Thermal pads on MSI Stealth 15m A11UEK-009us

[DDO]

Hi everyone,

 

The CPU temperatures on my MSI laptop were a bit high so I figured maybe I could improve the temps a bit by changing the thermal paste. I openened up the laptop and I was about the clean the old paste off the CPU and GPU when I noticed something weird. There is yellow tape between the thermal pads and the vrms (or mosfets,chokes or whatever they're called) and thermal pads are applied only to the top row. For the bottom row of vrms (R15), in stead of thermal pads, they put a thin layer of a white paste-like substance on the heatsink. Except for the one on the far left, it doesn't look like any of the vrms is actually touching the white paste. (see pictures)

 

Does anyone know what this white substance is and if it's supposed to be hovering above the vrms without touching it? 

 

I have some spare 0.5mm gelid extreme thermal pads laying around here which I could put on the bottom row of R15's in stead of the white paste. Should I wipe off the white paste and put the thermal pads on, or leave it as is? 

 

Any advice would be very much appreciated!

 

Dave

 

 

[CWALD]

I've seen the yellow tape used in electronic development before but not on a final product, not sure what's special about it other then being non-conductive.

 

I would remove the tape and existing thermal pads/past, then use thermal pads/past to create a thermal contact between the VRMs and heatsink. 

[DDO]

22 hours ago, CWALD said:

I've seen the yellow tape used in electronic development before but not on a final product, not sure what's special about it other then being non-conductive.

 

I would remove the tape and existing thermal pads/past, then use thermal pads/past to create a thermal contact between the VRMs and heatsink. 

Hi CWALD, 

 

Thanks for your reply! 

 

If I would remove the white substance and replace it with thermal pads, how would I find out what thickness thermal pad I should use? 

[CWALD]

19 minutes ago, DDO said:

Hi CWALD, 

 

Thanks for your reply! 

 

If I would remove the white substance and replace it with thermal pads, how would I find out what thickness thermal pad I should use? 

If you can get a pair of calipers in the gap then that will give you an exact value, otherwise I would either layer some thin ones or go with a best guess, error on the side of being to thick and let the mounting pressure push it down.

 

Thermal pads on vrms aren't as critical as a CPU or GPU so as long as there is contact then you can say good enough, you just don't want that tape insulating it.

[DDO]

12 minutes ago, CWALD said:

If you can get a pair of calipers in the gap then that will give you an exact value, otherwise I would either layer some thin ones or go with a best guess, error on the side of being to thick and let the mounting pressure push it down.

 

Thermal pads on vrms aren't as critical as a CPU or GPU so as long as there is contact then you can say good enough, you just don't want that tape insulating it.

Ok, thanks, I'll give it a try. 

 

If the tape isn't supposed to be in there they (MSI) sure dropped the ball on this one.... This was the first time I opened it up and untill yesterday the factory seal was still on there so nobody else could have gone in to add the sticker... 

[CWALD]

21 minutes ago, DDO said:

Ok, thanks, I'll give it a try. 

 

If the tape isn't supposed to be in there they (MSI) sure dropped the ball on this one.... This was the first time I opened it up and untill yesterday the factory seal was still on there so nobody else could have gone in to add the sticker... 

Yea, this isn't the first time I've seen build quality issues with MSI. My brother got a desktop with such bad cable management that the PSU was pulling down on the GPU.