So I took my grandmothers laptop apart...

[scaryjam823]

Well my grandmother dc port on her laptop failed, so I ordered a new one. Had to take the laptop apart to replace it, figured while I had it I would reapply thermal paste since she has had it for about 3 years now. This is what I found...[spoiler=]

I think they should have used more thermal paste...

[Ryan Leech]

What cpu is that?

[piplupgao]

I love how they label the CPU

[Suika]

Laptop manufacturers are typically sloppy with applying thermal paste. Remember, a laptop isn't exactly designed to run at full capacity, so it matters little to them.

[DGPC]

Definitely not the best or most precise job, but really the centre of the CPU DOES create the most heat so I'm not worried.

[MegaDave91]

Way too much thermal paste there.

[tryphaa]

Yay for old laptops.

[scaryjam823]

What cpu is that?

Core I3

 

Yay for old laptops.

Inspirion 15" not that old lol

 

Definitely not the best or most precise job, but really the centre of the CPU DOES create the most heat so I'm not worried.

The problem is when too much thermal paste is applied it acts as an insulator and will be worse than no thermal paste at all.

 

Oh and that wasn't all the thermal paste, there's about the same amount left on the heat sink...

[DudeWazap]

I think I should re apply thermal paste on my mom's PC soon shes had it for about 4 or 5 years.

[scaryjam823]

I think I should re apply thermal paste on my mom's PC soon shes had it for about 4 or 5 years.

Seeing this make me want to take my old laptop apart and redo the thermal paste... Heck it makes me want to redo thermal paste on every laptop I will ever own now... That's just crazy and can kill the cpu,

[DudeWazap]

Seeing this make me want to take my old laptop apart and redo the thermal paste... Heck it makes me want to redo thermal paste on every laptop I will ever own now... That's just crazy and can kill the cpu,

I think that the people that apply the thermal paste just don't really care. Since they are doing the same thing over and over all day.

[scaryjam823]

I think that the people that apply the thermal paste just don't really care. Since they are doing the same thing over and over all day.

Well why would they? Not like it's going to come back to any specific person. To the average joe it wouldn't matter if they did, but to us who know about tech that is just ridiculous.

[Frankie]

@scaryjam823 *Sigh* I repaired about 12 nootebooks, and almost every single one was like this. I died a little, not gonna lie

[scaryjam823]

@scaryjam823 *Sigh* I repaired about 12 nootebooks, and almost every single one was like this. I died a little, not gonna lie

I almost cried when I seen it.

 

This laptop is about the most aggravating thing though... You have to completely disassemble it to change the hard drive. Her hard drive failed a month ago and I thought no sweat easy to replace. Well after I had the laptop down to the motherboard I thought otherwise. 

It's not a big deal now that I know how to disassemble this thing. But the drive is literally on it's own corner of the laptop case. it would take no effort for them to have put a door to it. If I had a dremel I could make one myself lol.

 

I've been trying to convince her to get a new one but she won't budge. Battery is bad, dc jack has failed, hard drive has failed, power cord has failed, screen has a stuck pixel and it has some issues with speed. 

[MuffinTopMike]

Your Grandma should sue Dell. More retirement money!

[GeTecknics]

makes me want to check out my moms laptop thing sounds like a jet at 25%load been about 5yrs since i cleaned it nice and good

[Frankie]

I almost cried when I seen it.

 

This laptop is about the most aggravating thing though... You have to completely disassemble it to change the hard drive. Her hard drive failed a month ago and I thought no sweat easy to replace. Well after I had the laptop down to the motherboard I thought otherwise. 

It's not a big deal now that I know how to disassemble this thing. But the drive is literally on it's own corner of the laptop case. it would take no effort for them to have put a door to it. If I had a dremel I could make one myself lol.

 

I've been trying to convince her to get a new one but she won't budge. Battery is bad, dc jack has failed, hard drive has failed, power cord has failed, screen has a stuck pixel and it has some issues with speed. 

