AliExpress Wouldn't Lie... Right?

[BluJ]

33 minutes ago, ezio.cheung said:

Thank you for your update on the laptop.

 

Since I am very welling to DIY just for the VRM cooling, I am considering buy this now.

 

BTW, is one of the M.2 slot really support NVMe?

Marked on the board one slot says NVME/SATA and the other just says SATA. I’m not sure if the included drive is NVMe, I’ll have to take look. 
 

I’m wondering if using the copper piece I plan on bending would work fine attached directly to the CPU heat pipes. If CPU is staying below 70c, maybe that would be enough to satisfy the VRMs?

[AdamTheLawyer]

2 hours ago, BluJ said:

Marked on the board one slot says NVME/SATA and the other just says SATA. I’m not sure if the included drive is NVMe, I’ll have to take look. 
 

I’m wondering if using the copper piece I plan on bending would work fine attached directly to the CPU heat pipes. If CPU is staying below 70c, maybe that would be enough to satisfy the VRMs?

If the concept works maybe a piece can be machined to bridge the gap.

 

*cough*

[Bitter]

2 hours ago, BluJ said:

Marked on the board one slot says NVME/SATA and the other just says SATA. I’m not sure if the included drive is NVMe, I’ll have to take look. 
 

I’m wondering if using the copper piece I plan on bending would work fine attached directly to the CPU heat pipes. If CPU is staying below 70c, maybe that would be enough to satisfy the VRMs?

More than likely it would be cool enough, they're probably throttling over 100-110C.

[ezio.cheung]

9 hours ago, BluJ said:

Marked on the board one slot says NVME/SATA and the other just says SATA. I’m not sure if the included drive is NVMe, I’ll have to take look. 
 

I’m wondering if using the copper piece I plan on bending would work fine attached directly to the CPU heat pipes. If CPU is staying below 70c, maybe that would be enough to satisfy the VRMs?

I think the online specs are correct, there should be a NVMe slot.

 

Is the VRM very near (just below) the heat pipe of the CPU? If so, how about just thermal pad (I mean very good heat conductivity thermal pad) all the way to the heat pipe or just all the way to the bottom cover (if the bottom cover is made out of metal)?

 

I did the same thing on my 2015 11" Macbook Air, just use the bottom cover as a removeable heat spreader. And the temps are very good plus the fan never span under light workload.

[BluJ]

Here’s the plan, I have two heat pipes coming along with thermal pads and thermal epoxy. I’m still on the fence if a sheet of copper touching either the fan shroud or CPU cooler would be fine. 
 

the bottom shell is all plastic so using the shell as mass won’t work. I circled the VRMs which get burning hot to the touch once you enable turbo. (It IS disabled without throttlestop)

 

any ideas for best course of action? 

[Bitter]

The hard part is going to make it removable to still allow service of the CPU and it's cooler. Use a flat heat pipe like a vapor chamber, add sinks to it to add surface area. Cut a slot in the fan shroud next to it to bleed some air out over them.

 

Eh?

 

Otherwise you'll need to tie it to the heat pipes for the cooler and use a steel bracket to keep it all pushed down enough for good contact.

[BluJ]

40 minutes ago, Bitter said:

The hard part is going to make it removable to still allow service of the CPU and it's cooler. Use a flat heat pipe like a vapor chamber, add sinks to it to add surface area. Cut a slot in the fan shroud next to it to bleed some air out over them.

 

Eh?

 

Otherwise you'll need to tie it to the heat pipes for the cooler and use a steel bracket to keep it all pushed down enough for good contact.

Not a bad thought with the fan mod. CPU could probably sacrifice a little cooling power for it. My other ideas for heat pipes are shown below.
 

A 70mm heat pipe represented by the red line would run and the tip would meet with the CPU heat pipe on the bend. Not great contact area but at least somewhere for the heat to transfer. 
 

second idea for the longer heat pipe is to run in a U shape to the CPU itself. As long as the VRMs are hotter then the CPU heat should theoretically transfer away. But it would be an incredibly tight fit. 
 

third and sketchiest idea would be to use stick-on heat sinks and the fan mod. Heat sinks won’t be great but should give more surface area and hopefully the little vent holes would be enough to get some heat out of the casing. 
 

some may see this as a PITA, but I see it as a fun challenge to try and sort out. After this is solved, I’ll move onto the possibility of a better upper display. 

[Unhelpful]

On 2/5/2023 at 1:07 PM, emosun said:

why do people even use aliexpress for anything? it's like an AI generated interpretation of what a shopping website is.

when you go to a walmart and the kids pulled all the toys off the shelves and they're just laying in the isles everywhere.... aliexpress

It's great for small electronics, like microcontrollers or various sensors.

