Laptop Manufacturers Still Overlook Cooling - Part 2

So the holidays are here and the weather has gotten pretty cold in Texas.  Laptop users rejoice with frosty outdoor computing - as long as they don't freeze.  For those inside - good laptop cooling is needed to compensate for the burning fireplace.

Alas, I return to my first post on laptop cooling issues. If you missed it, you can still read Part 1 here. Over the past few months I've come across some intriguing new innovations for laptop cooling.  Tech that can fight the heat issues further than ever.

Dust Removal Through Reverse Fan Spin. The title explains itself.  This is a recent fan innovation created by MSI for desktop graphics cards.  Basically, it removes accumulated fan dust by occasionally spinning blades the opposite direction at high speed.  The accumulated dust issue that plagues laptops with heat can now be relieved.  Just blow it out of there.

Msi.com - Say Goodbye to Graphics Card Overheating

So how do we implement this? Well, with two openings above and below fans in a laptop, this technology could run its dust removal maintenance.  At the moment, you still have to remove a laptop's fan to clean it properly.  Otherwise blowing it with compressed air only pushes the dust deeper into the device which becomes a fire hazard.

Sealed Liquid Coolers.  If you've heard about liquid cooling, then this is simply a more compact version of the technology.  They use a mini radiator to circulate sealed coolant across a copper heatsink.  For small laptops, this could definitely lower CPU & GPU temperatures much more efficiently than fans alone.

It's simply the advantages of chemistry enhancing the cooling power of fans.  I'm certain there's a way to make one small enough to fit.  It's well worth the engineering efforts for such a boost in cooling efficiency & heat resistance.  Problems like frame rate stuttering in powerful gaming laptops could potentially be resolved for good.

For more ideas on better laptop cooling, check out these 2 inspirational guides on desktop cooling from Toms Hardware:

How To: Properly Plan And Pick Parts For An Air-Cooled PC, Part 1
How To: Properly Plan And Pick Parts For An Air-Cooled PC, Part 2 

Also be sure to see my Part 1 of this article if you haven't already:
Laptop Manufacturers Still Overlook Cooling - Part 1

Review: Asus K53TA - A High-End $450 Gaming Laptop

This past summer, I’ve been interested in a laptop upgrade to replace my 6 year old HP dv5000 (& selling the old unit to recoup the costs). I did a lot of product research to find a new laptop at a reasonable price I could afford.  At first I was curious about budget gaming laptops under $750, but couldn’t find anything decent without going above $1000.  Well, until I came across a ridiculous deal for the Asus K53TA.  In terms of performance for the price, this laptop stood outside of the current trends for both the standard and discount price gaming laptops for an astonishing $450 price. 

 
Let me explain why this was a good deal in terms of product specifications.  To start, the most notable feature of this device is an extraordinary dual pair of ATI brand graphics processing units (or GPUs).  This is a feature unheard of in laptops cheaper than $1,000.  When combined in parallel computing, multiple ATI graphics cards utilize a technology called CrossfireX to share their processing and significantly boost gaming performance.

One card is built-in to the quad-core central processing unit (CPU) with a new hybrid technology AMD calls an Accelerated Processing Unit (APU), the other is a dedicated removable graphics chip.  There are now four different kinds of GPUs in laptops:
1. Internal: built-in to the mainboard and often standard/low performance.
2. Dedicated: a removable card that's often highest performance.
3. External: a rare portable card that plugs into the laptop with mid-high performance.
4. APU: a removable hyrbid cpu+graphics card with mid-high performance. 
The GPUs featured in this unit are an APU 512MB A6-3400M & a dedicated 1GB ATI HD 6720G2.  With CrossfireX, ATI combines the performance of both GPUs into 1.5GB DDR3 (0.5GB+1.0GB) of raw graphical horsepower.  Powerful enough to run games like The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion with maximum graphical settings at 60 frames per second (FPS) – the best rate most games can run at these days.  I remember when many gaming desktops from 5 years ago struggled to barely play this game on medium graphics at 30FPS!  Who’d have thought a laptop for $450 in 2011 would run it at the highest settings. CrossfireX can also combine 2 dedicated GPUs or a dedicated and internal GPU.

