6 ms·

I think the use case for this would be ultra thin laptops, this could also be a quiet alternative to the current fans loudly spinning up.

by 6DM 3y ago

wil421 3y ago
It’s the reason I love my M1 air so much. No fan and barely any heat. My company issued HP zbook for Software Engineers is very loud and pushes lots of heat out. I would love a quieter alternative for large Windows laptops.
- CharlesW 3y ago
  FWIW, Windows on Parallels is great on my M1 Air.
- rimunroe 3y ago
  I'm looking forward to using one of those. My mom's old Dell laptop died and she finally made the switch to the new MacBook Air. It seems fantastic. I had the 2015 MacBook. It was an oddball model which afaik never got a refresh: it didn't have any active cooling, had a 12" screen, a single USB-C port and a headphone jack, and was the and the first version of the terrible butterfly keyboard (which had to get replaced three times over its life!). I got it through my company for half price after an executive had gotten it for travel but couldn't get adapters to reliably work for presentations. The main things I remember about it (other than the terrible keyboard) were that it was delightfully portable and quiet, and that I had to consider the weather when I was deciding what to do. I haven't lived in a place with air conditioning in years, and in the summers I'd sometimes have to stop my chronic multitasking and decide if I wanted to browse/run other programs, or stream videos. On the rare occasions I'd do some programming and needed to compile something, I'd open the laptop halfway and put it on its side with a fan pointed at the back. I also put it on an ice pack on more than one occasion. I've always been surprised that condensation didn't kill it. The new Airs seems like they solidly solve all of my complaints with the 2015 MacBook, which means I might finally have found a computer which can make me as happy as my Fujitsu LifeBook P1510D did. My only quibble might be that it's still a smidge larger than what I'd like, but it's a minor quibble.
- kitsunesoba 3y ago
  Yeah, reducing heat output and fan noise should be more of a goal for mainstream PC vendors. My ThinkPad X1 Nano is a lovely machine… super lightweight, tiny, solidly built, decent keyboard and screen, but it starts getting hot and spins up its fan with the slightest hint of work. I have to keep its CPU throttled by putting it in power saver mode to keep its fan off (most of the time), which brings major performance tradeoffs.
idontwantthis 3y ago
Once this is affordable and proven reliable, why would laptops that are not thin and light still exist?
- bick_nyers 3y ago
  Structural integrity?
  - tempodox 3y ago
    But only until we can crumple up our electronics like a piece of cloth.
- gambiting 3y ago
  I have a work laptop with a 12850HX + 3080Ti and 128GB of ram for work - even if you remove all the cooling from it, all the components still take a huge amount of space inside. The 128GB CAMM module for ram alone is larger than the entire motherboard in macbooks. Also the cooling would need to be able to deal with ~200W of heat, even solid state cooling would be quite large for such an amount of heat. https://imgur.com/a/L24ATjp https://imgur.com/a/L24ATjp that green module on the right is just ram. And Dell is trying to make this the future standard for ram modules in laptops. (ignore the dust on fans, I was in the middle of cleaning it).
  - kylixz 3y ago
    What model Dell? Satisfied? We’ve tried some other Linux friendly brands and the quality control has been less than stellar.
    - gambiting 3y ago
      Yeah it's a Dell Precision 7670 - not had any problems with it, and it's an absolute beast performance wise.
Enginerrrd 3y ago
As someone that can hear a lot of "ultrasonic" frequencies, I would not assume it would be quiet. Those ultrasonic occupancy sensors are TERRIBLE. Your "quiet" laptop might be worse since the sound would be continuous instead of loud bursts.
- noizz 3y ago
  You are correct. LTT's coverage mentions that while it's not loud, it's a bit unpleasant due to high frequencies. Although things might get tweaked with case design probably. Regardless, I am super excited about this tech.
  - moffkalast 3y ago
    After decades of jokes about laptops "lifting off" when under load, they will finally sound like a proper jet airplane.
- rimunroe 3y ago
  I really wonder about what the impact of having a lot of these devices in a house with animals which can hear higher frequency ranges would be. Most (all?) rodents, cats, and--to a lesser extent--dogs all hear well into the ultrasonic range. I don't know if this is the sort of ambient noise that they'd habituate to easily or if it would cause constant stress.
bitwize 3y ago
I still prefer the Apple approach: design a CPU so powerful and efficient, it can handle desktop workloads and larger and not need active cooling at all.
- dimmke 3y ago
