XPS 13 (9370) best cooling option

[im_diegod]

Hi everyone, I'm in some sort of an impasse, my XPS 13 9370 (i7 8550u, 16GB, 4k display) hasn't seen any maintenance in about 2 years (it was my dad's and I bought it from him at half the price) and the temps have been getting higher, idleing at 50° and under light load at 60°. Now, of course I'm going to get rid of every possible bit of accumulated dust I see, but my main question is should I get the Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut for repasting the CPU or should I get the Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut liquid metal and give it a shot? (Also, I'll be switching the thermal pads from stock to Thermal Grizzly Minus pad 8's for better results)

[Zando_]

Kryonaut. I very much do not advise conductonaut on anything that isn't sealed up unless you really know what you're doing. Very easy to form tiny conductive blobs of the shit that roll away to parts unknown and cause nasty issues if you don't have steady hands or aren't super careful when applying it. If a laptop can't be brought within safe limits (to be fair, yours is well within that) with Kryo then it's a bad cooling design to begin with. 

[im_diegod]

Thanks a lot for your reply, @Zando Bob! I'll wait until tomorrow to see if someone else gives their opinion, but I figured that liquid metal is something too ambitious for a laptop. Do you have any particular suggestions on applying the Kryonaut thermal paste? Like, less/same/little more than the usual amount?

[Darkseth]

just spread it thin with a spatula, an old credit card or something like that, so the whole area is covered with a thin layer.

That should do it just fine, and it won't be too less or too much.

Anything too much will be pushed to the sides anyway with enough pressure, that's why a regular paste is much safer than liquid metal. So from me also: Get the regular Kryonaut, and NOT the Liquid Metal Conductonaut.

 

From my experience, it really doesn't matter if you spread it thin, put a Drop on it, write an X, or any other Symbol.

That maybe 1 or 2 °C more or less is more often measurement tolerance, than actually better/worse. I never had any differences, so i did it the most clean way.

[im_diegod]

Thanks everyone for your help, what are your thoughts on Thermal Grizzly's Carbonaut pads? Is it the middle ground between the performance of Liquid Metal and the reliability and safety of use of Kryonaut? Will the 0.2mm thick be enough for my laptop?