Repasting help needed

[Ghidorrak]

Following from this topic, I am seeking advice on how to apply new thermal paste on both my CPU and GPU. Most people on the internet tend a suggest applying a small pea of paste on both, and resting the heatsink on them, but there are others who suggest to apply the paste across all of the surface of both CPU and GPU.

This is what my laptop's inside looks like:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/58326430/2014-01-04 13.05.26.jpg

And this is what the CPU looks like. I simply raised the pipe, didn't put any strength to it, and this is what I saw:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/58326430/2014-01-04 13.49.20.jpg


I ordered an Arctic MX-4 paste from Amazon and it should be here in the middle of the week. My main concern right now however, is one of the screws that are keeping the GPU pinned; it's actually the one slightly visible in the first picture, on the top-right corner (right above the bend of the pipe that leads to the CPU). I tried unscrewing it with my screwdrivers, and it was the only one that gave me a problem, to the point where I may have probably damaged it and can not do anything else to unscrew it. I am thinking that I can try once more, and if I can't, I'll take the laptop and the paste to a store for computer repairs and ask them to do it for me with a screw extractor or something.

 

[tom_gr7]

well, firstly, I'm glad that you ordered some MX4. Otherwise I would have told you to go and buy some MX4 or Noctua's thermal paste, as they are non conductive. You should use non conductive thermal paste on gpu's. Don't use MX5 (or any other conductive paste)on gpu's.

I would probably suggest giving PCS a call and ask them to talk you through removing the heatsink. Or take it to a shop and ask them to remove it. Although, don't let them repaste it. Could quite possibly apply too much paste or use crap cheapy knock of paste or whatever. (if you want something doing properly do it yourself)

You will also need some thermal paste cleaner, such as this (smells lovely btw)

Give the cpu and gpu a clean and remove all the old paste. To repaste simply put a tiny blob in the middle of the cpu/gpu (less is more!) then re fit the heatsink as evenly as you can. You will know if you have done it right. yes, some people do suggest spreading the paste around the cpu/gpu. However, laptops are alot smaller with less surface area, so a tiny blob in the middle will spread evenly with the pressure of the heatsink being screwed in. If you were repasting a desktop gpu, then yes it would be worth spreading the paste evenly, but not in this case.

Now, I think MX4 requires some burn in time to get the best performance of the paste, so do take note of that.

Boot up the laptop and run prime 95 for a while, use HWMonitor to observe the cpu core temps. For gpu temps, I'd suggest using GPUZ as you can record the data, (known as log to file) open gpuz and click log to file. Play some demanding games and check later. You could use MSI afterburner or EVGA precision, however, I'm not sure how they perform on laptops.

I hope this helps.

 

[Ghidorrak]

Thanks for the advice Tom.

In the end I took the computer to a store near here and they applied new thermal paste on both CPU and GPU.

I have been using the laptop for the last three days and the problem has vanished. It seems to be what I suspected, driver failure because of overheating, but we'll see.