Acer cooling logic

[Aniallation]

So for a while now I've had this laptop, an Acer Aspire E15, that I got on sale for a mere $200 brand new. I knew it had a fan on the bottom, since I could see it and could hear it spin up for a second when pressing the power button before it ramps back down, like many other laptops.

 

As I'm just browsing the internet, the fan is on and can be seen at the bottom, as with any other laptop.

 

 

But it's today when I looked into the back of the laptop where the fan exhausts that I realized something interesting

 

 

It's blowing onto nothing. The fan just spins and moves air from the bottom of the laptop straight out the back, and it can clearly be seen doing so when looking into the vent. There is no heatsink. 

 

I'm assuming this is because the same chassis of laptop is available with higher-end CPUs then mine with it's N2830 which is more then happy running passive, but seriously? Why even bother to put a fan then? It adds to manufacturing costs and is a waste of battery power

[Arty]

Is the air coming out hot?

if yes then its working

 

if no

then u right.

[W-L]

-SNIP-

 

I would expect some fins or aluminum heatsink with ribs atleast...

 

 

Take that fan out and slap a chunk of copper in there instead as a heatsink 

[79 Potatoes]

N3280?

Don't you mean N2830? As typical acer for a low TDP CPU, I'd expect a tiny-ass heatsink

[Aniallation]

Is the air coming out hot?

if yes then its working

 

if no

then u right.

Air is the same temperature as the air coming in from the bottom lol

 

I would expect some fins or aluminum heatsink with ribs atleast...

 

Take that fan out and slap a chunk of copper in there instead as a heatsink 

N3280?

Don't you mean N2830? As typical acer for a low TDP CPU, I'd expect a tiny-ass heatsink

The thing is, it's far from ever needing a heatsink. This CPU puts out around the same amount of heat as the ones in flagship smartphones. What I'm wondering is why did Acer bother to put a fan in there, since they could have saved manufacturing costs by doing so, and the end user would get oh so slightly better battery life without this parasitic draw. Lose-lose situation.

[Enderman]

Air is the same temperature as the air coming in from the bottom lol

when running a stress test for CPU/GPU?

[Aniallation]

when running a stress test for CPU/GPU?

Yeah, the only part that gets warm is the middle of the laptop, presumably that's where the CPU is. It's quite far away from the fan.

[79 Potatoes]

Air is the same temperature as the air coming in from the bottom lol

 

The thing is, it's far from ever needing a heatsink. This CPU puts out around the same amount of heat as the ones in flagship smartphones. What I'm wondering is why did Acer bother to put a fan in there, since they could have saved manufacturing costs by doing so, and the end user would get oh so slightly better battery life without this parasitic draw. Lose-lose situation.

Not that it can run in closed environment heatsinkless... Yes, it can run passive, but with a proper heatsink, not just a random chunk of metal, look at the Macbook with a Core M 5Y31, which has lower TDP than yours, it overheats! (I think even Linus made a video of it in... water?)

 

Maybe in your case they put it a passive heatsink but a fan to avoid heat buildup

[Aniallation]

Not that it can run in closed environment heatsinkless... Yes, it can run passive, but with a proper heatsink, not just a random chunk of metal, look at the Macbook with a Core M 5Y31, which has lower TDP than yours, it overheats! (I think even Linus made a video of it in... water?)

 

Maybe in your case they put it a passive heatsink but a fan to avoid heat buildup

I read something before about the Core M chips putting out more heat then their TDP says, and it makes sense since Core M is noticeably more powerful then my Celeron. Also it's not about being heatsinkless, the HP Stream 11/13 have the same CPU (actually one model up), are closed off, and run fine with no proper "heatsink" or a fan.