my garage in August, in Arizona, so the ambient was substantial. My slickest cooling mod was having a custom HW Labs' X-Flow radiator built at the factory. These rads are normally designed with in inlet/outlet at opposing corners and are a high flow single pass radiator design. I reasoned that by adding additional inlets at the other two corners I could run two separate loops with individual pumps off a common radiator thereby separating the heat burden of the CPU from the GPU while giving the system some redundancy as a single pump failure would not likely be catastrophic. I have never seen anyone else try this concept but it worked perfectly well and I was very happy with it. I should apologize, I didn't share.

Even though I know a lot about cooling, sometimes great ideas come from unexpected sources. If you never ask you will never hear. I'm asking.
 
95f in a laptop is still not much, shit my laptop idles at that :p

Take a look with coretemp / GPU z to get temp readings on your actual CPU and GPU cores.

http://www.amazon.com/NZXT-CRYO-LX-Aluminum-Adjustable/dp/B0014GVZS0

Something similar to that is what I would suggest looking at, and possibly using it with the ice tricks listed above, otherwise it could be a bad application of TIM.


The reason I say that is, 95f is not exactly hot on a laptop, thats ~35c. However if the 95f is surface (not core temp) that is quite warm, meaning your core temps are probably in the ~50c+ range (just a broad guess here, no way scientific).
 
As an Amazon Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
W.feather, I said 95F was a guess. It's not just uncomfortable to touch, it's painful to touch up near where the system exhaust is located. I am at work, I can't run apps to check it. But like I said, I am not looking for simply fans blowing air on the bottom of the case, I have that already, and I am not interested in ice chips. I think I mentioned a custom cooling pad using heat pipes, maybe I could use waterblocks?, hmmm, large surface area, maybe two or four blocks that have a wide footprint. Perhaps a thin copper plate to spread the surface area. An AC unit will cost about $200+ and then cost to operate daily, the water block cooling pad, that could be done cheaper and certainly cost much less to operate.

Anyway, still looking for ideas.
 
Actually, there are those cooling mats that are made of some material that "soaks up" the heat. The problem is they suffer from heat saturation. They are great at absorbing it, they just don't get rid of it fast enough. But if I could help them get rid of it with some sort of chiller underneath the pad, that might do it.
 
Maybe I should just get a small refrigerator and drill a whole for the cords.
 
Maybe I should just get a small refrigerator and drill a whole for the cords.

then you would also need to put a dehumidifier in the refrigerator as the humidity would be too much. good luck with your future endeavors.
 
Without knowing what temps the components are running, throwing ideas around is pretty pointless.
 
95F is nothing in a desktop, not so in a laptop. And the temp is just a guess, I only know that you can't touch it for longer then a moment cause your sense of touch will warn you that it is hot enough to cause harm.

If it wasn't too hot I wouldn't be asking for suggestions. I was seeing performance issues while gaming that suggested a heat problem, the pad seemed to help but I am sure I am still close to a problem threshold. My wife will come back from vacation soon and what I gained with the pad will likely be lost when the ambient goes back up. The only real alternative I think I have is adding a window mount Ac unit to maintain a lower localized ambient that she can live with, at least till she sees the electric bill. I am looking for alternatives and not temporary gimmicks.

You don't know me cause I am an old timer here and elsewhere on the cooling scene but got away from it several years ago. I'll add some things, I know cooling, My first water-block was for a Thunderbird chip. My craziest was an Arctic Web on a 3.2Gig P4 cooled to -17C, in my garage in August, in Arizona, so the ambient was substantial. My slickest cooling mod was having a custom HW Labs' X-Flow radiator built at the factory. These rads are normally designed with in inlet/outlet at opposing corners and are a high flow single pass radiator design. I reasoned that by adding additional inlets at the other two corners I could run two separate loops with individual pumps off a common radiator thereby separating the heat burden of the CPU from the GPU while giving the system some redundancy as a single pump failure would not likely be catastrophic. I have never seen anyone else try this concept but it worked perfectly well and I was very happy with it. I should apologize, I didn't share.

Even though I know a lot about cooling, sometimes great ideas come from unexpected sources. If you never ask you will never hear. I'm asking.
watch out, we're dealing with a real badass here! :p

I second W.Feather's general notion that you'd be best served by some kind of actively cooled contraption that absorbs heat directly from the chassis. If you want to go nut and have the resources, you could make a big, simple waterblock (imagine a laptop sized maze-type WB) and build it right into your desk top
 
install CPUID's hwmonitor and post the temps you get off that while idle and under load.

You wouldn't get any thermal throttling at 95F, in fact most systems don't let you set thermal throttles/shutdowns until 70C (158F) and seeing as the blade uses nvidia and intel, both of which operate safely at 85C-90C (176F-203F) I doubt you are seeing any thermal throttling at 95F (35C), in fact, I'd be shocked if you were.

