Solved Surface Pro 2 cooling solutions?

[hertsjoatmon]

Not had issues with my Pro yet but wondered if anyone had any elegant solutions to increasing the cooling of their surfaces.

Other than sitting in front of a fan to increase the airflow around the back of my machine I can't really think of anything but I'm always suprised by some of the solutions people seem to come up with for things. I might put a USB powered fan on my docking station angled at the back but other than that I cant think of anything else.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/ARCTIC-Bree...e=UTF8&qid=1407926245&sr=1-2&keywords=USB+fan

Something like this.

Not sure how much of a difference it will make though.

 

[hertsjoatmon]

Also, I like to take my computers apart once a year or so to clear up any dust that has built up over that period. That doesnt seem to be easy with this device. Anyone have some maintanence advice for this to help keep it running at peak performance other than just putting a vacumm around the edges to suck up anything around the outer surfaces of the vents?

 

[GreyFox7]

Also, I like to take my computers apart once a year or so to clear up any dust that has built up over that period. That doesnt seem to be easy with this device. Anyone have some maintanence advice for this to help keep it running at peak performance other than just putting a vacumm around the edges to suck up anything around the outer surfaces of the vents?

Sounds like your looking for a custom electronics safe version of Scrubbing Bubbles

 

[infer66]

I use intel XTU to undervolt any device I own that supports it. I have my SP2 sitting at a moderate -72mv cpu, - 72mv cache, -80mv gpu. I get 7-10c lower temp at full run. YMMV.
SP2 needs no help in the cooling department. The SP3 on the other hand needs all the help it can get.

 

[hertsjoatmon]

I'm a bit obsesive about getting the most out of my tech and try to look at as much as possible to squeese every last drop of efficiency. Thanks for the tip on XTU. I over clocked and undervolted my desktop via the bios and my old android tablet by changing the kernal settings. Not looked at the options for my SP2 though.
As I said, I have had no issues so far with my SP2 but after reading about the CPU throttling I thought it best to look at every aspect to keep it as cool as possible.

Not heard of scrubbing bubbles before, dont know if its available in the UK. Would make my sunday chores easier though. haha. I hoover everyday so there isnt that much dust in my home environment. I wouldnt be able to say for my sp2's prior owner though. Hate dust, its a silent tech killer!

 

[jefhart]

Also, I like to take my computers apart once a year or so to clear up any dust that has built up over that period. That doesnt seem to be easy with this device. Anyone have some maintanence advice for this to help keep it running at peak performance other than just putting a vacumm around the edges to suck up anything around the outer surfaces of the vents?

Have you seen the teardown?
https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Microsoft+Surface+Pro+2+Teardown/18604

 

[hertsjoatmon]

Have you seen the teardown?
https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Microsoft Surface Pro 2 Teardown/18604

Yeah, but there is no way im going to go at my SP2 with a heat gun to take it apart for a clean! I'd love to see that process after a years heavy use though to see where the main build up of crud (technical term) is to see if I need to worry about the fans getting blocked or air flow being compromised.

Knowing that the heat pipes are at the top centre at the rear of the device, I thought increased air flow over that area might improve CPU temps under high load. The back kind of acts like an extended heat sink. I'm probably over thinking it and I think undervolting should be enough of a solution to keeping the temps below 80 degrees and reducing the need for throttling.

 

[jefhart]

It is all but impossible to take it apart and I wouldn't risk breaking the screen. I haven't heard anyone complaining about the fan slots getting clogged. I would say you are safe as it is.

 

[hertsjoatmon]

I use intel XTU to undervolt any device I own that supports it. I have my SP2 sitting at a moderate -72mv cpu, - 72mv cache, -80mv gpu. I get 7-10c lower temp at full run. YMMV.
SP2 needs no help in the cooling department. The SP3 on the other hand needs all the help it can get.

So, I installed XTU last night. Undervolted by -70mv accross all three options but it crashed on me. Tried again at -60mv and its seems to be stable. It still reached 80 degrees though and was throttling through out the stress test and bench mark tests. It does seem cooler over all. I will exeriment with the individual components to try and push the uv further as I dont know what part caused the system to crash at -70mv yet.
My quest to get it running cool enough not to throttle continues...

 

[Compusmurf]

No matter how much you uv, it will still throttle if you push the cpu or graphics hard, just NOT as quickly and temp will drop quicker. No getting around that fact.

 

[hertsjoatmon]

No matter how much you uv, it will still throttle if you push the cpu or graphics hard, just NOT as quickly and temp will drop quicker. No getting around that fact.

True, just trying to reduce the probability of throttling though. At the moment its still throttelling under "medium" use, if I can get the temp down a few more degrees I might be able to further reduce that in all but intense processing requirements. A cooler computer is a happier computer and should therefore run faster. The benifit of increased battery life is also a nice plus. I know we are only talking about small margins, but every little helps and it doesnt cost anything or have any risk associated with it (other than a few crashes if I push it too far).

 

[hertsjoatmon]

Had to drop the amount I undervolted a little more. Now at -55, 70 and 85mv.
Played some "Total War Battles: Shogun" last night (Steam game on sale, designed for mobile devices, works great with touch screen. Gets a bad rep as its compared to Total war rather than mobile games on windows). My machine ran really hot with the fans on through out. I thought that running it at 1366 x 768 would reduce the gpu an cpu load and make it cooler. May be it did, but it still ran extremely hot and the fans were on max through out.
I wish the was an external clip on heat sink solution you could slip on to the back to help conduct and disperse some of the heat that the processor kicks out.
Might see if I can use the 3d printer at work to make up a clip I could hang off the top of the machine to attache 2 fans off the back of the machine powered by USB.