  I was never into "PC Building", but had a friend who was and a few years ago they helped me build out a "Small form factor" PC, using this case: https://imgur.com/a/7xLBiC3 https://imgur.com/a/7xLBiC3 The case was designed to have two columns, and one side was dedicated to fitting a full sized graphics card. The other column was the rest of the computer. The graphics card had its own fan system, but I also needed a fan glued to the CPU and then an extra one at the bottom to help spit out exhaust. The thing ran so hot, and the cords ended up just jammed into the case where they fit. I had no experience with building PCs and was amazed I could fit a 2TB Hard drive in a tiny little stick on the motherboard, whereas X amount of years before, I would have had to install a spinning disk, much bigger. Such a huge leap forward. The main reason I wanted this form factor was because the perceived elegance of it appealed to me. But it became clear to me through the process that "small form factor" for enthusiasts is usually more about the challenge of building in a tight space. The thing is super loud with the fans and runs super hot when using it for gaming, even with a 1080ti card. That's one of the reasons Apple's progress with CPUs is so great to me. I don't want the entire industry to move to SoC style where everything is soldered to the motherboard, but the more efficient you can make the rest of the computer, the better cooling system you can design. Just like the M.2 form factor for SSDs was a huge leap. But even if you can't eliminate the need for active cooling, something like this would make things a lot better. I think you'd still have to design around where the exhaust blows out though. I think it'd be better to have the ARM increase in efficiency and then maybe combine it with something like this for extra powerful models, the way graphics cards are sold with the fans attached. Someday I'd like to be able to upgrade the build and optimize it. The dream would be to not have any fans, but some other form of active cooling, and for the machine to be basically silent, while packing a 3090+ tier graphics card.
- Tade0 3y ago
  I think it's less Apple and more TSMC. Through overzealous cleaning I broke the fans on my Ryzen 4800HS laptop but with the right fan-control software even that TSMC 7nm CPU operated largely fanless(they only spooled up above 80°C, which was rare) until replacements came in the mail. The M1 in the Air is throttled to roughly half the TDP of other devices with the same chip, so it's not like you're getting all the performance it can offer. That being said Apple's design is somewhat faster than competition using the same lithography.
JamesAdir 3y ago
Why do we need thinner laptops? You can hardly work on any of the current models today, which their almost zero height keys. We need better keyboards and not thinner laptops.
- bryanlarsen 3y ago
  Weight is a much more useful metric than height for a laptop.
- packetlost 3y ago
  Hard disagree. Shorter key travel is a matter of preference. I quite like the ultra-short-travel of my laptops even though I have half a dozen mechanical keyboards that I use on my desktops. It would be nice to have more options, but I'd take a thin and light over a chunky laptop any day.
- dietr1ch 3y ago
  I'd like if we got to the point where the computer was on the back of the monitor so it'd be easier to cool, and then the bottom would be dedicated to peripherals, including way better keyboards.
  - Zanni 3y ago
    We're already there with tablets (Surface, iPad) with attached keyboards. Personally, I prefer the bulk and weight of the device to be on the table, not propped up, but some folks love this configuration.
    - dietr1ch 3y ago
      A good keyboard, large battery and connectors should weight enough to balance it
  - MiddleEndian 3y ago
    The Surface Book 2 sort of did this, most of the computer was behind the screen, the base only had a keyboard, more batteries, and a GPU (which could be disabled so you could detach the screen). It got really hot really fast if you did any graphics/video work on it, even more than regular laptops do.
gizmo 3y ago
No, the primary use is in dusty industrial environments where regular fans get clogged up. Noise currently is worse than regular fans because it's higher pitched.
corysama 3y ago
Interesting point from the Linus Tech Tips video: A lot of the thermal throttling in laptops is based on user comfort (don't burn the user) rather than CPU limits. He had a demo of a laptop CPU running faster and hotter with this system because the body of the laptop was the focus of the cooling.
seltzered_ 3y ago
I was actually thinking high-end tablet PCs (like the Asus ROG Flow Z13, Microsoft surface) where they have thermal constraints due to having both a medium-TDP CPU (and GPU) AND a large display to backlight. Tablet setups also can facilitate better keyboards and an eye-level screen, as shown by members in https://reddit.com/r/ergomobilecomputers https://reddit.com/r/ergomobilecomputers

I think the use case for this would be ultra thin laptops, this could also be a quiet alternative to the current fans loudly spinning up.

by 6DM 3y ago

I think the use case for this would be ultra thin laptops, this could also be a quiet alternative to the current fans loudly spinning up.

wil421 3y ago

It’s the reason I love my M1 air so much. No fan and barely any heat. My company issued HP zbook for Software Engineers is very loud and pushes lots of heat out. I would love a quieter alternative for large Windows laptops.