If I were you I'd look at modifying a cooling pad with a large 200mm fan or a couple of faster 120mm fans, I'd also get a 120v AC to 12v DC adapter so you don't try to draw too much power from the USB ports.
 
OK, let me get this straight. No matter that I assure you guys that I am seeing system problems on a brand new system that suggest to me a heat issue, and that the surface of the laptop near the exhaust area is physically hot enough that you can't leave your fingers on it for fear of burning them, some of you insist you need temp monitoring of the processor and or GPU to come up with a suggestion. You can't proceed with, "Well if there is a problem, you could proceed this way..."

At least one thinks that throttling of the CPU is the only issue that would impact performance and that other components couldn't possibly suffer more then the CPU due to the design and routing of the cooling system. ie.... my wireless nic couldn't possibly suffer and show degradation despite the CPU not being under duress.

And aside from a giant waterblock,(actually maybe not a bad idea), the only other option is a bigger better fan blowing air on the bottom of the case which will certainly be better then the fans that are already blowing air on the bottom of the case.

Activate: AMD,
I second W.Feather's general notion that you'd be best served by some kind of actively cooled contraption that absorbs heat directly from the chassis.

Here we are tracking, but it's still going to be touch and go because the bottom shell of the case isn't really in touch with much so yes, we can cool the bottom, but to what effect that has on the rest of the system, I have my reservations.

If we go with the idea that the big problem children are the processor and the GPU and that if they are better managed then the rest will follow, then I wonder if I can cool the intake air prior to it's being pulled into the case. Sort of like chilled air induction. Not crazy chilled, let's just say the equivalent of 60F ambient air being blown directly into the air intakes.

Here is the bottom of the laptop.
blade-14inch-gallery-19-v6.png



If I find the CFM rating of those fans and match or exceed that rating by the smallest amount using cooled air, what do you think? Maybe even divert a little extra against the bare chassis as well.
 
BTW, I really am not trying to piss you guys off. If I sound, ummm, arrogant I apologize. I am just trying to get passed the Green Pees and on to the Meat and Potatoes.
 
As I am waiting I'll run through some of the different already identified options.
#1 Best, just turn the AC down, but then I have to fight with the wife over it.
#2 Get rid of wife and turn the AC down, the bad - I like my wife.
#3 Better laptop pad, but it's only a degree or so better, not good enough.
#4 Custom water block, maybe, but limited to cooling the bottom of the case/shell.
#5 Window/Portable AC, a little costly, adds to electric bill, maintenance, but would do the job.
#6,7,8 Almost any kind of active cooling from refrigerated units, peltier based, whatever is going to have the side effect of adding to the room's heat. I need a cooling method that is efficient or able to easily vent waste heat out of the room.
 
Activate: AMD,

Here we are tracking, but it's still going to be touch and go because the bottom shell of the case isn't really in touch with much so yes, we can cool the bottom, but to what effect that has on the rest of the system, I have my reservations.
Question: does the area around your vents that gets really hot include the bottom of the chassis, and is that part metal? If yes, I would predict that even just cooling that area (rather than the whole bottom) would actually have bigger results than you might think. I guarantee that Razer is using a heatpipe setup, with the actual heat dissipation fins right by that outlet. If that is where the majority of the heat-dump is coming from, that is where you should put the majority of your heat absorption capability. If the chassis at that point is metal, I can envision that transferring heat from that point to another cooling apparatus would be reasonably straightforward.

If we go with the idea that the big problem children are the processor and the GPU and that if they are better managed then the rest will follow, then I wonder if I can cool the intake air prior to it's being pulled into the case. Sort of like chilled air induction. Not crazy chilled, let's just say the equivalent of 60F ambient air being blown directly into the air intakes.
I think you can do that, but chilling the air itself is not a cheap/power efficient process. In my mind, your options for that are: cool water w/ heat exhanger, compressor (AC), or TEC/Pelt. All of them have major drawbacks, noise and power consumption being the primary ones. As soon as you have to go below ambient temps, you're causing a lot of problems.


If I find the CFM rating of those fans and match or exceed that rating by the smallest amount using cooled air, what do you think? Maybe even divert a little extra against the bare chassis as well.
Ditch the notion of cool air, and you're back to W.Feather's suggestion (that I seconded). Heres the thing: you'll probably see good results simply increase the amount of ambient temp air you've got going through the chassis. We both know tiny laptop fans totally suck for CFM, if you can force-feed the chassis you'll go a long way. If that doesn't work, theres no need to dig into exotic cooling mechanisms, so why not start with the obvious answer?
 
