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Watercooling a laptop on the cheap

Watercooling a laptop on the cheap

Get a laptop from somewhere. I happened to have an old compaq presario 700 laying about. It would only run for five minutes then lock up from heat. Soooo, I decided to get my feet, er, wet in the world of water cooling, using the cheapest methods I could think of.
Disclaimer: If you break something doing this it is your own damn fault. You REALLY ought to know better than to mix electronics and water. DUH! For those of you willing to continue despite the risk to life and limb and inevitable financial loss; go to the next step.



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Tubing:
I used 3/16 ID vinyl tubing from the hardware store, it is strong yet flexible it has an OD of 5/16
More tubing:
I used 5/16 ID for this, if you can’t see where I’m going with that…
A pump
I got one from ebay $20 shipped with power supply. If I were to do it again… I’d get a proper water cooling pump.
Radiator
I’m using an add-on transmission cooler from O’reilly auto parts. It comes with mounting hardware and looks pretty nice. It should have the thermal capacity of 800 of the laptop’s built in heat sinks.
Fans
Whatever. I’m using two thermaltake fans wired in series with a temperature controller. One fan is a smartcool the other is a thuderblade. Both together were $29 shipped from newegg. If I were doing this over, I’d skimp on fans and splurge on pump.
Reservoir
A gerbil water bottle from petsmart. It has a detachable clip on the back and 3/16 tube fits right in the hole where the metal drinking tube went.
Power supply.
I’m using a 13.5 v psu for the fans and a 12v psu for the pump (the one that came with it)

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