Okay, so I just ordered a nifty Tecra M4 from eBay.
I love my little M200, but the siren call of a 14" screen at 1400 x 1050 dpi proved impossible to resist. . . I gave in. (I also found one for a very good price. $200 entirely tricked out? Sweet!)
And I know. . , the over-heating GPU problem. Type, "Tecra M4 gpu overheating" into Google and weep. The M4 remains a fantastic Tablet PC, top in its class, with that one serious flaw.
--Now, the one I'm picking up is an end-of-corporate-lease refurb. Probably used by some dude in a cubicle for very boring work and no 3D gaming which would have sent the GPU up into the red zone. In any case, the screen is still working properly. I however, am planning to put it through the Photoshop paces, and given what is known and reported about this model, I'd be foolish not to expect problems.
So I've started planning my attack on the dreaded overheating issue. I looked at several options, from regulating the voltage, to performing open-heart surgery. --From the images of the guts of an M4, it looks as though it wouldn't be difficult to move the hard drive into the battery bay and install another fan in the hard drive bay, which being right next to the offending GPU would allow a secondary air-flow directed at the little monster. There's an option for a secondary slim-line battery which fits into the DVD/CD bay, so I could still benefit from having a battery in place. . . but with a third fan. . . (there are already two fans native in the M4!), it would be a very noisy machine. . . Anyway, that was my basic idea.
Updated Note: As freedomeagle pointed out below, (thanks!) there is a fix out there whereby the GPU fan can be hard-wired directly to one of the USB 5 volt power sources on the board, so that it remains permanently on. This sounds like a fairly simple solution, far less complicated than installing a whole new fan! I've been trying to find somebody who has performed this fix long enough ago to be able to report on its success rate and what it's like to be working with a system that is always generating noise. I've not heard back yet from anybody on this.
Anyway, it looked like these were my options and for the sake of the 14" screen, I was willing to work with them. But then I had one of those non-linear "Bing" moments which stopped me cold. (And which is the point of this whole post). --I thought to myself, "No way. It can't possibly be THAT easy. . . Can it?"
Well, guess what? It is.
Check this out. . . For $20, you can buy a silent air pump designed for a fish tank. But instead of running an air hose into a tank of water, one can simply run the hose directly into the guts of the computer and aim a constant stream of air at the heat-happy GPU. Problem solved.
This is the air pump model I'm looking at, available at any pet store. . .
Consulting the specs listed on that page, the second-to-smallest one, the "Rena 100", moves 32 gallons of air per hour at 2.2 psi.
I pulled out my old and clunky air brush compressor, blew off the dust and ran some tests to see what 32 gph at 2.2 psi was like. I was very satisfied. It's more than enough to tame a hot micro chip. It'll be over-kill, actually. With luck and a bit of careful placement of air hoses, the dual fans in the machine may never turn on again.
The "Rena" is a French-built compressor with silent running being a key feature of its design. After reading a few dozen comments and reviews from fish-tank enthusiasts, I've learned that the thing can run for years non-stop in almost complete silence. And best of all, it'll be off somewhere under my desk, so the computer itself will be basically silent.
Now, of course, if you're planning to take your Tablet PC on the road, hauling along a fish tank accessory is. . , well it's just silly. But if you're like me, and you are using your Tablet PC like a Cintiq and you have it permanently mounted to your desk or drafting board, then this solution kicks some pretty serious arse.
I've always found that one of the coolest ways to solve problems is to cross-pollinate technology from entirely unrelated industries. In this case, I'll be heading off to the pet store for an inexpensive air pump and fifteen feet of hose for my computer. --I'll just perform some simple surgery on my Tecra M4 when it arrives, install a hose, and voila! I'll have a nice, air-cooled system. Not in the same league as the overclocker crowd, but compact and silent; not bad for a laptop.
(Also. . , I wish I'd thought of $20 fish tank air pumps back when I bought my first air brush. The air compressor I bought ran me close to $500, which for an 18 year-old living in the late 80's was a significant bit of cash outlay. But wisdom comes with age.)
Anyway, I'll post some pictures when I rig it all together.
I'll be building a new skirt for it like the one I have on my M200, so there's a bit of work involved, but I'm looking forward to having a nice, quiet, air-cooled 14" digital drafting board.
Cheers!



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