Can you link the current cooler you have? Last I knew best buy only sold shitty low power ones with small "scroll" like fans on it, and not actual 120mm fans...

Honestly take a look at the one I suggested, as last I knew that style would trump any offering from best buy (we went through something similar with my mom, and thats why we settled on the one with two actual 120mm fans, rather than the very inadequate options available at best buy)

However until we can know what temps your CPU and GPU are actually running at (to see if your issue is actually throttling) any suggestions are just shots in the dark.
 
Here's my idea!

Buy a 20" box fans from the dollar store
Lay fan down, but prop it up on one end so it can still draw air in
Place your laptop on top of the fan grill
Turn on the fan
Enjoy the breeze! ;)
Post pics of ghetto made laptop cooling station in the "ghetto mods thread" in the case section of [H]


My wife is always cold as well, as for me, I think about heat and start sweating. So I keep it cool in my house, and to make her happy I bought her an electric blanket, she loves it and stays warm now. Best $20 I've spent her.
 
Even if it feels dangerously hot to the touch, it in no way means that the components are running too hot. Modern components are designed to run up to 100 C or higher, so an exhaust temp of 60 C (140 F) (which can cause burns) might mean absolutely nothing. That is why we keep on telling you to get actual temp monitoring programs, as your touch can mean absolutely nothing.
 
Issue isn't throttling and I am sure. throttling doesn't make my tank turn left when I press the key to turn right, or make the tank back up when I press the key to stop. But network lag effects the game severely and where is the wireless NIC located in most laptops? Up near the screen usually where the antenna is usually at. I suspect that although a NIC, even a wireless NIC doesn't usually get so hot that it misbehaves all by itself, it could be helped along the way by radiant heat from other components.
 
The nic's location is model dependent. You would have to crack open the bottom of your laptop to see (if its plausible to do), or look at online reviews where they would have done something similar. Is the issue persistent when you are plugged in? in earlier posts it seemed you alluded to it being a throttle issue, not a Lag / software issue.
 
Tsumi, I'm at work, no laptop here. At home I have no time for this forum so maybe I'll get around to checking what the CPU and GPU are running at, but again they are not a specific indicator of the heat that other components are being subjected to. Components that do not have their own dedicated heatpipes.
 
You would have to crack open the bottom of your laptop to see (if its plausible to do)
Brand new $2,000 laptop, I called, I can't even crack it to add memory without voiding the warranty and I am not going to do that any time soon.
 
They may not be directly indicative of heat in another component, however within a computer the big heat makers (especially in a laptop) are the CPU and GPU, the motherboard gets warm, and in all the laptops ive seen, the NIC is decently separated from heat components. By us knowing what temperatures your CPU/GPU are running at will allow us to know exactly how warm your system is running near, if they are close to their TJmax, that means they are transferring more heat to the case, and that heat will get to your NIC. So the temperature of your CPU/GPU do have a direct correlation to your system temperatures, and are relatively important in narrowing down *what* to cool, or if you have an issue with something else.
 
Here is a pic of the lower internals, haven't found one underneath the keyboard.

interior.jpg
 
BTW, as I keep reading about this laptop one thing keeps popping up, complaints about the display. Maybe they have changed it for a different panel but I see nothing wrong with the display on this unit, it's good and I have no problem with viewing it off angle.
 
OK, let me get this straight. No matter that I assure you guys that I am seeing system problems on a brand new system that suggest to me a heat issue, and that the surface of the laptop near the exhaust area is physically hot enough that you can't leave your fingers on it for fear of burning them, some of you insist you need temp monitoring of the processor and or GPU to come up with a suggestion. You can't proceed with, "Well if there is a problem, you could proceed this way..."

Well, here's what you're not getting... what you're experience ISN'T A PROBLEM. Read every single review and watch every single YouTube review of the Blade 14 and you'll begin to see a trend. Every Blade 14 experiences this. It may be a design "flaw", but it's how it was designed and it's how it works.

Now if your Blade is experiencing system problems, maybe there's an actually problem with your blade (ie: fans not working, something blocking the air pathway, etc) and you should just send it in to Razer and have them check it out under warranty.
 
icpiper, hwmonitor, cpuz, and gpuz or evga precision will be able to tell you if your computer is throttling due to thermal limits or if it is just stuttering in games because its running into a bottleneck somewhere.

If hwmonitor is reporting high temps and the frequencies of the CPU/GPU are being lowered then you know its being throttled, if not, then turn down the settings and continue on your merry way.

If you aren't going to run any software to get specific numbers and results then you aren't going to get any help beyond speculation, it'd be like a bunch of nuclear engineers trying to determine if a reactor is about to overheat by feeling how hot the steam is coming off it. It doesn't matter, whether its at normal operating temperatures or overheating, the steam is hot enough to hurt.