So moving on to the quad-core CPU aspect of the APU (also called the A6-3400M) – it features 4 solid cores with a stock speed of 1.4Ghz each and turbo boost of 2.30Ghz when processing hits 100%.  1.4Ghz might sound like a draw-back at first, but I came across a highly compatible and safe overclock tweak that locks in a new speed of 2.0Ghz by using the program K10Stat & applying these settings. This barely raises the idle and max-load temperate of the APU beyond a few degrees Celsius.  So does this actually increase performance with the 2.3Ghz turbo boost already prevalent? Yes, in fact it increases it a lot because many applications including games don’t use a constant 100% and thus only call in Turbo Boost in short (and often unnoticeable) durations.  Locking in 2.0Ghz absolutely leaves a noticeable boost in everything and I’ve been using the overclocked setting for months without a single crash or temperature rating above 65C on max load and relatively 45C idle.  Be aware these APUs can safely handle up to about 90C with performance taking some impact after 75C.

Now for the active memory and storage specifications, this laptop features 4GB of high performing DDR3 memory and a 500GB hard disk drive that unfortunately isn’t a solid-state or hybrid hard disk/solid state drive but still don't anchor performance either.  A solid state upgrade could certainly boost the performance further, but the current drive does use SATA2 technology that is considerably faster (and larger) than the 160GB IDE drive in my old HP dv5000.  In terms of hard disk technology, SATA2 is basically newer and more responsive than IDE.

The other components are fairly standard more or less.  The removable disc drive is a fast DVD-CD/RW reader that isn’t Blu-Ray, but upgradable to one.  There’s a built-in webcam and microphone.  It has two soundcards – one is your standard Realtek HD audio card, the other is ATI’s HD Sound processor for the HDMI output.  What’s nice is both don’t have that annoying buzzing and interference noise found on many older laptops.  The speakers are standard sounding Antec laptop speakers (it’s no sub-woofer & tweeter), but I generally use CreativeAurvana Live headphones instead which sound a heck of a lot better.  I like the simple yet solid touchpad and keyboard with status lights below the touchpad and a clean power button in the upper right.  The battery holds a massive charge of 5 hours with general processing and about 3 hours with gaming/heavy processing.  The Network/Internet components are an integrated Atheros 802.11n WIFI & a Realtek Gigabit Ethernet jack with an upgrade slot for Bluetooth. Other connection ports include 3 USB and a VGA video output. 

The 15.6" LED monitor features a native 1366x768 resolution with an adjustable backlight that provides more than enough picture illumination.  I used ATI’s fantastic color control software to further calibrate the monitor to my personal tastes with 100% backlight, 60% gamma, 90% brightness, and a 110% contrast.  Before the color quality of the screen was just bright and standard looking; now the color looks spitting image of a plasma’s deep vivid color with these settings.  The backlight, gamma, and brightness are all highly different settings – but it’s most important to have the backlight all the way first, then tweak the other settings. Else your picture will be too dim and washed out regardless of your tweaks in ATI’s Catalyst color controls.  However, it’s good to use as little backlight as possible when running on the battery for the maximum power duration.

Now for the appearance and physical attributes, this laptop features an elegant charcoal black that mostly composes of textured matte with glossy black around the monitor.  The predominant texture consists of a backslash pattern (literally the “\” character in a pattern).  A much nicer sharp brushed texture is featured around the keyboard.  I do have to note that the black backslash texture is a bit of a fingerprint magnet and needs cleaning with alcohol every month or so to keep it clean.  The brushed texture doesn’t show fingerprints near as bad however, and would have made for both a cleaner and more pleasant design if it covered the entire exterior instead (except for around the glossy monitor border perhaps).

Overall, I’m seriously impressed with this whole laptop for the price I paid and many others for this price range don’t compare.  I originally got it from BestBuy’s online store as a bizarre limited time deal between them and Asus which doesn’t appear to be available anymore after several months have passed now.  However another site called FatWallet.com originally led me to the deal so they are literally found just about anywhere (even outside of NewEgg.com when it comes to laptops). 

If you do get it, I recommend you upgrade the K53TA BIOS immediately to the latest version since the latest BIOS firmware (download here) improves a ton of things including the monitor’s picture quality.  Asus’ preinstalled Windows 7 is a bit bloated with unneeded software (or bloatware) that I recommend you remove with PC Decrapifier (it does what it says) or just install a fresh copy of Windows 7 if you have the disc (or have someone else do it).  AMD's A6-3400M APU is more than capable of handling long-term 2.0Ghz instead of relying on bizarre 2.3Ghz boosts.  Why didn’t they just lock it at 2.3Ghz from the start? Many people have had no problems running it at a constant 2.3Ghz, but I prefer the cooler 55C load temperature of 2.0Ghz instead.  The APU overclocks so well that I’m strongly wondering if it was originally designed to run at over 2.0Ghz and was underclocked to 1.4Ghz. Either way, the Asus K53TA is definitely a gamer laptop in disguise for half the price!  It appears the deal I got is no longer active however I'm still seeing a few decent prices on other sites around the $500 mark (with many around $600-$700+ now as well shockingly enough).  Keep an eye on the prices and you'll most certainly come across one for around the $500 range if your interested.

