Hardware Liquid Metal Cooling Nintendo Switch

[guily6669]

If nintendo knows I'm sure it will void and they will refuse to repair it... Hell even stock hardware my father had huge headaches specially with a god damn old DVD burner recorder for the TV...

The burner burned out like 1 year after and still was under warranty, it was never moved from the first place it was attached to the TV support, we went to the store, they sent it to warranty and the stupid manufacturer claimed we broke it by physical damage while no one ever moved it from the support (and not a single scratch)... The store ended up giving a new better model which is still the one my father has, but the manufacturer never repaired it or gave any other unit, therefore the store lost on that one while the manufacturer was the guilty one.

And now laptops are the worse, my brother's 1 year old laptop, I said in the store I want to put a SSD which I already had at home and they claim I can't do it and have to contact the brand and ask for permission LOL WTF is this, they even claimed they refused to fix some of their customers laptops because they changed ram and HDD, when the laptop still has the built in port with just 1 screw for doing it, THIS IS BEYOND STUPID.

The brand of his laptop is Lenovo... That's why my laptop is unbranded made by CLEVO which is cheaper and actually allow me to change everything like CPU, screen, keyboard and just anything like a desktop without loosing warranty and the best is even I press 2 small buttons and the full bottom cover comes completely out with full access to all the motherboard without a single screw LOL.

It gets like the following pic:

I just press 2 things and the full bottom plate slides out with access to everything like shown above, now this is clever and special, and I have a custom CNC cooler and and custom Bios with OC support.

 

[YugamiSekai]

So... will this custom cooling lead to overclocking without overheating?

 

[TotalInsanity4]

So... will this custom cooling lead to overclocking without overheating?

Or just... "clocking", considering the GPU is underclocked by default lol

 

[GBADWB]

So... will this custom cooling lead to overclocking without overheating?

theoretically yes. If applied ideally on an air cooled system, you roughly see about 3 to 6 centigrade drop in temperatures. But with the complex layering of the switch, It's not very likely that you would be able to see much.


Though for longevity reasons, people should look into trying out IC Graphite. Reusable sheet that is designed for long term usage and re usability, minimizing maintenance. Would easily solve issues when it comes to long term usage (probably >3 years) without degradation on cooling performance. The pad should easily be in spec for the Switch's Power capabilities.

 

[guily6669]

So... will this custom cooling lead to overclocking without overheating?

Totally... I have a cooler like 4 times the size of the original attached to the copper though its aluminium lool...

No thermal throttling and the GT650M can go at least 200mhz higher, but I always remove the bottom plate and use a laptop cooling pad with a massive like 200mm fan in it blowing a lot of cool air directly on all components and cooler lol.

Check my laptop attachment below and compare to the photo from my last post of the normal laptop lol...

I will try to contact the guy who made me this cooler some day to see if he is also willing to design and sell one for the Switch. I paid like 10€ only for the custom CNC cooler because it was a test one, but the only difference is just that he didnt sand, he told me it was a bit bad the finish, but actually I didnt even sand it it looks super smooth and clean lool... He also had a full copper one, but was way more expensive as copper is a lot more expensive too, but way better in heat transfer...

theoretically yes. If applied ideally on an air cooled system, you roughly see about 3 to 6 centigrade drop in temperatures. But with the complex layering of the switch, It's not very likely that you would be able to see much.


Though for longevity reasons, people should look into trying out IC Graphite. Reusable sheet that is designed for long term usage and re usability, minimizing maintenance. Would easily solve issues when it comes to long term usage (probably >3 years) without degradation on cooling performance. The pad should easily be in spec for the Switch's Power capabilities.

I actually think we can probably almost fully cool the switch without fan at least portably with a huge full copper thick cooler and a full backplate with thermal compound from start to end of the copper pipe of the switch.

My small aluminum cooler attached on the laptop made quite a huge difference way more than 10Cº, and even way more than 20Cº when using the bottom cover removed + the big fan from the laptop cooling pad. And I still can improve a lot more as I'm not even using thermal compound, just a crap M3 tape, I need a permanent thermal glue compound, but they are rare to find nowadays, will have to order some day online, but most PC stores here stop selling them for ages, they make permanent contact 4 ever and will not be removable after...

 

[GunzOfNavarone]

I applied this thermal compound to my (PC) CPU at the weekend, but so far am yet to notice any real temp gain over the cool laboratory liquid metal I already had applied. Tell you what though, what a ball ache to remove the old compound from the copper heat sink plate. I had to use a mixture of wet and dry fine sandpaper isopropyl and polishing compound. Got the majority of it off, but wow was it a job.

 

[CapitanSburro]

Can someone provide a chart of temperatures running stock paste vs liquid metal vs a good thermal paste (Noctua, Arctic, Grizzly ecc).
Maybe benchmarking temps for different games...that would be cool

 

[guily6669]

I applied this thermal compound to my (PC) CPU at the weekend, but so far am yet to notice any real temp gain over the cool laboratory liquid metal I already had applied. Tell you what though, what a ball ache to remove the old compound from the copper heat sink plate. I had to use a mixture of wet and dry fine sandpaper isopropyl and polishing compound. Got the majority of it off, but wow was it a job.

You already had liquid cooling thermal compound lool, its no wonder you wont see much improvement to none.

