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Zalman ZM-NC1000

I own a Dell XPS M1710. At the time I bought it, it was the best gaming laptop that existed. This means it has quite a hefty graphic card (NVIDIA Geforce Go 7950 GTX) crammed into a tight space. In preparation for the last LAN party I attended (the second one ever, it’s not like I do that every week), I bought a Zalman notebook cooler, the ZM-NC1000, just to be sure my laptop wouldn’t overheat during gaming sessions. It’s a nice device, well designed with some decent quality metal top plate, but I actually never believed the thing could keep my laptop any cooler. Tests I did with my laptop running a game with the Zalman on or off showed absolutely no difference in CPU or GPU temperature. However I keep using it because at least my laptop is raised a bit above the surface and this gives me the feeling my laptop will suck a little less dust… maybe…

Anyway, one of the things I think the Zalman lacks of was blowing power. While my nephew, who bought the same device, is impressed by its power, the thing hardly creates any air flow if you hover your hand above it. Now how the h*ll is this negligible breeze going to keep my laptop cool? Well, it isn’t.

At the beginning my Dell could handle himself quite well. The M1710 was, if I recall correctly, the first laptop to have separate heat pipes to cool CPU and GPU individually. This definitely kept the M1710 a lot cooler than my previous laptop (a Dell Inspiron) which barbecued the GPU. More recently, my laptop started running way too hot. Right now, while I am typing this message, it runs at 47°C CPU and 70°C GPU! Playing EVE Online (which is the only game I play on my laptop since I bought a gaming desktop), the GPU’s temperature raises to the big nineties! That’s why I decided to approach this problem on two fronts: the Zalman and the fans/heatpipes inside the Dell.

In this first of two posts about trying to keep the temperature low, I will modify the Zalman to blow significantly harder.

What do you need:

• Philips screw driver
• Flat screw driver
• Soldering iron
• Solder
• Pliers
• 15 minutes

1. Open the Zalman
WARNING: This will probably void your warranty, so proceed with caution. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!

There are a total of 10 screws that hold this thing together. All of them are located on the top side of the device, of which 4 are clearly visible. The other 6 are covered by the black rubber pads.
To reach them you will have to remove the pads. I used a flat screw driver to raise one end and then pull them off. This will feel as if you’re destroying your Zalman, but rest assured, the pads stick well enough so they can be reused afterwards.
See the pictures below to see where the screws are.

View at Picasa 14-May-2009 20:45, Panasonic DMC-FZ28, 5.6, 4.8mm, 0.077 sec, ISO 200

View at Picasa 14-May-2009 20:44, Panasonic DMC-FZ28, 5.6, 4.8mm, 0.1 sec, ISO 200

View at Picasa 14-May-2009 20:42, Panasonic DMC-FZ28, 5.6, 4.8mm, 0.25 sec, ISO 200

2. Remove the PCB
There is a little controller PCB that is held by 2 screws. You don’t have to uncouple the fans, but you need to remove the screws so the PCB can be turned around. Oh by the way, the Zalman has two fans and they are marked:
ADDA, model AB0905HX-CB1, DC 5V 0,28A, 781A, hypro bearing.

View at Picasa 14-May-2009 20:41, Panasonic DMC-FZ28, 2.8, 4.8mm, 0.067 sec, ISO 400

3. Do some magic
On the PCB you will see a resistor that is marked R3. I forgot to take a picture of it so I don’t know the resistance anymore. It’s this resistor that makes the fans turn really slow. We are going to shortcut it.

So take your soldering iron and pliers, grab the resistor and heat the solder while applying some pressure with the pliers until you can remove the resistor.
Next the resistor should be replaced by a wire.
I used a 3 cm long wire (actually it’s the leftover from a soldered and cut LED leg) and soldered it in place.
This is what it should look like:

View at Picasa 14-May-2009 20:37, Panasonic DMC-FZ28, 2.8, 4.8mm, 0.077 sec, ISO 400

View at Picasa 14-May-2009 20:36, Panasonic DMC-FZ28, 2.8, 4.8mm, 0.077 sec, ISO 400

View at Picasa 14-May-2009 20:34, Panasonic DMC-FZ28, 2.8, 4.8mm, 0.167 sec, ISO 400

4. Result
Now put it all back together and tadaaaaa: it blows a lot harder! I forgot to do some benchmarks before the mod, so I can’t compare it with after the mod, but at least you can feel a nice wind now. Probably not to anyone’s surprise, the noise produced by the Zalman is significantly higher too, but it still isn’t annoying. My subjective opinion: the slowest fan speed after the mod is as loud as the hardest one before the mod. So that’s pretty neat.

This mod won’t cool my laptop drastically, but every bit helps!
The next part, cleaning the fans and applying thermal paste, should improve the temperatures a lot more!

Stay tuned for the second part!

EDIT: I have finally had the time to write the second part of this tutorial: cleaning the fans of my XPS and applying Arctic Silver thermally conductive compound.