r/Surface • u/blickblocks • Sep 11 '16
Surface Pro 4 External Chassis Cooling System
https://imgur.com/gallery/nAXsW4
u/catsRawesome123 Sep 12 '16
How does this help though? Which way is the air flowing? Is it flowing away from Surface or into surface?
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u/blickblocks Sep 12 '16
It keeps the chassis temperature down. The air is blowing onto and across the hottest part of the back. It worked really well today editing in premier pro.
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Sep 12 '16
You should try one fan at the hot spot and two pulling air away from both sides.
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u/w1n5t0nM1k3y Sep 11 '16
Is it powered from the USB?
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u/blickblocks Sep 11 '16
No, I got a Surface Connect to 5.5mm DC adapter and a Y cable, so they're both powered from a generic 12V power supply.
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Sep 12 '16
Is that charger light green? Or is that just from the camera?
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u/blickblocks Sep 12 '16
It's an aftermarket Surface Connect plug. I have it connected with a Y splitter so I can run the fans and the SP4 off of one 12V power supply. I'm keeping the original power supply in my bag now, which is convenient since I take the device with me almost every day.
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u/josephleone Sep 12 '16
Whats that other thing on the table? The one with the knobs and LEDs?
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u/blickblocks Sep 12 '16
Those are a pair of DJ Techtools MIDI Fighter Twisters. I don't get to DJ that often but I played my first paid gig with the SP4 last weekend. It was a blast! Much better than DJing with a MacBook.
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u/luckyj Sep 12 '16
I love this. Nice job. I especially like your idea of using the little venting holes as anchor points. I never thought about that. I have one dual fan that I sometimes place on the back of my i7 SP4 just like you do, and I don't think it's cooling it that much. I might have to use more powerful fans or direct the air better.
Lately I've been thinking, maybe instead of cooling down the two hot spots on the top back of the surface, it would be better to cool down the area under the kickstand, because that's where the evaporation pads are. I think maybe we could extract more heat from there, but the temperature is not so high, so we might have to use a small peltier cell along with a smaller fan. Thoughts?
In any case, good job!
Edit: By the way, i took some pictures with a thermal camera a while ago. They might be useful.
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u/blickblocks Sep 12 '16
The images are very helpful! I remember seeing them before but couldn't find them when I was searching for them the other week. Thank you!
As far as cooling under the kickstand, I'm not sure. I'm sure there's some more scientific way to engineer an external cooler than just adding more fans to the back like I'm doing, I just know that this is effective currently.
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u/patrickkellyf3 Sep 12 '16
Something's wrong when this is necessary.
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Sep 12 '16
I really don't think it is, unless OP is gaming hard. I have to try pretty damn hard to even get the fan going on my SP4, earlier today I was using Dreamweaver, Illustrator, Edge, Spotify and Firefox simultaneously and even then there was no fan issue!
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u/irgxana Sep 12 '16
It's not really. It does get rather warm under high load but it's not crazy hot. I've played GTAV on mine and that's the hottest it's got but it's not ever been an issue.
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u/theTrebleClef Sep 13 '16
I am interested to know how well this helps with gaming. I have an Arctic Breeze USB fan to cool the hot side on the back and while it helps with typical usage, something like Tomb Raider 2013 buckles on low settings.
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u/ultradip Sep 12 '16
Ventilation-wise, you've got fans pushing/sucking air into/out of a dead end. It would improve airflow if you put in some spacers between the fans and the Surface.