GCN: Alternative cooling?

[Stu L Tissimus]

I've sorta been planning to make myself a GCN laptop. I won't pretend to have any idea what I'm doing, since this would be my first time doing any sort of project like this. But aaaanyway.... Looking at pictures of the GCN internals, I've noticed that one of the biggest components in the GCN is its' heatsink. So, since I'm trying to make a laptop, I'd like to try and keep the height of the base under around an inch. (I'd be spreading out the different boards in the system horizontally instead of vertically).

So, has anybody ever played around with alternative, thinner cooling on their GCN? A heatpipe would probably work best for my purposes, but would it dissipate heat well enough to be safe for the system?

[Metroid fan]

You could liquid cool it.. or find a thinner heat sink.

[usbcd36]

Probably as Metroid fan said, you could do a liquid cooling system, or build your own heat pipes. I highly suggest you get some nice DC blowers, a fan controller and a massive (but thin) heat sink though, since it will probably cost less and be easier to do.

Gotta ask, how are you going to do the optical drive?

[sniper_spike]

You guys are throwing around liquid cooling like it's nothing. Those systems are not as small as you think!

[Harshboy]

yeah, if it's gotta b mobile then water cooling wont work........

[Stu L Tissimus]

Yeah, liquid cooling wouldn't work (unless I can find a really small, low-voltage pump...). That homemade heatpipe link is pretty cool, but at this point I'll probably just go get a normal, thinner heatsink/fan. Any recommendations for a thin combo?

Oh, and as for the optical drive, I'm just gonna do it the easy way. I remember seeing a Fujitsu laptop a while back that had a pop-up DVD drive instead of pop-out or slot loading. So it'll basically be like the thing already on the GCN.

[Gamelver]

you're gonna have to rewire it, ya know ...

[Joes2Silly]

also with a water cooling system you will also need a small reservoir somewhere in or on your laptop

[bioniclebert]

you know that a fan inside the dreamcast is incredibly small (prolly 1" by 1") and it runs off of 5V. If you had one that you could spare a fan from, That'd work, or find a place to sell replacement dreamcast parts and look for this fan.

[Stu L Tissimus]

Yes, I know I'll have to rewire that, it's a given. At this point I'm just in the planning stages. I mean, hey, even I know how to use a soldering gun

Actually, I've been looking at an oldish look at GCN hardware by a well-known PC hardware site.

The Gekko is actually a very cool running CPU, dissipating around 5W at its 485MHz operating frequency. Again, when compared to the Intel CPU used in the Xbox, you're looking at roughly three times more being produced by the X-CPU than by the GameCube's Gekko.

Two questions - First of all, Gamelver, you've built a GCp... what is your experience with the heat given off by Gekko and Flipper? I know that generating a third of the heat of an old P3-era Celeron is nothing to be proud of, but I'm thinking of doing something crazy - If it's cool enough, I might try (gasp!) passive cooling.

[Harshboy]

my gcp dont even have a fan....or cooloing..........gets pretty hot tho, im thinking of just using a 12 volt mini fan i have laying around (my fan broke when i opened the GCN up...lol)

[usbcd36]

also with a water cooling system you will also need a small reservoir somewhere in or on your laptop

Shouldn't be too hard if you can find a small pump and radiator. Those are much more difficult to find than a small reservoir.

[Stu L Tissimus]

Harsh, could you give me an idea as to how hot it runs? Like, if you touched the CPU with your fingers, would you get burnt?

[Turbo Tax 1.0]

you crazy harsh. does it actually play for long periods of time like that?

[Gamelver]

no, it doesn't. a fan broke on a GC I had once, before I took it apart. and it turned off after 30 minutes or so, maybe less.


without a heatsink, it wouldn't last 5 minutes.