Project: Laptop

[Freman]

I have surfed around a bit the last few months looking at various types of casemods and designes. I have seen some fine cases and som not so fine but what I havent seen is a loptop mod.

So here goes.

The last few days I have been looking in to the possibility to creat from scratch my own laptop case that is water cooled, semi portable and super pimped.

Using lexan, LED lights, BIG fans (altho they have to be low profile), a custom built water cooling system, dual input AC adapter for the exstra needed power :) and some few more assorted things. I havent got the desigen 100% completed yet, and im still missing a laptop to use but this shouldnt take to long to aquire.

Also need to know how much heat the latpop gives of, and sisnce im using water cooling, do I realy need a radiator?

Pros:
+ So far I cant think of any other pros then it will look FAT :)

Cons:
- Keeping the thickness of the system to a normal. 4-5cm thick at the max.
- Space for the watertank, might have to drop the battery.
- making an AC adapter that can cope with the power needs.
- Weight is going to be an issue. But as I said "semi portable".
- Water in a laptop? cant be good.
- Finding a small enough water pump, that also can be inserted inside the watertank?

This aint gonna be eay is it?

ps: How do I spell thick? thik? theick?

pss: Updates will follow and if you have any tips, tricks or links they are very welcome.

[Jetty_200]

G L

[Freman]

Thanks, I think I need it :)

[psychowit]

Thanks, I think I need it :)
I think so 2

[Luke122]

Thick.

Welcome to TBCS, land of the impossible. :)

A water cooled laptop is possible, but building a super slim water cooled laptop will be tough.

Here's a good reference (http://benheck.com/Games/Xbox360/x360_page_1.htm)for building a watercooling system in a laptop. I know it's about an Xbox360, but trust me.. good ideas.

Next, you have to consider power needs. If you want a battery in this thing, they you'll have to make some sacrifices. If not, you are tethered to an outlet forever. Not exactly portable.

If you put large fans (slim or not), you'll have to either put them on the bottom (so they get no airflow on your lap) or on the top (so you have no keyboard).

Overall it's a fairly ambitious goal, but certainly not impossible. If you are using a laptop for the internals, then you are already on teh right track, as the components are smaller/thinner than even mini-itx stuff.

Forming the case will likely be the hardest part, but definitely not impossible. :)

[NightrainSrt4]

I love the idea, and think it would be pretty cool, but my question is:

WHY?

Other than being able to tell people that its watercooled, what reason do you have for it? Laptops don't need watercooling because as stock, there temps all fall well within respectable limits. I haven't seen a laptop with good overclocking features, and those that do still fall within temp limits.

I think the idea is awesome. But I honestly don't see a point. The xbox360 laptop needed watercooling to become a laptop and not have heat issues. A laptop that is fine as it is, but gets watercooling just seems ... ... ...

Im sure you get the point. But I will be watching this if you do it. Should be awesome. Can't wait to see it. I just can see a reason, but ehhhhh who needs a reason to do anything :banana:

[Luke122]

I just cant see a reason, but ehhhhh who needs a reason to do anything

You dont need a reason! :D If I could find a way to put a supercharger on my lawnmower, I would. Not because I need it, but because.. why not? :D

If you could build a watercooled laptop, I think it would be a total showoff thing, not a practical thing at all. ;)

I do agree that it's not really needed, as you wont be running it that hard. Yes, you do need a rad, because that's how the heat gets out of the water, but it doesnt have to be big. That xbox360 laptop had a pretty small watercooling loop, and yes, they did NEED to do that for heat purposes, but it would still be cool as hell to do it.

A totally transparent laptop case would be pretty cool I think, and if there was watercooling in it to see, that would be even cooler. Add some UV led's, and some reactive coolant, and man.. pimptastic.

[Freman]

Well as I put in the "pros" section of mu post I realy couldnt find any good reason for doing this other than having a cool laptop to show off :D I was also thinking of having the thinge painted white and leave the top blank so I could show off the water cooling :) but time will show on the designe.

I orderd the lexan yesterday, wasnt as expensive as I thought it would be, alos bought a new heatgun, som random tools and stuff. still havent decided on what type of laptop to use yet, since my budget is kinda low a new one will be out of the question. I got an old Dell Inspiton 3700 with a 433MHz Celeron CPU but some how I dont think its fair to pimp a computer that is 10years old :)

Any ideas on what lapotop to use are welcome :)

The Xbox link was a great hlep. gave me alot of ideas on how to do this, altho I dont have a metal workshop at my disposal.

When it come to the radiator I think I have figured out how to do this, but I i will not spoile the surprise yet ;)
I think I will have to drop the battery. the system will have to have a keyboard, but im going to drop the Touchpad thing and that will give me some more room.

But When it comes to the battery im still in doubt since some laptops have these HUGE batteries while others ave long slim ones. The thing at the top of my list now should be to find a laptop. I hope to do this over the weekend.

[Luke122]

You can check out some of the "external" batteries too. They are big but slim.. less than half inch thick. I was going to use one for my tablet project, but poor wireless vga stopped that project dead in it's tracks.

[p0Pe]

i would say that you would be able to use the abnormal small pump thats in XSPC´s 5.25 bay res/pump sys?

http://coolerkit.dk/Graphics/Products/803.jpg