HP 8740w Cooling Upgrade

[triturbo]

This is work in progress, but so far I’m happy with the results 😄 

 

The heatsink:

https://imgur.com/a/v2gq5dB
 

The fans and their electronics:

https://imgur.com/a/mr88Xgn

 

That’s it for now. 

[Annihilator]

i like ur frankenstein elitebook 😄

[GuitarG]

Interesing job ! Any benchmarks pre-mod and after ? 

 

[triturbo]

Will do, once I put it in a laptop format, so everything is fair and square. I’m estimating 20 to 30*C difference so far. Exact measurements would be next month. 

[Daedalus]

Nice work. Doing similar fan work on my 8570w. How does the mod see both fans? I see some (pavilion units) just split the fan feed on all wires and it seems fine. 

[triturbo]

I have two versions. One drives the Acer fans, the other drives the ZBook fans. Both are wired the same - Juice, Ground and PWM come from the same source, while Tach is only linked to one fan and everything is fine. For the ZBook fans (5V) everything comes from the stock connector and it’s been like that for quite some time with no issues. Acer fans (12V) require some extra circuitry since there’s no direct 12V output. BTW they (Acer’s fans) consume about 15W alone at full tilt. 
 

EDIT: Here’s the wiring of the ZBook fans:

 

https://imgur.com/gallery/8L0QhNk

[JadeRover]

Nice !!

 

Looks complicated to get all that wiring down.

 

I was thinking of doing smething similar on my soon to be zbook 17 g1.

 

However I was going to use an arduino connected internally to one of the not in use USB ports for the fingerprint reader.

 

That way I can code a PC to arduino interfacing app that can cantrol the fan speeds internally from the laptop without having to use external switches. This does reqire coding skill tho and I lack some of that.

[triturbo]

Thank you!
 

You don’t need all the switches, I’ve done it mostly for fun. You may want one of them though - PWM cut - when it’s disconnected it sets the fans at full blast, when it’s connected the laptop is controlling them. Or no switches at all - whatever the laptop’s fan table says, or if the HWinfo’s fan control works (it does on 8740w) you can control them manually from there, so the PWM is a bit pointless, but no so much if you don’t want additional programs running. For the no switches - you only need Tach connected to one fan, everything else (Power, Ground, PWM) is split between the two. In any case I would love to see what you are going to come up with.