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Would in theory be possible to put PC fans in a laptop?

monopoly_hater

As someone who loves jank shit, I would love to put like a noctua NF-A9 in my laptop or something. The main barrier is the fact that PC fans don’t blow sideways like a laptop fan. Can any engineers or just people who are less dumb than me say if it could be possible?

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Main downside of laptop cooling is not the fans or their exhaust location, its the design priorities. You can get a decently cooled laptop if you dont care about portability or thickness of the device. Blower fans make a lot of sense for laptops, hence why they are used still.

mY sYsTeM iS Not pErfoRmInG aS gOOd As I sAW oN yOuTuBe. WhA t IS a GoOd FaN CuRVe??!!? wHat aRe tEh GoOd OvERclok SeTTinGS FoR My CaRd??  HoW CaN I foRcE my GpU to uSe 1o0%? BuT WiLL i HaVE Bo0tllEnEcKs? RyZEN dOeS NoT peRfORm BetTer wItH HiGhER sPEED RaM!!dId i WiN teH SiLiCON LotTerrYyOu ShoUlD dEsHrOuD uR GPUmy SYstEm iS UNDerPerforMiNg iN WarzONEcan mY Pc Run WiNdOwS 11 ?woUld BaKInG MY GRaPHics card fIX it? MultimETeR TeSTiNG!! aMd'S GpU DrIvErS aRe as goOD aS NviDia's YOU SHoUlD oVERCloCk yOUR ramS To 5000C18

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Well laptops don't use normal desktop fans, so it proably won't fit without a lot of modding.

 

And as said earlier, blower fans make a lot of sense for laptops due to the air flow pattern and higher pressure.

 

Also generally higher end laptops have fairly high quality fans, so its not like there is a better fan you can put in that will make it quieter and cooler. Its just laptops need to cool a lot of heat in a small space, and that runs into limits quickly.

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2 minutes ago, Levent said:

Main downside of laptop cooling is not the fans or their exhaust location, its the design priorities. You can get a decently cooled laptop if you dont care about portability or thickness of the device. Blower fans make a lot of sense for laptops, hence why they are used still.

I have yet to see a single laptop, however thick, that doesn’t use these AMAZING/s blower fans. Sure some have more fans or more heat pipes, but I really wish you could swap them out like on pcs.

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2 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Well laptops don't use normal desktop fans, so it proably won't fit without a lot of modding.

 

And as said earlier, blower fans make a lot of sense for laptops due to the air flow pattern and higher pressure.

 

Also generally higher end laptops have fairly high quality fans, so its not like there is a better fan you can put in that will make it quieter and cooler. Its just laptops need to cool a lot of heat in a small space, and that runs into limits quickly.

Since you seems to be more knowledgable than me, how much static pressure do these typically have?

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1 minute ago, anirudthelinuxwIzard said:

I have yet to see a single laptop, however thick, that doesn’t use these AMAZING/s blower fans. Sure some have more fans or more heat pipes, but I really wish you could swap them out like on pcs.

I never said otherwise. Blower fans make sense, space is a constraint. These devices supposed to be portable, however dumb thick and heavy they are.

 

2 minutes ago, anirudthelinuxwIzard said:

Since you seems to be more knowledgable than me, how much static pressure do these typically have?

No such thing as typical pressure. Each fan is chosen for a typical application, or cooling system is designed for one particular fan.

mY sYsTeM iS Not pErfoRmInG aS gOOd As I sAW oN yOuTuBe. WhA t IS a GoOd FaN CuRVe??!!? wHat aRe tEh GoOd OvERclok SeTTinGS FoR My CaRd??  HoW CaN I foRcE my GpU to uSe 1o0%? BuT WiLL i HaVE Bo0tllEnEcKs? RyZEN dOeS NoT peRfORm BetTer wItH HiGhER sPEED RaM!!dId i WiN teH SiLiCON LotTerrYyOu ShoUlD dEsHrOuD uR GPUmy SYstEm iS UNDerPerforMiNg iN WarzONEcan mY Pc Run WiNdOwS 11 ?woUld BaKInG MY GRaPHics card fIX it? MultimETeR TeSTiNG!! aMd'S GpU DrIvErS aRe as goOD aS NviDia's YOU SHoUlD oVERCloCk yOUR ramS To 5000C18

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1 minute ago, Levent said:

I never said otherwise. Blower fans make sense, space is a constraint. These devices supposed to be portable, however dumb thick and heavy they are.

 

No such thing as typical pressure. Each fan is chosen for a typical application, or cooling system is designed for one particular fan.

Ok I know the effort probably won’t be worth the uplift, but since I like tinkering is there anyway to make a fan act as a blower?

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Just now, anirudthelinuxwIzard said:

Ok I know the effort probably won’t be worth the uplift, but since I like tinkering is there anyway to make a fan act as a blower?

