Notebook Water Cooling

For TX1316AU

Items:

  1. 4 mm tubes
  2. 6 mm tubes
  3. Aerocool Iceland Water Cooling set
  4. High quality thermal paste (i used Arctic Cooling MX-2)
  5. Fitting 4 mm tube to 3/8" NPT thread
  6. Fitting with speed control (Elbow, 6 mm tube - 3/8" NPT thread)
  7. Some wires
  8. Wire cutter
  9. Metal file
  10. Copper tube
  11. Solder equipment

Guides that you will need:

  1. HP Repair Guide (http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/c00853874.pdf)
  2. Changing the thermal compound
  3. (http://forum.tabletpcreview.com/showthread.php?t=8875)

Water Cooling Mods

Note, this part of the mod assumes that you have changed the CPU thermal compound. Please refer to here.

Casing mods

You would need to modify your casing to allow the inlet and outlet tubes to enter. This is what i did:

Make sure there are no sharp edges. It is important to remove them as they can cut or damage the inlet or outlet tubes. Using the metal file, file down any sharp edges that you feel.

The opening on the left is for the outlet while the opening on the right is for the inlet.

Inlet

The inlet goes in from the tip of the copper tube located near the processor.

(Image from http://forum.tabletpcreview.com/showthread.php?t=8875)

Saw off the tip of the copper tube. After removing the tip, the hollow part of the tube will be exposed. I screwed in a slightly larger screw to make the hole bigger. Next create a combination of 4 mm - 6 mm tubes and secure them using wires. Attached the 4 mm - 6 mm tube combination to the opening of copper tube. This would be the inlet to of your coolant.

If you are using a second RAM, you would need to remove it first but leave the first RAM in the slot. Once you connect the tube and place it on the proc, you will not be able to remove the first RAM. Using some wires, secure the tube so that it does not bend sharply. This is what i did for my notebook:

Note that i used the wire cutter and remove part of the silver heat fins to allow the tube to exit the casing:

If the cover is placed back, part of the 4mm tube is visible near the RAM.

Outlet

The outlet pipe will connect to the end of the copper tube. Using the pliers, you would need to remove around 1/2 of the copper fins and subsequently, cut off almost 1/3 of the tube:

(Image from http://forum.tabletpcreview.com/showthread.php?t=8875)

A copper pipe bent at 90° was soldered in place of the tube that you removed:

And you are done (except the water cooling system):

Water Cooling

At first, i was leaning to power the pump using USB. After a lot of searching, i could not get a 5V water pump. I used 2 types of 12 V water pump from car's windscreen water sprinklers but it last only about 1 month. Finally, i got myself Aerocool Iceland water cooling set for RM155. It comes with coolant and reservoir, 12V water pump, 12V 120mm fan, a CPU heat block and a radiator:

For this project, the CPU heat block would not be used. Minor modifications were done to the tubes. The tube from the pump is cut and attached to the 4 mm fitting:

If you are wondering what happened to the fitting, i actually lost it outdoors for a couple of days. Found it back on the road and hey, it was still usable. Next, to connect the outlet pipe to the radiator. I cut another piece of pipe and connect it with a 6 mm fitting:

All i need to do now is to create a 12 V power supply. I had a 15 V power adapter so i'll need to reduce the voltage to 12 V. I used a 7812 voltage regulator for this:

Final System & Results

Here's the finished system:

Before water cooling, after mods recommended here

(Startup, Idle usage)

After adding the water cooling system

(Idle)

Conclusion

Love my system. At least my notebook is not a piece of brick now.

GPU Temperature drop ≈ 30°C

CPU Temperature drop ≈ 20°C

Note (Nov 5th 2010):

The system still works fine! Temperature depends on ambient room temperature. On hot days, the temperature lingers around 54'c (while watching a movie) in a room without windows.