Removable Laptop Water Cooling


[Bard] just sent me a nice water cooling hack. He built a simple water cooling system that can be manually inserted into the cooling system of his laptop. He wanted it for watching movies sans annoying fan noise. He soldered the parts together using a stove instead of the standard propane torch. Necessity is definitely the mother of invention. I hope he relocates the water cooling supply. When he wants to go mobile, he just unplugs the cooling fins.

35 thoughts on “Removable Laptop Water Cooling

  1. Seems really cool, too bad the site seems to be down. BTW I got a floating ad from questionmaker about some survey. I seem to remember hearing we should report these things if we saw them. Just putting it out there.

  2. This is cool. My laptop gets really hot and sounds like a vacuum cleaner when it’s playing movies. The heat gets so bad that the OS had to auto shutdown the system halfway through a movie. So I’d put an ice pack, fresh from the freezer, under my laptop to cool it off…

  3. I had the exact same idea a while ago. When on AC my fan turns on at very low temperatures (44 ish), so it is basically constantly on.

    There is no way I would attempt it though, nice work.

  4. i can’t access the site, but damn, this sounds identical to an idea I had after I looked at the cooling fins that are visible through my laptop case..although I was thinking of using some powereful peltier with watercooling. i don’t have any experience with cooling though.
    i’m not trying to steal credit or anything though..a good hack is always respected :)

  5. This is great! There are many ideas floating around out there, but few who actually realize them. I like how such a potentially complicated a concept was refined and created with so few parts.
    Q: anyone know sources for small/micro/tiny/itsy-bitsy dc pumps? I want to try a version of this.

  6. “Q: anyone know sources for small/micro/tiny/itsy-bitsy dc pumps? I want to try a version of this.”

    I’ve seen some pretty small windshield washer fluid pumps. Not micro or tiny – but they can be bought second hand for cheap. And if you run them at less than 12v, I wouldn’t worry about them overheating ;)

  7. Floating ads still going BTW.

    I’m suprised no one has bothered to manufacture a small, flat rotary displacement or rotary vane pump for laptop liquid cooling yet. Centrifugal impeller pumps are just too voluminous to maintain portability. I’m willing to bet that if it wasn’t for the outsized dimensioning of both the cooling pump and the heatsink this system could have remained in “the spirit” of a laptop.

  8. Seems a little overboard for simply not wanting to hear a fan while watching a movie. Perhaps headphones could accomplish the same thing? I think the idea is cool, but it does defeat the purpose of a portable/laptop.

  9. anybody thought of a sterling engine powered pc pump, i doubt u could get it for a laptop, but desktop would suffice. The hotter it got, the faster it would pump. Any questions or if anybody wants to do it, email me Dok@DokumentAMarble

    .dok

  10. Uh folks.

    Wouldn’t simply increasing the amount of surface area be enough to increase cooling significantly?

    Adding an external heat sink should be enough to tip the scales towards a cool enough (and that’s really the point here, cool _enough_) running CPU to keep the fan off.

    This water cooling thing, while incredibly cool looking and really clever, is most likely major overkill unless you can overclock that sucker, but then again that just makes more heat, don’t it? :D

  11. Yes it is enough when used in “air mode” (as mentioned in the article). Adding water to the equation makes for an even cooler experience. Right now I’m running at a comfy 41*Celsius (106*F) in “water mode”. Things go a thad quicker when cool ;)

    btw; I’m posting the alternative link here again;
    http://folk.ntnu.no/bardlund/hack2.html
    My original site is running a jsp server that ain’t that friendly and tends to kneel sometimes;(

  12. more info…
    For small pumps, check out your local thrift stores. I found a number of small “desk fountains”. they are great for parts, the one I picked up had a small & quiet (1″ x 1.5″) 3v DC pump. Neato. I’m actually considering plumbing in cooling lines directly into my old laptop (or desktop?), and then putting a quick-disconnect of some sort connect to the fountain as is. I figure the water being aerated and flowing over the rocks will dissapate enough heat. And the fountain will help the fung shwe of my office.
    aahhh…

  13. if your screen is broken, why not just use that laptop as a stationary desktop and hook it up with a vga moniter, usb mouse and keyboard? thats what i did with my crappy lappy

  14. Likewise; I’d really like a mirror too, if anyone’s listening? Awesome idea. My Clevo P150HMx’s 485m gpu overheats during any 3D. Even just 50% usage will raise the temp to 90C in half an hour. This would make my laptop usable; don’t care anymore if it’s not portable. Btw, I’ve cleaned it & reseated the heatsink; it made no difference. It runs at 50-60C when idle :-/

  15. Let me start out by saying this looks like a cool hobby project.

    However, I don’t know how well this works since it is getting rid of the exhaust and not the heat unless you can adequately interlock into the internal heat sink fins.

    The secondary concern is inserting something into the internal heat sink of the computer. Typically laptops keep the fans pretty close to the outside and I would be afraid of stop that fan without knowing it and causing thermal runaway.

    I did a search online and I found that (besides ASUS’s crazy water cooler) they make Laptop Fan Cooler (shorturl.at/hmERZ) that is similar to this but just a fan. Looks like the vacuums work well (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdqmrIynyZQ) but doesn’t drop the comp dramatically.

    I’d love a water cooled mater that I could stick to the bottom of my comp to pull away heat.

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