X170KM-G WATERCOOLING MOD
I stumble on the internet with this Forum and found a lot tips and help to build my own Clevo X170KM-G.
I just wanted to share my own experiences as well, I will try to make it short.
Bought the X170KM body case from ORIGIN with its motherboard for a very good price. I had to slowly get the rest of the parts. I like these type of laptop where every part can be remove or swap, gives you a lot room for improvement.
I thought a lot on doing overcloak since the CPU was capable of, obviously I also had to upgrade the Cooling system.
I had in mind the one in Aliexpress but after watching some comments I opted to make my own. It was too expensive and not so reliable.
I made various sketches and pipe routes to get the best outcome and thermal contact. For test I had an extra heatsink. Bough normal copper pipes from a hardware store instead of the already self made pipe from Ali, those were a bit smaller for my likes (4mm (O.D.)X 3mm (I.D.)) I got something similar as my own laptop. 5mm by 4mm for More area covering.
First water cooler was fine I could score 15265 points on Cinebench multicore and had 90c ~95c around, drawing 180w ~ 190w. And 83c on GPU scoring 6976 points on Superposition (stock, couldn’t make any proper overcloak I am still new on that area)
I also delided my CPU (11900k) but didn’t got any better cooling performance, was poor, still I didn’t know what was wrong (on idling was hitting 40c ~50c, it wasn’t like that before on the stock heatsink but the watercooler performed well enough).
I wasn’t satisfied about the first cooler and decided to add an extra pipe, thought it throughly, could had 2 intake and 2 exits but it wouldn’t be so practical and esthetic wise, so had to be inside with some kind of joint.
On the making of the 2nd watercooler I had to practice a lot soldering with torch, I couldn’t find any “Y” joint that would fit on the pipes, those were bigger. After couple of days I manage to solder it properly (note: with solder iron is also good, very strong but it could desolder when soldering back to the heatsink, soldering onto the heatsink you really need a lot of heat 400c about and heater plate + a heat gun, the heatsink does suck a lot heat).
I made all the necessary measurements and bending and flattened the whole pipe, step by step, everything had to be done in order. I didn’t have good tools but good enough to do the job. So when all was done I test it for water pressure and flow, it check out to be good, zero leakage, so time to solder it onto the heatsink. Every step was complex, I didn’t expect to runout of solder paste (low type 138c) but I manage to cover all the pipe underneath and add extra on the side, still wanted to add more, since I don’t have much time I had to do it that way. Had to expend about one week 4 hours per day, no everyday I could work on it.
I also wanted to paint it as I did but not this time, looks like this heat proof paint doesn’t adhere well on copper, so just raw watercooler.
Prior making the 2nd watercooler when I was removing I did realize that the CPU and GPU wasn’t getting proper contact as the stock one, had like 1mm of gap, the thermal paste was not spreading well on the edges. So fixing that gap gave me the normal temps on iddle, about 30c.
After mounting the heatsink on the laptop I was surprise that I got extra -10c to -15c on CPU and -30c on GPU. I believe the CPU could still perform better if I apply more solder, the top of the CPU area which is not flat unlike the GPU, Is all pipes. I just run the normal profile as the 1st watercooler to see the differences:
- CPU did perform better on temps 80c~85c, on the scores was nearly the same, (as I did mention I didn’t change the overcloaking profile.)
- The GPU performed a bit better and had very low temps on Superposition Benchmark.
Score: 7691, temps: about 56c max.
Well so for now I am leaving it as it is after I reorder the solder paste, I am also looking to solve the fan issue, it does start slow on high temps, I wish it could be programable to start early and gradually increasing speed. Some 3rd party fan software mentioned in the forum didn’t help me yet. Cannot identify all the fans. Maybe I am not so familiar yet.
Note: I did use thermal Grizzly Liquid Metal for the delided CPU and MX6 thermal Paste on top, AAIRHUT thermal pads on the rest.
I also made a 2nd watercooler because the bottom cover wasn’t closing properly, I didn’t foresee it was too long. XD the rear RBG light couldn’t fit in.
I did upgrade the BIOS AND EC from XMG, was more stable, no crashes.
Thank you for all the precious information.
(removed single pipe cooler)
(Pressing softly no to bed the copper underneath, preheating the heatsink)
(I always used a thermometer to control the heat, I worried about the pipes bursting, but they are pretty good at cooling, even at 400c the heatsink was about 90c, the solder never melted properly even with heat gun and solder iron. (3 solder device at once).
(Water test and pressure)
(Delided CPU, first watercooler setup)
(Freezemod pump with speed regulator, ThermalTake T1000 water cooler)
(2nd watercooler - the bottom cover close properly now)
(Benchmark and temps: to the left single water pipe cooler, to the right double pipe.)
(First watercooler finishing)
[Please know that everything was done in a controlled environment to avoid self harm. ]