[Bitter]

7 hours ago, BluJ said:

Not a bad thought with the fan mod. CPU could probably sacrifice a little cooling power for it. My other ideas for heat pipes are shown below.
 

A 70mm heat pipe represented by the red line would run and the tip would meet with the CPU heat pipe on the bend. Not great contact area but at least somewhere for the heat to transfer. 
 

second idea for the longer heat pipe is to run in a U shape to the CPU itself. As long as the VRMs are hotter then the CPU heat should theoretically transfer away. But it would be an incredibly tight fit. 
 

third and sketchiest idea would be to use stick-on heat sinks and the fan mod. Heat sinks won’t be great but should give more surface area and hopefully the little vent holes would be enough to get some heat out of the casing. 
 

some may see this as a PITA, but I see it as a fun challenge to try and sort out. After this is solved, I’ll move onto the possibility of a better upper display. 

I'd say low hanging fruit first, stick some heat sinks on and add some airflow from the cpu cooler fan and see what happens. If it works good enough then you're done, if not then move forward. Some cheap thermal tape will move heat well enough to gauge effectiveness and come off easily for more permanent mounting or a different solution.

My concern is that the heat sink can still be removed later, if you bond a heat pipe to the board and the cpu heat sink then it's going to be impossible to remove the heatsink from the CPU.

 

My thought was to use a heat pipe along the VRM as a vapor chamber to spread heat into a solid copper or aluminum block up to some short flat heat pipes stuck to the heat sink, use thin thermal pads or thermal compound as the interface between the block and heat pipes, bond the heat pipes to the cpu heat sink with epoxy and the the heat pipe and metal block to the VRM with epoxy. OR use a steel plate over the whole mess of pipes and blocks, steel plate can push down from the CPU cooler bolt holes with some longer bolts and you can make it all one part with pads pushing on the VRM instead. If you did it this way you should be able to solder the pipes to the block and then use thin pads at either end maybe.

 

No shortage of ways to do this.

[BluJ]

1 hour ago, Bitter said:

I'd say low hanging fruit first, stick some heat sinks on and add some airflow from the cpu cooler fan and see what happens. If it works good enough then you're done, if not then move forward. Some cheap thermal tape will move heat well enough to gauge effectiveness and come off easily for more permanent mounting or a different solution.

My concern is that the heat sink can still be removed later, if you bond a heat pipe to the board and the cpu heat sink then it's going to be impossible to remove the heatsink from the CPU.

 

My thought was to use a heat pipe along the VRM as a vapor chamber to spread heat into a solid copper or aluminum block up to some short flat heat pipes stuck to the heat sink, use thin thermal pads or thermal compound as the interface between the block and heat pipes, bond the heat pipes to the cpu heat sink with epoxy and the the heat pipe and metal block to the VRM with epoxy. OR use a steel plate over the whole mess of pipes and blocks, steel plate can push down from the CPU cooler bolt holes with some longer bolts and you can make it all one part with pads pushing on the VRM instead. If you did it this way you should be able to solder the pipes to the block and then use thin pads at either end maybe.

 

No shortage of ways to do this.

My thought for bonding to the CPU heat pipes, is that in the straight line option I could still remove the VRM pipe at the same time as the CPU pipe. Just make some hold down to screw to the fans mounting point. 
 

hmmm may try heat sinks first and see where that gets me. 

[Bitter]

59 minutes ago, BluJ said:

My thought for bonding to the CPU heat pipes, is that in the straight line option I could still remove the VRM pipe at the same time as the CPU pipe. Just make some hold down to screw to the fans mounting point. 
 

hmmm may try heat sinks first and see where that gets me. 

For the CPU fan bleed air I'd try cutting some small slots vertically, I think they'll catch air air blast out some lines of it from the fan. Some aluminum tape will seal the fan back up if that doesn't work out.

[Bitter]

https://www.aliexpress.us/item/2251832783181951.html?spm=a2g0o.cart.0.0.84c538daaMd02x&mp=1&gatewayAdapt=glo2usa&_randl_shipto=US

 

Some heat sinks like that would be what I'm thinking of. You can get them in almost any dimension.

[BluJ]

Update!

 

Installed the heat pipe to a sheet of copper and attached to the other heatpipe. I also did cut out a section of the side of the fan shroud to leak air onto the pipe directly. 
 

Boosts are more often and as long as it not hitting it with cinebench and just doing normal tasks, it boosting the entire time. Much snappier and faster to use. I want to see if ai can adjust the fan curve but currently it does not seem like Windows is able to interface with the cooling directly. 
 

