Any advice for modding the T440p cooler?

[cultOfThinkpad]

This is kinda a continuation from my last thread https://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=68&t=135436.
After some research and my own experience with my T440p, I'm dead set on modding my cooler to improve its performance.

Using this as my main reference, https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comme ... ipe_t440p/,
I know I need some copper heatpipes, some tin paste that melts at 138 degrees (celsius or fahrenheit?) as well as a heatgun
to melt the paste to glue the pipes together.

I just wonder if anybody has any advice about going through with this kind of modding.
Also, I heard stuff about the heat pipes exploding. What's that about? How much would I risk that happening?

Thanks.

[axur-delmeria]

If you apply too much heat on the heatpipes, they will expand and possibly blow. I've personally seen heatpipes expand when I dismantled a T61 heatsink using a flat iron.

Advice? Wear protective equipment: welding gloves might be a good idea. Maybe a welding mask with a clear glass insert. Work in a well-ventilated area and don't breathe in the fumes (a respirator mask with activated carbon could help reduce the risk of inhaling toxic fumes).

Set up a jig that holds the heatsink firmly in place: the heatpipes could shift/move while the solder hasn't hardened yet.

[RealBlackStuff]

An easier solution would be to use the dGPU fan and PTM7950 thermal pads.
You can buy those via e.g. https://ebuy7.com (cheaper than Amazon, eBay, etc.)
Apparently they work almost identical to liquid metal.

[cultOfThinkpad]

An easier solution would be to use the dGPU fan and PTM7950 thermal pads.
You can buy those via e.g. https://ebuy7.com (cheaper than Amazon, eBay, etc.)
Apparently they work almost identical to liquid metal.

I actually already have the dGPU fan, I'm just hoping to improve it further by adding extra heatpipes.

Also, I heard of the PTM7950 from Linus Tech Tips which strongly recommended I buy it from here
https://www.moddiy.com/products/Honeywe ... rrencyId=6 which is supposed to be genuine.

I'm just hoping using both methods would yield the best results.

Oh, and for clarification, some users use thermal glue but what disadvantage does it have compared to soldering tin paste?

[axur-delmeria]

Disadvantage Thermal glue has worse thermal conductivity compared to solder.

Advantage: little to no risk of damaging the heatsink.

[cultOfThinkpad]

I just took my cooler out to measure what size any additional heatpipes should be
(and how many I should even buy).

I looked up some flat heatpipes on eBay and made a couple of paper cutouts of one
that's 100mm wide, 9mm tall and 1mm thick then put them over my cooler.


I figured I can only fit any heatpipes that are 1mm thick, otherwise I won't be able to close the chasis lid on them.
So far, it looks to me I can only fit one extra heatpipe over the very thin one that draws heat from the GPU.
I thought of adding another one on top of the main CPU pipe but I notice part of the fan's plastic (it's plastic, right?) cover goes over that pipe so if I can add another pipe on, I could have to file that plastic piece off.

Any thoughts, anyone?

Edit: Another thought. I heard that if I remove the black paint from the pipes, the soldering paste will stick more easily
or it'll allow the heat to pass through (?) but in the video I watched, the person scraped the paint off with sandpaper.
I reckon that would risk damaging the copper so is there any liquid solution that removes paint without damaging the copper?

[cultOfThinkpad]

Hi.

After some thinking, here's what I decided I want to do with my T440p cooler.
I'm going to buy this thermal adhesive from here https://www.techingredients.com/product ... rmal-epoxy
along with some cheap 6cm long copper heatpipes from eBay.

I will bend the pipes ever so slightly so that both ends make contact with the CPU and GPU heatblocks, using
the technique shown on this video https://youtu.be/YVGLJcOF_Pg and use the thermal adhesive to stick two of the pipes between these blocks.

I figured out that it'd affordable, much safer than trying to solder new pipes with tin paste given my lack of experience and,
given the composition of the adhesive itself, should hopefully be very effective.

One last thing I need to consider is whether or not I need to remove the paint from the GPU pipe and the heatblocks.
Would removing the paint improve the heatflow or can I safely leave that alone?

Thanks.

[axur-delmeria]

1. Remove the paint only on surfaces you will be using the thermal epoxy on.

2. Are you sure about the effectiveness of that particular thermal epoxy?

[cultOfThinkpad]

1. What's the best paint remover I should use that won't damage the metal?

2. I watched a demonstration on Youtube about how well the adhesive works though
I do plan to watch it again to make sure. The website itself also lists the ingredients used to make
the stuff so it sounds promising.
https://youtu.be/8MOTMq9g8Nk

[cultOfThinkpad]

I just had a thought.
Is it possible to (after I remove the paint from the heatblock and pipes, of course) to use thermal compound (or PTM7950 padding) to make contact between the cooler and any new pipes I add then apply thermal epoxy to the sides to keep them stuck together?

That way, in theory, it should provide the best of both worlds.
Any thoughts?

[axur-delmeria]

IMO you could try low-temperature solder (Indium-based) instead of PTM7950. Of course, practice with scrap beforehand.