No, that fan is designed for conventional airflow. Blower fans use a very different blade design.


If you are trying to shove large amounts of airflow into a laptop, get an X220 and gut an ultrabase, the portable dock for it

IMG_3333.jpeg.78cb93341d20904c47d48c70973b5493.jpeg

from there, cut some holes and mount a fan where the dock power connector is to instead shove large amounts of air directly into the x220’s heatsink intake 

 

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4 minutes ago, anirudthelinuxwIzard said:

Since you seems to be more knowledgable than me, how much static pressure do these typically have?

Well its hard to get exact part numbers, but here is an example from Delta https://www.delta-fan.com/kfb0612hafdb.html.

 

Its about 16mm h2o vs about 2.3mm h20 peak pressure on the Noctua.

 

But the peak static pressure with fans is with no flow, so that number doesn't really matter. Blower fans typically do a good amount better in medium pressure as they don't stall like axial fans(look at the bump in the flow vs pressure curves that basically all axial fans have. Below is a graph from a random fan, and you can see the bump where the axial fan stalls.

image.png.ddb759a4041ba23e67ad2799053cce98.png

 

2 minutes ago, anirudthelinuxwIzard said:

Ok I know the effort probably won’t be worth the uplift, but since I like tinkering is there anyway to make a fan act as a blower?

Completly different blade and frame design, no easy conversion.

 

9 minutes ago, anirudthelinuxwIzard said:

I have yet to see a single laptop, however thick, that doesn’t use these AMAZING/s blower fans. Sure some have more fans or more heat pipes, but I really wish you could swap them out like on pcs.

The problem is the fans are specific to laptops. You can make laptops with standard fan sizes, but then its likely bigger and heavier. Most consumers don't want a bigger laptop for a standard fan size.

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39 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

The problem is the fans are specific to laptops. You can make laptops with standard fan sizes, but then its likely bigger and heavier. Most consumers don't want a bigger laptop for a standard fan size.

basically just use a decent laptop cooler like everyone else or build a jank "laptop" yourself with pc hardware or the internals of a framework laptop thick enough to make use of a regular pc fan

 

besides there are some laptops with power throttling bullshit you cant disable even if temps are low and you arent hitting thermal throttle temps

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1 hour ago, anirudthelinuxwIzard said:

As someone who loves jank shit, I would love to put like a noctua NF-A9 in my laptop or something. The main barrier is the fact that PC fans don’t blow sideways like a laptop fan. Can any engineers or just people who are less dumb than me say if it could be possible?

You have to bear in mind laptop fans work on negative pressure.  The entire laptop is designed to suck the air over the exact areas that need cooling, such as across the VRMs, NVME, battery charging, RAM, WiFi, etc before actually hitting the CPU/GPU heatsink.

 

So any modification can leave those places poorly cooled.

 

Just now, Somerandomtechyboi said:

basically just use a decent laptop cooler like everyone else or build a jank "laptop" yourself with pc hardware or the internals of a framework laptop thick enough to make use of a regular pc fan

 

besides there are some laptops with power throttling bullshit you cant disable even if temps are low and you arent hitting thermal throttle temps

I really don't believe in laptop coolers as like I mentioned above, laptops are designed to suck air over a specific path and trying to force air in may actually disrupt the desired air path.

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if your laptop has fents on the bottom then you can use a laptop pad and put fans in that then the in side fan should run at a slower speed or you can turn it down.

 

i was going to add pc fans on my laptop pad but never did it.

 

i guess if you 3d ptrinted the bottom and made it thicker you would still need a way of like remaking the cooler... could it be done 🤷‍♂️

I have dyslexia plz be kind to me. dont like my post dont read it or respond thx

also i edit post alot because you no why...

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Someone on here actually modded a laptop to use a desktop cooler in it...It's around here somewhere.

I've been using computers since around 1978, started learning programming in 1980 on Apple IIs, started learning about hardware in 1990, ran a BBS from 1990-95, built my first Windows PC around 2000, taught myself malware removal starting in 2005 (also learned on Bleeping Computer), learned web dev starting in 2017, and I think I can fill a thimble with all that knowledge. 😉 I'm not an expert, which is why I keep investigating the answers that others give to try and improve my knowledge, so feel free to double-check the advice I give.

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On 6/23/2024 at 2:08 PM, RevGAM said:

Someone on here actually modded a laptop to use a desktop cooler in it...It's around here somewhere.

oh i think i remember that one it just sits on a stand...

I have dyslexia plz be kind to me. dont like my post dont read it or respond thx

also i edit post alot because you no why...

Thrasher_565 hub links build logs

Corsair Lian Li Bykski Barrow thermaltake nzxt aquacomputer 5v argb pin out guide + argb info

5v device to 12v mb header

Odds and Sods Argb Rgb Links

 

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