Can someone provide a chart of temperatures running stock paste vs liquid metal vs a good thermal paste (Noctua, Arctic, Grizzly ecc).
Maybe benchmarking temps for different games...that would be cool

Its all over the internet... Its not a gazillion times better than a good normal safer thermal compound, don't expect much better than a already good thermal compound...

Now when you compare them with OEM garbage in some devices it can get ridiculous with almost 30Cº difference... Like the crap thermal compound intel puts above the silicon die and under the metal plate, some times delidding them and using liquid metal can shove 20+Cº which just means intel did a very bad job there.

I do think nintendo wouldnt also use a good thermal compound on the Switch so it will probably drop quite a bit too in it. Now when you compare the liquid metal to something like Artic Silver 5, Artic MX-4 and other good thermal compounds, the difference is not a world of difference, but at least you know you have the best heat transference option available today on the entire planet ...

 

[leon315]

opening up a device no longer voids your warranty, iirc.

glad that things got changed, dunno, same for EU?

 

[guily6669]

Here which is under EU you can't open nothing at all other than like PS4's HDD tray... if they can prove you open the device they will probably even refuse to repair not even paid...

 

[tomcoleman]

all good my end LM all the way

 

[CapitanSburro]

You already had liquid cooling thermal compound lool, its no wonder you wont see much improvement to none.

Its all over the internet... Its not a gazillion times better than a good normal safer thermal compound, don't expect much better than a already good thermal compound...

Now when you compare them with OEM garbage in some devices it can get ridiculous with almost 30Cº difference... Like the crap thermal compound intel puts above the silicon die and under the metal plate, some times delidding them and using liquid metal can shove 20+Cº which just means intel did a very bad job there.

I do think nintendo wouldnt also use a good thermal compound on the Switch so it will probably drop quite a bit too in it. Now when you compare the liquid metal to something like Artic Silver 5, Artic MX-4 and other good thermal compounds, the difference is not a world of difference, but at least you know you have the best heat transference option available today on the entire planet ...

I was asking for a temp chart of the Switch running stock TP /good TP /LM, just out of curiosity. My switch doesn't get very hot even while docked...sometimes when I feel like it's very hot in my house and I'm playing a heavy game I also set up a little Arctic usb fan pointed at the top back of the consoles exhaust just for precaution.
I guess that someone could try to take the temp with an infrared thermometer, unless there is a way via homebrew to grab the internal sensors readings....mmmm

 

[guily6669]

Oh, I dont think anyone posted that info sadly... But someone on youtube did some heavy cooling mods and his Switch and the fan almost never increase speed and he removed the Zelda lag completely, specially on the forest part which is by far the worse part of the game and the one that lags more. He claimed he also had lag and after the cooling mods from his video we can see 0 lag and virtually no FPS drop (maybe only a few but not even visible sings of lag).

Which means that the Switch might actually be thermal throttling and might even not be under high temps... Its not the first device with misadjusted thermals, some laptops seem to thermal throttle at very low temps, they were likely made with wrong values from factory, Switch might be in this case too, or it might actually be a lot hot (which is not likely at portable clocks at least)...

But anyway he claimed slightly more battery juice, less fan spinning and less lag basically, but he did a lot more cooling mods than just adding thermal compound. He also added thermal pads above ram, he cut the back cover right on the fan for more airflow and changed something else which I can't even remember...

 

[Michael Morsette]

tomcoleman
I am preparing to do a cooling mod, thanks for breaking the ground

I would love too see the pictures you took and posted but they aren't showing up. Could you re-post them?

 

[Shadow_The_Hedgehog82]

To anyone wanting to get better thermals I'd recommend doing direct to die cooling by taking that copper sheet out, fan very rarely turns on after taking it out and putting some decent paste in. Anyone know what the material of the switches heatsink is?

 

[Deleted User]

To anyone wanting to get better thermals I'd recommend doing direct to die cooling by taking that copper sheet out, fan very rarely turns on after taking it out and putting some decent paste in. Anyone know what the material of the switches heatsink is?

very likely to be aluminum, it's a pretty light, durable and cheap metal to use for cooling

 

[Shadow_The_Hedgehog82]

very likely to be aluminum, it's a pretty light, durable and cheap metal to use for cooling

ah fuck i ordered some liquid metal specifically for my switch lel

 

[Zonark]

I wouldn’t do it tho console recides in the vertical position almost 100 percent of the time with frequent movement. This cooling method is conductive and could cause huge problems if done incorrectly. The reason it’s more safe with a computer is due to the fact that it doesn’t move

 

[Shadow_The_Hedgehog82]

I wouldn’t do it tho console recides in the vertical position almost 100 percent of the time with frequent movement. This cooling method is conductive and could cause huge problems if done incorrectly. The reason it’s more safe with a computer is due to the fact that it doesn’t move

I doubt it's just gonna come out of the heatsink the amount you use is extremely tiny, i've never had thermal paste come from under a heatsink so i doubt this will either. Also pcs are always vertical that point is dumb

 

[Deleted User]

I wouldn’t do it tho console recides in the vertical position almost 100 percent of the time with frequent movement. This cooling method is conductive and could cause huge problems if done incorrectly. The reason it’s more safe with a computer is due to the fact that it doesn’t move

people liquid metal cool their PCs all the time, and a motherboard on a standard pc is vertical 100% of the time, i see no problem.