CharlesW 3y ago
FWIW, Windows on Parallels is great on my M1 Air.
rimunroe 3y ago
I'm looking forward to using one of those. My mom's old Dell laptop died and she finally made the switch to the new MacBook Air. It seems fantastic. I had the 2015 MacBook. It was an oddball model which afaik never got a refresh: it didn't have any active cooling, had a 12" screen, a single USB-C port and a headphone jack, and was the and the first version of the terrible butterfly keyboard (which had to get replaced three times over its life!). I got it through my company for half price after an executive had gotten it for travel but couldn't get adapters to reliably work for presentations. The main things I remember about it (other than the terrible keyboard) were that it was delightfully portable and quiet, and that I had to consider the weather when I was deciding what to do. I haven't lived in a place with air conditioning in years, and in the summers I'd sometimes have to stop my chronic multitasking and decide if I wanted to browse/run other programs, or stream videos. On the rare occasions I'd do some programming and needed to compile something, I'd open the laptop halfway and put it on its side with a fan pointed at the back. I also put it on an ice pack on more than one occasion. I've always been surprised that condensation didn't kill it. The new Airs seems like they solidly solve all of my complaints with the 2015 MacBook, which means I might finally have found a computer which can make me as happy as my Fujitsu LifeBook P1510D did. My only quibble might be that it's still a smidge larger than what I'd like, but it's a minor quibble.
kitsunesoba 3y ago
Yeah, reducing heat output and fan noise should be more of a goal for mainstream PC vendors. My ThinkPad X1 Nano is a lovely machine… super lightweight, tiny, solidly built, decent keyboard and screen, but it starts getting hot and spins up its fan with the slightest hint of work. I have to keep its CPU throttled by putting it in power saver mode to keep its fan off (most of the time), which brings major performance tradeoffs.

idontwantthis 3y ago

Once this is affordable and proven reliable, why would laptops that are not thin and light still exist?

bick_nyers 3y ago
Structural integrity?
- tempodox 3y ago
  But only until we can crumple up our electronics like a piece of cloth.
gambiting 3y ago
I have a work laptop with a 12850HX + 3080Ti and 128GB of ram for work - even if you remove all the cooling from it, all the components still take a huge amount of space inside. The 128GB CAMM module for ram alone is larger than the entire motherboard in macbooks. Also the cooling would need to be able to deal with ~200W of heat, even solid state cooling would be quite large for such an amount of heat. https://imgur.com/a/L24ATjp https://imgur.com/a/L24ATjp that green module on the right is just ram. And Dell is trying to make this the future standard for ram modules in laptops. (ignore the dust on fans, I was in the middle of cleaning it).
- kylixz 3y ago
  What model Dell? Satisfied? We’ve tried some other Linux friendly brands and the quality control has been less than stellar.
  - gambiting 3y ago
    Yeah it's a Dell Precision 7670 - not had any problems with it, and it's an absolute beast performance wise.

Enginerrrd 3y ago

As someone that can hear a lot of "ultrasonic" frequencies, I would not assume it would be quiet. Those ultrasonic occupancy sensors are TERRIBLE. Your "quiet" laptop might be worse since the sound would be continuous instead of loud bursts.

noizz 3y ago
You are correct. LTT's coverage mentions that while it's not loud, it's a bit unpleasant due to high frequencies. Although things might get tweaked with case design probably. Regardless, I am super excited about this tech.
- moffkalast 3y ago
  After decades of jokes about laptops "lifting off" when under load, they will finally sound like a proper jet airplane.
rimunroe 3y ago
I really wonder about what the impact of having a lot of these devices in a house with animals which can hear higher frequency ranges would be. Most (all?) rodents, cats, and--to a lesser extent--dogs all hear well into the ultrasonic range. I don't know if this is the sort of ambient noise that they'd habituate to easily or if it would cause constant stress.

bitwize 3y ago

I still prefer the Apple approach: design a CPU so powerful and efficient, it can handle desktop workloads and larger and not need active cooling at all.

