teardown Asus PN50 Ryzen 3 4300U Teardown

[NotImaginary]

I got the Asus PN50 with an AMD Ryzen 3 4300U a few days ago and because I didn't find any teardowns anywhere I had to do my own. I also wanted to know how easy it is to remove the fan, to make the PN50 quieter, more about that further down.

 

The first step is to remove the four screws marked with the red arrow and the two connectors marked with the blue arrow. To remove the SATA cable the black lever of the connector has to be pushed up, then it slides out easily.

 

The next step is to remove the back plate. It is held in place by those three clips.

 

After that unscrew the display port PCB. After that is connected only by the ribbon cable so be careful. I tried to disconnect the cable but I wasn't successful.

 

The last step before the PCB can be removed is to disconnect and remove those two PCBs and the WiFi antenna cable. The PCBs are attached with an adhesive tape, so it's easy to remove them. The antenna cable is attached with those two white clips. Then you can either disconnect the two antenna cables from the WiFi card or the WiFi card from the mainboard. I did the later.

 

Now the PCB can be lifted from the case. It's a really tight fit.

 

This is the case. There is nothing special about it.

 

Here is another picture of the already familiar top side of the PCB.

 

And here is the secret bottom side with the CPU. It is possible to remove the fan by unscrewing the two screws. The connector is a four pin 1mm pitch JST connector.

 

And from the front the CPU is visible bellow the cooler.

 

Those are the insides of the PN50.

I have the only the Ryzen 3, but the fan is still really noticeable under full and even medium load. I want to have it running 24/7 and therefore completely quiet. My plan is to remove the fan and 3D print a case that goes around the PN50 and uses a Noctua 120mm 5V fan to push air into the PN50 and out through the CPU cooler. A 120mm fan spinning with 1000rpm should already push enough air to cool the CPU and still be completely quiet. I'll keep you up to date how this project is progressing.

 

If you have any questions feel free to ask.

[wertgago]

Just find out about this mini pc but couldn't find any video or thread that show it's cooling, so far you're the only one I found that post about it. So how did it go for you? Any progress?

[chris1892006]

So how easy is it to remove the heatsink for a repaste?  Can you give us an update on that?  I want to repaste mine as soon as I get it.  I hear they like hitting 90C+ under load with stock TDP on stock cooling, this is no good.

 

Thanks

[gerryka]

I just disassembled mine and had it down to the last step in the photo-guide above.

 

Sadly, the fan can be taken off but I wasn't able to determine how to actually take off the heatsink. One of the three screws is accessible once the fan is out, but the other two are some weird standoffs, you can see them in his last picture above when looking between heatsink and PCB.

 

Maybe the standoffs are just there to locate the heatsink and support it and you can take it off when you remove the third screw.

Since I didn't want to destroy anything, I left it alone for the time being.

 

What I can tell you is that the 6-Core version is pretty loud sitting on the desk beside you. Only the slowest fan-setting is near-quiet. This slow fan setting is only reached when sitting at an absolute idle. All other fan settings are audible and whiney since the fan is already at about 3000 rpm when the second fan-speed kicks in. Only option is to place it out of hearing range, like under the desk, or maybe the backside of a monitor so the high frequencies don't reach the user directly.

 

Temperature-wise it uses the full range, about 45C to 50C at idle and up to 100C at full tilt. But since the cooler is pretty much the cheapest notebook option available with no thermal mass at all, I didn't expect much more.

 

Oh and at idle sitting on the Windows desktop with one 3440x1400 display connected, mine uses about 9 Watts at the wall.

[Jarek K.]

Hi,

 

To remove heatsink peal off the black "sticker" that is wrapped around it. There are 2 screws under it. Alternatively you can poke around with screwdriver, make holes and unscrew it that way.

 

I'm experimenting with alternative cooling as stock heatsink and fan are loud and r7 4800u runs at +90C degrees under load and throttles. There is 3mm gap between CPU and tallest components on the board so I put 5mm piece of aluminum and strapped in Corsair h55 that I had laying around and I got 50C idle and 85C under load.

 

I'm waiting for 3mm copper shim and will see if it's a good long term solution.

 

Good luck with disassembling.

[Jarek K.]

Update on AIO watercooling (if anyone interested).

 

3mm thick 25mmx 25mm shim + Corsair h55 - 30C idle and max 60C under load (25C room temp, pump speed 75% fan speed 25%).

Cooling setup is incredibly silent.

 

Comes with a price though. Original case cannot be used (I'm 3D printing new one), pump and fan are externally powered, and setup is obviously less compact and portable.

 

I'm using my PN50 as ESXi homelab, so I'm not bothered with drawbacks. Temps + noise reduction overweight complexity for me.

[C01]

Can anyone post the end result. I am desperate to see any 3d printed cases.

 

I am trying to do a custom build as I got a broken PN50 4300u and 1060 GPU (both repaired and working well) and merge them together with an SFX Power supply. and a 3D printed case with some 120MM Fans.