 

Been there. I had here nootebook to reinstall win and clean the inside. Freaking Dell put the exhaust fan with attached heatsinks under MOBO. To take out the MOBO I had to take out the screen completely. Then Take out the MOBO, And finally flip it to clean the fan a reapply the paste. I like to do this sort of stuff but man... It was exhausting

[scaryjam823]

Been there. I had here nootebook to reinstall win and clean the inside. Freaking Dell put the exhaust fan with attached heatsinks under MOBO. To take out the MOBO I had to take out the screen completely. Then Take out the MOBO, And finally flip it to clean the can a reapply the paste. I like to do this sort of stuff but man... It was exhausting

That's what I had to do lol. But to replace the dc jack I had to get the sister motherboard out anyways which required to remove the screen and motherboard. The first time I tore it apart took me about 30 minutes, this time took me about 5. Wanted to hurry and get the nightmare over with lol I like working on desktops, laptops not so much. Not when they are like this anyways. I can only imagine the amount of thermal paste acer computer have

[Frankie]

That's what I had to do lol. But to replace the dc jack I had to get the sister motherboard out anyways which required to remove the screen and motherboard. The first time I tore it apart took me about 30 minutes, this time took me about 5. Wanted to hurry and get the nightmare over with lol

 

Yeah I 100% believe you And about your grandma. I had to deal with this kind of stuff too. Try to convince her money wise, it often works Explain that the components are gonna die one by one. And that its cheaper to buy new laptop in a long run, than to put money little by little to keep the old one running. Just my advice

[scaryjam823]

Yeah I 100% believe you And about your grandma. I had to deal with this kind of stuff too. Try to convince her money wise, it often works Explain that the components are gonna die one by one. And that its cheaper to buy new laptop in a long run, than to put money little by little to keep the old one running. Just my advice

Oh believe me I have. I have told her if she spends $800 on a laptop not only will it not have problems for a long time. It will be cheaper in the long run because it will be more powerful and last longer. But she has the mind set of if a $800 laptop lasts 5 years, she would rather buy two $400 laptops instead. I gave her the example of my dell laptop. Had it for 4 years, spent $1200 on it and haven't had a single problem out of it yet. Not even a hard drive has failed. But she just doesn't get it, it doesn't help she is starting to has early onset alzheimers either.

[Cwazywazy]

Yeah, Dell used rock hard thermal paste in my laptop as stock and they did a BIOS update with severe CPU throttling so it doesn't overheat. Yeah.

 

I used Throttlestop to get around this but it started overheating a lot. (Like over 200F with fan max speed.) I scraped off the thermal paste, reapplied, added a copper shim to the CPU and GPU, undervolted the CPU, and now the CPU runs 140-150F max with the fan off.

[flibberdipper]

Wow. Kinda wonder how much my netbook has now...

[flibberdipper]

Yeah, Dell used rock hard thermal paste in my laptop as stock and they did a BIOS update with severe CPU throttling so it doesn't overheat. Yeah.

 

I used Throttlestop to get around this but it started overheating a lot. (Like over 200F with fan max speed.) I scraped off the thermal paste, reapplied, added a copper shim to the CPU and GPU, undervolted the CPU, and now the CPU runs 140-150F max with the fan off.

I noticed after I put the SSD in my netbook, the fan doesn't turn on initially until about 50C. Then it works fine, unless it gets down around the ambient, then sometimes it turns back off.

[scaryjam823]

Yeah, Dell used rock hard thermal paste in my laptop as stock and they did a BIOS update with severe CPU throttling so it doesn't overheat. Yeah.

 

I used Throttlestop to get around this but it started overheating a lot. (Like over 200F with fan max speed.) I scraped off the thermal paste, reapplied, added a copper shim to the CPU and GPU, undervolted the CPU, and now the CPU runs 140-150F max with the fan off.

That's how this is, hard as a rock.

[Atrum_Aduro]

I thought that was gum at first