dimmke 3y ago
I was never into "PC Building", but had a friend who was and a few years ago they helped me build out a "Small form factor" PC, using this case: https://imgur.com/a/7xLBiC3 https://imgur.com/a/7xLBiC3 The case was designed to have two columns, and one side was dedicated to fitting a full sized graphics card. The other column was the rest of the computer. The graphics card had its own fan system, but I also needed a fan glued to the CPU and then an extra one at the bottom to help spit out exhaust. The thing ran so hot, and the cords ended up just jammed into the case where they fit. I had no experience with building PCs and was amazed I could fit a 2TB Hard drive in a tiny little stick on the motherboard, whereas X amount of years before, I would have had to install a spinning disk, much bigger. Such a huge leap forward. The main reason I wanted this form factor was because the perceived elegance of it appealed to me. But it became clear to me through the process that "small form factor" for enthusiasts is usually more about the challenge of building in a tight space. The thing is super loud with the fans and runs super hot when using it for gaming, even with a 1080ti card. That's one of the reasons Apple's progress with CPUs is so great to me. I don't want the entire industry to move to SoC style where everything is soldered to the motherboard, but the more efficient you can make the rest of the computer, the better cooling system you can design. Just like the M.2 form factor for SSDs was a huge leap. But even if you can't eliminate the need for active cooling, something like this would make things a lot better. I think you'd still have to design around where the exhaust blows out though. I think it'd be better to have the ARM increase in efficiency and then maybe combine it with something like this for extra powerful models, the way graphics cards are sold with the fans attached. Someday I'd like to be able to upgrade the build and optimize it. The dream would be to not have any fans, but some other form of active cooling, and for the machine to be basically silent, while packing a 3090+ tier graphics card.
Tade0 3y ago
I think it's less Apple and more TSMC. Through overzealous cleaning I broke the fans on my Ryzen 4800HS laptop but with the right fan-control software even that TSMC 7nm CPU operated largely fanless(they only spooled up above 80°C, which was rare) until replacements came in the mail. The M1 in the Air is throttled to roughly half the TDP of other devices with the same chip, so it's not like you're getting all the performance it can offer. That being said Apple's design is somewhat faster than competition using the same lithography.

JamesAdir 3y ago

Why do we need thinner laptops? You can hardly work on any of the current models today, which their almost zero height keys. We need better keyboards and not thinner laptops.

bryanlarsen 3y ago
Weight is a much more useful metric than height for a laptop.
packetlost 3y ago
Hard disagree. Shorter key travel is a matter of preference. I quite like the ultra-short-travel of my laptops even though I have half a dozen mechanical keyboards that I use on my desktops. It would be nice to have more options, but I'd take a thin and light over a chunky laptop any day.
dietr1ch 3y ago
I'd like if we got to the point where the computer was on the back of the monitor so it'd be easier to cool, and then the bottom would be dedicated to peripherals, including way better keyboards.
- Zanni 3y ago
  We're already there with tablets (Surface, iPad) with attached keyboards. Personally, I prefer the bulk and weight of the device to be on the table, not propped up, but some folks love this configuration.
  - dietr1ch 3y ago
    A good keyboard, large battery and connectors should weight enough to balance it
- MiddleEndian 3y ago
  The Surface Book 2 sort of did this, most of the computer was behind the screen, the base only had a keyboard, more batteries, and a GPU (which could be disabled so you could detach the screen). It got really hot really fast if you did any graphics/video work on it, even more than regular laptops do.

gizmo 3y ago

No, the primary use is in dusty industrial environments where regular fans get clogged up. Noise currently is worse than regular fans because it's higher pitched.

corysama 3y ago

Interesting point from the Linus Tech Tips video: A lot of the thermal throttling in laptops is based on user comfort (don't burn the user) rather than CPU limits. He had a demo of a laptop CPU running faster and hotter with this system because the body of the laptop was the focus of the cooling.

seltzered_ 3y ago

I was actually thinking high-end tablet PCs (like the Asus ROG Flow Z13, Microsoft surface) where they have thermal constraints due to having both a medium-TDP CPU (and GPU) AND a large display to backlight. Tablet setups also can facilitate better keyboards and an eye-level screen, as shown by members in https://reddit.com/r/ergomobilecomputers https://reddit.com/r/ergomobilecomputers