As for cooling I'm still thinking your best bet is a couple of high speed fans turbo charging air at the bottom of it, if you feel that the air intake temperature needs to be lower then be very aware that any sort of localized cooling could potentially cause condensation.

You might want to look at raising the laptop a bit from the cooling pad/desk, that way the fans have a little more room to pull air in from. I raised my laptop with sticky note pads under the corners and it helps a ton, the fans are able to pull fresh air in easily from beneath it instead of warm/hot air.
 
Well, here's what you're not getting... what you're experience ISN'T A PROBLEM.

It is a problem when I press a key to turn left and my tank turns right, I check to see if it's a stuck key but others mess up as well. Other things happen where the game isn't reacting properly to the commands. It's crazy hot so I shut it off, buy the cooling pad and no more problems.

No more problems now, but in a few days the wife comes home and the ambient goes back up and then the problems will happen again.

Now I will say this one more time, it's right on the edge, it is going to be a problem. And if you can stop insisting on temp monitoring and simply accept that there is a heat problem then it might be helpful.

In fact, just proceed on the premise of "If one did have a heat problem given these conditions, you might want to try this."

I have a laptop pad, yes some are better then others but there are limits to what they can do. In fact, I know about pretty much every main stream and most of the "off the beaten path" solutions and I am weighing each. What I am asking from you guys is if you can think of a new one.

And I did see a laptop pad that had possibilities beyond the normal, the fans could be relocated so I could line them up to blow more directly into the vents. I was even thinking of using some foam to make a plenum between the surface of the pad and the laptop inlets so more of the air was directed straight into the inlets. But the jury is still out on what I will try next.

I know some of you guys are smart and I don't want to drive you off. What I do want is for you to think a little outside the box for alternatives on modifications on the existing options.
 
And just to reiterate, it is not throttling and it is not causing video problems but the heat is effecting other components and I suspect the NIC the most because the issues look similar to what I have seen in the past on terrible internet connections. Now it's possible this was network related and outside of my systems, but the timing is suspect as it only happened now with this new computer and stopped when I got the pad.
 
I'd be reluctant to point fans directly at your inlet fans, if they have enough pressure they could cause your fans to spin faster and burn out.

I'd focus on just getting more fresh air under the laptop by jacking it up off the cooling pad and making sure that there is enough airflow to remove warm air immediately, i'm sure active cooling aimed at the chassis of the laptop would help a lot.

If possible I'd look into manual fan control also, some laptop manufacturers don't like to make their fans ramp up unless they are close to/already thermal throttling.
 
Temps by HWMonitor under load.

CPU cores averaging 68C
CPU Package 69C


Tonight I saw some choppy video out of the laptop, been playing for over 8 hours straight.
Loaded up this app and restarted the game, played a few rounds and grabbed the temps. These were taken right after completing a match.
 
It is a problem when I press a key to turn left and my tank turns right, I check to see if it's a stuck key but others mess up as well. Other things happen where the game isn't reacting properly to the commands. It's crazy hot so I shut it off, buy the cooling pad and no more problems.

If you're convinced the laptop isn't throttling, and in conjunction with the problem you described, it might be best just to RMA the thing. It sounds like there could be some sort of hardware error or maybe it really is getting so hot that the keyboard or something is malfunctioning.
 
The wireless card is mounted directly below the right fan in the picture you provided. I highly doubt it's having thermal issues there.

The smooth alu base of the unit doesn't actually touch anything heat producing, so actively cooling the bottom lid is almost entirely pointless.

Some cooling pads will actually reduce the effectiveness of the stock cooling fans.

In thour situation, I'd simply try to prop the rear up about 1/2-1 inch. Give those fans a large space to draw from so they don't get starved, and keep the vents pointed in an upward direction to help keep it from recirculating hot air.

Frankly, if you wanted a fast laptop that runs cool, you should have gone with one of the MSI GT units. Bigger overall, but cheaper, and FAR cooler/quieter.
 
Last night, after a few hours of gaming I repositioned the laptop on the cooling pad so that the back was propped up a little giving the rear bottom where the intakes are a little more room between them and the fans. It was an hour or so latter when I definitely saw problems including a graphics problem with stuttering.

Jorona, that does look like a wireless card on the right near that fan. But the fan is part of an enclosed ducted system that cooles the CPU and GPU, perhaps GPU Ram as well, and vents it out at the top near the display hinge. It seems that the rest of the laptop could suffer from poor ventilation as if the designers were so busy solving the CPU/GPU cooling that they forgot about the rest of the system and that heat could build up over time in long sessions.



MSI GT units. Bigger overall, but cheaper, and FAR cooler/quieter.
And slower, which means the useful life is shortened.
 
Back
Top