Looking for Thermal Paste for My Laptop, if Necessary

[TukangUsapEmenq]

Hello there. I've got this Acer Aspire E5-475G with Intel Core i5 7200U (2.5 GHz normal, 3.1 turbo) and GeForce 940MX.

My usage, nearly everyday for game like Dota 2, or some daily works. Runs nicely still even after 1.5 year, but somewhat with a little shutter in little case.

 

Questions are:

1. Do I even need to change the thermal paste after 1.5 year of daily usage?

2. If so, what thermal paste do you guys recommend? No need to fancy thermal paste, just the thing that can meet my needs. That's all.

 

I found CoolerMaster MasterGel, and the Pro ones. Seems good actually for me, but need your guys opinion too for long-term usage either. (opening this laptop, seriously pain in the ass)

[Adorable Cat]

To answer your first question, If you aren't having problems with thermals, there really isn't any need to replace the paste. 

[Silentprototipe]

There isnt a need to replace it if the temps are fine but if you really wanna something like Arctic MX-4(Non conductive) or Silver 5 (I use it tho its conductive) 

[SupaKomputa]

6 minutes ago, dhannemon13 said:

1. Do I even need to change the thermal paste after 1.5 year of daily usage?

most of time thermal paste in laptop can last its lifetime.

i suggest clearing the dust.

[N1G3L.L0K3]

17 minutes ago, dhannemon13 said:

Hello there. I've got this Acer Aspire E5-475G with Intel Core i5 7200U (2.5 GHz normal, 3.1 turbo) and GeForce 940MX.

My usage, nearly everyday for game like Dota 2, or some daily works. Runs nicely still even after 1.5 year, but somewhat with a little shutter in little case.

 

Questions are:

1. Do I even need to change the thermal paste after 1.5 year of daily usage?

2. If so, what thermal paste do you guys recommend? No need to fancy thermal paste, just the thing that can meet my needs. That's all.

 

I found CoolerMaster MasterGel, and the Pro ones. Seems good actually for me, but need your guys opinion too for long-term usage either. (opening this laptop, seriously pain in the ass)

I have a laptop similar to this including the CPU and GPU (F5-573G), and even after modding the thermals with Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut recently, there's not much significant gains in terms of raw performance. But thermals definitely improved (I didn't setup a baseline, oops)

The limitation is rather the 7200U and/or the 940MX. I have a much bigger limitation which is a pure hard drive for boot and programs, which I do intend to upgrade to a 500GB SSD (trading some capacity but I have a rig to store the rest of my archive) to keep it going.

 

AND, the screws Acer used are really shitty, as I actually shaved off 2 of the small Philips screwheads (one of which was on the GPU mount) after using brute force to unscrew them, which is mostly due to the excessive use of threadlockers, and I had to resort to the jankiest way to get the heatpipe off, which risked breaking the mobo, which luckily it didn't.

 

If you wanna know what I did, I basically rotated the heatpipe till the screw came loose, which it did and managed to remove it in one piece.

[TukangUsapEmenq]

4 hours ago, N1G3L.L0K3 said:

But thermals definitely improved

What actually I wanted tho. I play Dota without any external keyboard (a habit, can't seemingly to use any keyboard either lol) and I need the thermal as good as possible.

 

3 hours ago, N1G3L.L0K3 said:

AND, the screws Acer used are really shitty, as I actually shaved off 2 of the small Philips screwheads (one of which was on the GPU mount) after using brute force to unscrew them, which is mostly due to the excessive use of threadlockers, and I had to resort to the jankiest way to get the heatpipe off, which risked breaking the mobo, which luckily it didn't.

 

Dunno, but I think that's actually right. I actually got two Acer laptops (one my old 4253 with AMD E-350) and tbh the screws aren't so good too.

Hard as f screws to remove lol

4 hours ago, N1G3L.L0K3 said:

The limitation is rather the 7200U and/or the 940MX. I have a much bigger limitation which is a pure hard drive for boot and programs, which I do intend to upgrade to a 500GB SSD (trading some capacity but I have a rig to store the rest of my archive) to keep it going.

