Thanks for posting this information I am sure that those still having problems with their smartstep systems will appreciate it.

I just recieved my first smartstep heatmod success email. Good stuff.

yeah ice, i used ur overheating fix, and so far it is working great.  I do think i still need to clean out my cooling fan though.  The bottom still gets extremely hot after a few hours of use, and the fan seems to be blowing very little air.  I'll clean that out and let u know.  I'm working on mod'n a colling fan off an old Pentium 2 to use as a cooling fan for the ati and northbridge.  i'll let u know if it works and how much cooler it makes it.

The PII cooler is a perfect fit over the video, and perhaps a 60mm fan could be installed instead of that! Of course, since my laptop works properly through heavy load, I do not need to go to such measures. The heatspreader over my video while idle is a little warm. During load it heats up considerably, and perhaps a copper vga memory heatsink could come in handy.

OCZ makes such sinks: http://www.hardcorecooling.us/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=743

You can attach these sinks to the video (and northbridge if you find it possible) with a thermal epoxy, such as Arctic Silver Thermal Adhesive: http://www.arcticsilver.com/arctic_silver_thermal_adhesive.htm

As far as the bottom of your laptop overheating, consider which surfaces you place your laptop down on. The best surface is always a hard, flat surface. When placed somewhere such as a bed or a rug, expect to run into heat problems and/or studdering. A quick fix is always a book between the surface.

I mainly use my laptop for Folding@Home, which uses 100% of the computer's resources at all times. To make sure overheating does not occur, it is placed on a non-cluttered desk and is propped up by a cd jewel case to increase air flow from the bottom.

Message Edited by ice_gamer on 11-28-2004 09:15 PM

Studying the bottom of the Smartstep200n, its probable that the power supply resides on the underside of the heatsink, generating additional heat (picture here: http://img3.exs.cx/img3/7640/dell_smartstep_200_4.jpg ). I held an 80mm fan grill up to that spot and sure enough, it is possible to fit an 80mm fan grill there (as far as screw clearance is, I have no clue).

If I cut that area and put a fan grill in its place, imagine how much hot air could be released.

*edit* the clearance in the RAM area is sufficient for one side of the fan grill to be inserted.

Glad to see someone else figured this one out too...I created http://nfn15037.tripod.com/ this site over a year ago then was promptly banned from these forums. All of my posts deleted and any reference to my site removed, hopefully Dell is nicer to you :-)

Also, FWIW, I have since upgraded the stupid paddlewheel design fan to a directional fan off of a Celery processor. It moves a lot more air and is much quieter. Dell's choice of fan for this system is laughable IMO.

Message Edited by nfn150372 on 01-06-2005 10:46 PM

What a great tutorial you made there! I never thought of allowing the heat to go through the keyboard! That will be a new project soon.
I have found an old AMD K6 heatsink that fits perfectly over the ATI video, that should do nicely there.

Could you please give me the model number/name of the celeron fan you use? Next year I will be going off to college and would like to keep my laptop on at all times, and would also like my laptop to be quieter. And I'm sure the celeron fan would be quieter.

It was some no name fan off of an old HP piece of junk. It was a similar size as the Dell P0S, but I had to hack up the both of them, and epoxy the new fan onto the 3 legs remaining from the dell fan. Its not pretty but works quite well. I never had a single overheating issues with the old fan, it was just noisy. Even running Folding @ home for weeks on end it mever once shut down. My sister and mom each have a smartstep 250n and I modded all of them and have yet to have a single shutdown in 15 months since doing the Arctic silver and keyboard foil mod.

Edit-w0w my original accound it un-banned :-o

Message Edited by nfn15037 on 01-09-2005 06:05 PM

Would removing the aluminum peice above the copper fins (held down by a few tiny screws on the heatsink) help with the heat? I removed the foil from underneath the keyboard and can feel the heat coming from it. Perhaps would this help with dissipation to remove that peice?