HoffThaMan

Ok LTT forum members. I need some combined brain power to help me come to a conclusion on a CPU and GPU issue i'm having with my Asus ROG Strix Scar Edition laptop. The specs of the laptop are as follows: 1. Intel Core i7 8750H CPU 2. GTX 1050 Ti 4gb 3. 32gb Samsung 2666Mhz PC4-21300 RAM 4. Sabrent 1tb PCIe 3.0 NVMe SSD (main OS drive) 5. Crucial CT1050 MX300 1tb SSD (Storage Drive) OK so I purchased the laptop brand new from Xotic PC a few months ago with a few pre-selected upgrades. I chose a RAM upgrade from 16gb-32gb and a drive upgrade from a standard 256gb SSD to a 256gb NVMe ssd. In their listing they say that the box will arrive opened because any laptop ordered with custom upgrades has to be opened, upgraded, and tested. Ok no big deal. It was actually cheaper to go this route than buying the components myself. Even though I knew I was gonna upgrade the drives as soon as I got it! . From day 1 the CPU ran a little warm. The first thing i do with a new system is throw HWINFO64, AIDA64 Extreme, and CPUID, etc... on it as i'm sure everyone on this forum does! SO, right off the bat I noticed that the CPU temps at idle were about 50-55c and under AIDA64 Stress test load the temps ran mid 80's and the fans were full blast. Eventually the temps under load climbed to 95c!! Way to high for my liking! I just figured that since it was a laptop and as with MOST laptops the cooling solution wasn't all that great so it just ran a little warm. However I was excited to crack this bad boy open and check out the cooling solution and upgrade the thermal paste and pads while I was at it! I mean come on, everyone rips apart their new laptops the day they get them right! I have a habit of ripping everything apart as soon as I get it in my hands! I mean why not right! Ok, so the cooling solution actually didn't look half bad! It had nice beefy heatpipes, fairly thick copper plates (about 1.5mm) and what appeared to be maybe Arctic 1mm thermal pads. So I noticed pretty quick that the stock thermal paste looked like crap! It was runny looking and just all around terrible as seen in the pics. So I quickly noticed that it looked like there were "scuff" marks on the CPU and heatsink! I'm like no freakin way! I noticed that the GPU had similar marks however when I looked at it closer after cleaning the old thermal paste off I noticed that some of the text from the GPU is actually burned or embedded into the heatsink! You'll notice that in the pic of the cleaned heatsink for the GPU you can clearly see the text from the GPU die BURNED into the copper! The scuff mark looking marks on the CPU and GPU die are smooth as glass so they aren't scuff marks! A scuff mark would imply that the surface was scratched therefore leaving a rough surface and I ran my fingernail over it and it's smooth as butter. So I reached out to the seller Xotic PC and told them what was happening and sent them 50 pics and everything and they assured me that their techs said that my CPU and GPU didn't have burn marks but didnt offer up what they thought the parks were and that my temps were fine! ? Ummmmm really! 95c is fine! And the huge scuff/burn marks are normal? I'm sorry but in the 18 years i've been building and ripping computers apart i've never seen this! I've overclocked CPU's and GPU's and certainly trashed my fair share of components but i've never seen die's look like this! I searched google for pics of CPU's with similar issues and found nothing! So I figured if I want any chance at getting an answer I need to turn to the community! Hoping someone out there knows exactly what these marks are with certainty! Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks everyone for your help in advance!! Oh and just a FYI, I did replace the thermal paste with Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut and Fujipoly Extreme Thermal Pads. This did bring the temps down some and the CPU is not hitting 90's as of yet! But it's back to running mid 80's under load. I'm just fairly certain that the CPU die is burned/damaged!

I know this post is old but figured i'd share my 2 cents. I just delidded an Intel Core 2 Duo E4400 and it's not soldere d. It has a really plastic feeling thermal adhesive. I dont think its dried up paste but actual thermal adhesive or glue. I used a regular razor blade and about 5 min and it came right open!