Use HDD caddies, if possible tho. And that F5-573G actually can use M.2 SSD (as so far I read it online, and actually our motherboard are exactly the same shape), so might be worth to try.

 

4 hours ago, SupaKomputa said:

most of time thermal paste in laptop can last its lifetime.

i suggest clearing the dust.

Dust already cleared enough, found a nice pile of dusts stuck on the side lol

[N1G3L.L0K3]

19 hours ago, dhannemon13 said:

And that F5-573G actually can use M.2 SSD

That is, if you can find the standoff and screw kit, since Acer doesn't sell that, and it isn't installed on my laptop.

My laptop does have that slot, but I would need to resort to hunting dead F5/E5 laptops for the screw kit at Sim Lim Square (I live in Singapore)

 

As for the HDD caddy thing, well the laptop doesn't have a third SATA combo slot, and the other SATA port uses a smaller power connector and to use it would mean having to sacrifice my DVD drive.

[TukangUsapEmenq]

1 hour ago, N1G3L.L0K3 said:

That is, if you can find the standoff and screw kit, since Acer doesn't sell that, and it isn't installed on my laptop.

Can't you just search for the screw? 

 

1 hour ago, N1G3L.L0K3 said:

As for the HDD caddy thing, well the laptop doesn't have a third SATA combo slot, and the other SATA port uses a smaller power connector and to use it would mean having to sacrifice my DVD drive.

Well, that's exactly what it do. We barely use DVD anymore anyway lol

[N1G3L.L0K3]

On 1/17/2019 at 1:12 AM, dhannemon13 said:

Can't you just search for the screw? 

Go have a try, been searching for BOTH the standoff and the screw, and plus shipping costs, I'd rather not use the M.2 slot. 

I do have the P/N for the standoff, but for the screw I don't. 

[The_Big_Grape]

On 1/15/2019 at 9:21 AM, dhannemon13 said:

Hello there. I've got this Acer Aspire E5-475G with Intel Core i5 7200U (2.5 GHz normal, 3.1 turbo) and GeForce 940MX.

My usage, nearly everyday for game like Dota 2, or some daily works. Runs nicely still even after 1.5 year, but somewhat with a little shutter in little case.

 

Questions are:

1. Do I even need to change the thermal paste after 1.5 year of daily usage?

2. If so, what thermal paste do you guys recommend? No need to fancy thermal paste, just the thing that can meet my needs. That's all.

 

I found CoolerMaster MasterGel, and the Pro ones. Seems good actually for me, but need your guys opinion too for long-term usage either. (opening this laptop, seriously pain in the ass)

Laptop thermal paste lasts a really long time but If you want to change it I recommend the THERMALTAKE TG-7 I always use it and I have really good temps.  It is around ~$8 USD. 

[TukangUsapEmenq]

On 1/18/2019 at 5:05 PM, N1G3L.L0K3 said:

Go have a try, been searching for BOTH the standoff and the screw, and plus shipping costs, I'd rather not use the M.2 slot. 

I do have the P/N for the standoff, but for the screw I don't. 

Actually found something interesting regarding that, on my local forum at my country. Using one of the back cover screw, said the screw is too long either, but he didn't screw it too deep anyway. And it said works well.

Spoiler

Woulda works either. Have a try either. Or sacrifice your DVD reader or your HDD lol

 

21 hours ago, The_Big_Grape said:

Laptop thermal paste lasts a really long time but If you want to change it I recommend the THERMALTAKE TG-7 I always use it and I have really good temps.  It is around ~$8 USD. 

Good recommend, thanks!

[The_Big_Grape]

On 1/15/2019 at 9:21 AM, dhannemon13 said:

Hello there

General Kenobi

[Yeet thy feet]

9 hours ago, The_Big_Grape said:

General Kenobi

Lol