100% would have been better if it was like this from the factory. 

[superkevx]

Mine should be here next week, thanks to @BluJ for posting all of these pics and progress. I will probably just try sticking on some finned copper heatsinks on the vrm and see how that goes before making any cuts to the fan enclosure. Do you know the mm clearance we have above the vrms? I'm thinking of ordering some heatsinks now so it gets here about the same time as the laptop but don't know how high of a profile I can go.

[ezio.cheung]

On 2/23/2023 at 4:29 AM, BluJ said:

Update!

 

Installed the heat pipe to a sheet of copper and attached to the other heatpipe. I also did cut out a section of the side of the fan shroud to leak air onto the pipe directly. 
 

Boosts are more often and as long as it not hitting it with cinebench and just doing normal tasks, it boosting the entire time. Much snappier and faster to use. I want to see if ai can adjust the fan curve but currently it does not seem like Windows is able to interface with the cooling directly. 
 

100% would have been better if it was like this from the factory. 

Maybe adding a piece of thin copper plate on top of the CPU heatpipe and VRM heatpipe, like a large rectangle piece covering as much area as possible (assuming it is the same height)?

The black stuff are thermal proxy? So copper plate sticking with both heatpipe should provide way better thermal conductivity rather than just a single contact point plus some air blowing aside.

[BluJ]

Gotta say, the dual screen is amazing for doing my drone racing stuff. 

[michelhadid]

Hey, guys. New to the forum, just joined to post here.

 

Bought the 16GB and 128 SSD version since ill be using a better quality SSD and different ram (still limited to stock speed, though). Didn't need another laptop but was really curious about it after watching the video.  Yes, throttlestop works and removes the disable turbo boost option. Working on my own VRM cooling solution for it, we'll see how it goes and i'll post the results. CPU thermals are good, even at 4Ghz or so, i'm seeing low 70s, high 60s, too bad undervolt is locked.

 

Only thing so far i don't like about it, is the battery life, it's pretty bad. Touch screen is really good. Main screen is meh. Love the fact that the bottom part doesn't lift up when opening the laptop. If i was actually using this laptop for work or something, battery life would definitely be a deal breaker. But i will only be tinkering with it. So no issues there

[Sp3ctre18]

On 3/1/2023 at 5:22 PM, michelhadid said:

Only thing so far i don't like about it, is the battery life, it's pretty bad. ... If i was actually using this laptop for work or something, battery life would definitely be a deal breaker. But i will only be tinkering with it. So no issues there

Welcome, I also joined bc of this laptop lol. And good point. Do share about your batteries, new owners! Can you be more specific how "bad" the battery is for you?

 

Nice to see the update, @BluJ. That seems scary and outside of what I could see myself doing though, so I'll be looking forward to hearing how simple heat sinks go. But, is it still throttling?

[ezio.cheung]

Just joined the bandwagon, the laptop arrived today. 

I have nothing to add so far, everything needs to address or problems to mentioned have already been mentioned. So:

1. The (lack of) cooling for the VRM is the laptop's achilles heel, I took some measurement and order several pieces of custom copper plate with heat-pipe for fixing this.

I will share my design and the list of hardware that I use after I done the modding and testing.

 

2. For those who got the laptop and read the manual, there are some interesting description about the power button.

In the English version, it just mentioned "Switch on/off" as the sole operation of the button. However, in the Chinese version, it mentioned "Single press is for powering on" / "Long pressing is for force shutdown" / "Short pressing does NO effect when the laptop is powered on".

So the power button basically does nothing while the laptop is on, I guess this does solve some of the annoyance about the keyboard.

 

3. Both screens are from BOE which is fine but the second screen is not as sharp as you might think. Otherwise the IO is fine, it does support NVMe, the keyboard is...well but the WiFi chip is soldered on board (and its uses the Intel 7265 which is quite old).

 

4. The back PCIe Port is SFF-8611/8612 8i which is actually pcie 8x (Gen3 I assume), I also brought the dock and cable along side the laptop, but I got the wrong dock (SFF-8654). So I contact the seller and purchase the right cable, sure will test it and post an update as well.

 

That is all the thing I have to say about the laptop so far, for the 549.99 (with shipping and a barebone config) that I paid, its worth it.

[Sp3ctre18]

I find it a bit funny how the Chinese is like "the function of simply pressing this key is '2'." Is that really necessary or...somehow a convention? 

 

After rereading the copper pipe stuff a bit, I wonder, is it just placing it and making contact and adding that paste, or is there some cutting involved?