External Graphics Cards for Laptops

The PE4H by HWTOOLS

Computer graphics are a growing industry for both desktops and laptops as computer games and media production grow more prevalent.  However, laptops are still newer to the gaming industry compared to desktops.  The vast majority of the most powerful cards are still designed for desktops.  Annual benchmark tests from sites such as Tom's Hardware support this notion with desktop graphics cards still topping the charts.

To help provide laptops have this same graphics processing edge, one innovative Taiwanese company HWTOOLS has created an adapter for literally using these desktop cards with laptops.  It's called the PE4H and it provides a connection of the latest graphics cards (using PCI Express) to laptops with an ExpressCard input.  The current cost revolves about $90 including shipping and handling.  Unfortunately, the unit is still experimental and won't work with every laptop.  However, two helpful communities found at notebookreview.com & villagetronic.com have provided detailed compatibility results for many specific laptop models.

There are several significant drawbacks to this device as well (being that it's still extremely new). The first is the fact that not every laptop has an ExpressCard slot and using an add-on adapter to install one is not recommended either due to severe performance reductions.  Another lesser catch is the necessity for running it with Windows 7 for maximum driver support.  Third is the fact that, although these graphics cards have their own onboard memory, this external device requires this memory to work in conjunction with the laptop's memory (so if you have a 1GB graphics card, it will instantly take away 1GB of your laptop's memory).  Finally, some laptops with the ExpressCard slot still won't work with this device for a number of known and unknown reasons.  

Besides all of these complications of the experimental device, some users will certainly benefit from the greater flexibility of beefing up their graphical horsepower whenever needed.  If these devices are improved over time, they can certainly expand the desktop graphics card industry into the portable computing market as well.  All we need now is an external enclosure for these cards to make them safer to transport with their laptops.

Laptop Manufacturers Still Overlook Cooling - Part 1

 I've worked with many laptops over the years - new and old - and rarely have I come across a laptop cooling system that does a good job for intense processing and longevity.
In regards to performance, keeping most temperatures below about 60C for the CPU, GPU (graphics), Hard drive and Motherboard is crucial for performance, sustainability, hardware health, and your safety.  However many manufactures, including brand new laptops, continue to ignore temperature safety and release units that go to the high 70s right out of the box! Once the temperatures go over 90C for the CPU, GPU, and Motherboard, you risk of hardware damage as certain forms of solder can melt and desolder components from the board if exposed to lengthy sessions of 90C or above.  For instance, the HP TX1000 was notorious for GPU Failures (black screen of death if you may) because the units were released with terrible cooling systems that ran the GPUs around 90C and eventually desoldered the chip from the board rendering no possible video output.


To resolve this, manufactures should be implementing:

Easier access/removal of the fan(s).  Too many currently laptops still have extremely difficult fan removal procedures that most people won't attempt.  Blowing air into the fan port will only remove small particles, but not the accumulated thick chunks of dust, strings, hair.  These can become a fire hazard under certain conditions over time or may even stop the fan entirely rendering a possible CPU meltdown.

Physical Fan Speed Controls A physical switch that allows the user to choose between automatic (noise reduction) or constant maximum speed modes.  A manual speed adjustment knob addon could also be great for advanced users.  Some laptops have software methods of controlling the speed, but a hardware switch is much more necessary since software isn't always available or compatible.  For older laptops or more temperature sensitive laptops - setting a constant maximum speed would offer greater performance than the constant cycling between fast and slow each time you open a new program.

Better thermal paste from the start  Too many manufacturers still ignore the thermal paste quality for heatsinks and fans in their laptops up to this day.  Even worse, they may not even use paste at all and try to get away with a chemically moist thermal pad instead.  From my experience of replacing these pads with silver based thermal paste, I've dropped average temperatures by 8-10C immediately.  That's a difference that will certainly increase the longevity of the hardware. 

For now, I will continue adding to this topic in future posts with new discoveries and techniques.
People can use those cooling pads, but honestly I have yet to see a case of any significant temperature reductions. Taking the problem serious requires innovating the system internally.  Laptops really need to take a note from modern desktops that feature multiple fans for both incoming air and outgoing air to create a more secure flow of air.

 I'm still looking into decent guides for resolving the issues ourselves & here's one to start with for now:
Laptop Cooling Mod Walkthrough (Johnson's News)

Also be sure to read these 9 Tips For Using Your Laptop in Warm or Hot Weather from Unplggd.com

UPDATE: 12/11/2011 - Part 2 Now Online - Laptop Manufacturers Still Overlook Cooling - Part 2