If possible, I hope you guys can better clarify if what you're doing is something that anyone who's comfortable building a computer can do, vs something that needs tools and hardware modding experience. In my case, even if it's simple I'm not really in a position to get tools since I'm living abroad and might even move again fairly soon, so getting more low-use stuff isn't really a great idea right now, haha.

[ezio.cheung]

On 3/4/2023 at 9:55 AM, Sp3ctre18 said:

I find it a bit funny how the Chinese is like "the function of simply pressing this key is '2'." Is that really necessary or...somehow a convention? 

 

After rereading the copper pipe stuff a bit, I wonder, is it just placing it and making contact and adding that paste, or is there some cutting involved?

If possible, I hope you guys can better clarify if what you're doing is something that anyone who's comfortable building a computer can do, vs something that needs tools and hardware modding experience. In my case, even if it's simple I'm not really in a position to get tools since I'm living abroad and might even move again fairly soon, so getting more low-use stuff isn't really a great idea right now, haha.

For my plan, a bit of cutting involved cause there are caps in the way between CPU and VRM which are slightly higher the CPU heat-pipes, as for the height issue I have to order another copper plate just to fill up the gaps. 

 

What I just mentioned is just the biggest problem I have to deal with with my design, I want to keep it simple for now cause I will provide a full guide with pictures and hardware on how I done the cooling mod so anyone can follow.

 

For your last questions, buying something janky like this laptop always required a bit of knowledge on machining (DIY) or hardware modding experience (buy everything pre-cut or pre-measured), I would say do some study first to see whether someone done the same thing before you, you could just replicate their design or improve upon their design. That the best way to go if you are new to DIY or modding and sure you can learn something along the way.

[michelhadid]

On 3/2/2023 at 10:13 AM, Sp3ctre18 said:

Welcome, I also joined bc of this laptop lol. And good point. Do share about your batteries, new owners! Can you be more specific how "bad" the battery is for you?

 

Nice to see the update, @BluJ. That seems scary and outside of what I could see myself doing though, so I'll be looking forward to hearing how simple heat sinks go. But, is it still throttling?

Battery life on a full charge is around 2/2 and a half hours without heavy use, just reading forums or so. Really bad

[freq32]

Not regretting this at all (48GB RAM, 2TB SSD). This thing is fast for the price. I do have the PCI express if more GPU is needed for light video editing, we will see on that. Other than that, the biggest corner they cut is the main display, but I got it for work and coding so this seems pretty perfect. So far, so good!

[Tekki]

On 3/11/2023 at 4:49 PM, michelhadid said:

Battery life on a full charge is around 2/2 and a half hours without heavy use, just reading forums or so. Really bad

ZenBook Duo does 3.5 hrs with both displays according to ZDNet and Tom's Hardware, so not that far off the real deal tbh.

 

On 3/6/2023 at 2:21 AM, ezio.cheung said:

For my plan, a bit of cutting involved cause there are caps in the way between CPU and VRM which are slightly higher the CPU heat-pipes, as for the height issue I have to order another copper plate just to fill up the gaps. 

Any news to share? @ezio.cheung

 

On 2/22/2023 at 2:29 PM, BluJ said:

Update!

 

Installed the heat pipe to a sheet of copper and attached to the other heatpipe. I also did cut out a section of the side of the fan shroud to leak air onto the pipe directly. 
 

Boosts are more often and as long as it not hitting it with cinebench and just doing normal tasks, it boosting the entire time. Much snappier and faster to use. I want to see if ai can adjust the fan curve but currently it does not seem like Windows is able to interface with the cooling directly.

Have you performed any other mods or figured out any additional improvements to the laptop? @BluJ

Also, seeing as the bottom screen is the same as on the ZenBook Duo, I wonder if the ScreenXpert software works on the Crelander’s second screen without issue?

[t-rucker]

I've had this laptop for about 4 months now and have created a google doc for more info and as a info hub on it. It would be great if you guys can help me with it @BluJ can you send me a link to the driver dump  you made  and post any upgrades you made on the Google dock page. So far I really like the laptop and have been using it as my daily driver coming from the surface book and the surface pro family this is a bit heavier but paired with the dock is a great machine.

@ezio.cheung have you made any progress on the cooling mods?

 

im looking to try to convert the dc plug to usb c or just use a usb c to dc jack to convert it but i notice when i use the adapter the red charging light stays on for a while even after i unplug it so its back to the drawing bord on this idea for now 

 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1y5t2hsPdKFcYYcgewttqzP7IZ0LQOGjlAqk4Q6ReCIA/edit?usp=sharing