Alienware 15 R3 thermal pad thiccness??

[Kanishk Modi]

Hi! I have a 2017 Alienware R3 with a 7th gen i7 and a 1060. I want to replace the thermal pads on the laptop. However I don’t know what thickness to order. I’m afraid that if it’s too thin, the VRMs and the VRAM won’t get enough cooling. And if it’s too thick, the heat sink might not sit flush with the CPU and GPU die causing issues there. Does anybody know the answer to this? 
 

Btw, I can’t really tell from my old thermal pads since they’re squished flat like pancakes after 4 yrs of usage. 
 

Thank you in advance!

[Thomas4]

They come with 1mm pads but it's been reported that 1.5mm pads work with the advantage of better heat conduction.

[Kanishk Modi]

35 minutes ago, Thomas4 said:

They come with 1mm pads but it's been reported that 1.5mm pads work with the advantage of better heat conduction.

Gotcha, thank you so much! Do you know if the extra thickness will interfere with CPU cooling? Since it basically raises the heat sink a little bit more.
 

For others, more answers are still welcome if you wanna give your suggestions. 

[Thomas4]

No, according to what I gleaned over, by better moving the heat away it, if I read correctly, the extra 0.5mm allows the CPU to perform better at the same temperature because there's heat less strain on it.

[Kanishk Modi]

59 minutes ago, Thomas4 said:

No, according to what I gleaned over, by better moving the heat away it, if I read correctly, the extra 0.5mm allows the CPU to perform better at the same temperature because there's heat less strain on it.

Ohh.. interesting! Aight, guess I’m buying 1.5mm thermal pads then. Thank you so much.

[Kanishk Modi]

On 11/9/2022 at 12:34 PM, Thomas4 said:

They come with 1mm pads but it's been reported that 1.5mm pads work with the advantage of better heat conduction.

Hi, sorry to say but that was incorrect. I bought the 1.5mm pads and put it on my GPU VRAM chips. After assembling, when I stress tested my laptop, the CPU stayed at chill 65C and my GPU shot straight to 93C before I could even scroll down in HWinfo. Most likely, because 1.5mm was too thick, the heatsink didn’t make proper contact with the GPU die. Also, I didn’t forget to repaste so don’t worry there.

 

I’m ordering a 3 pack of 0.5, 1 and 1.5. Since 1.5 is not an option, I’m gonna try both 1 and .5 and reply back with the correct answer. Thanks for the help anyways!

[Odai]

On 11/14/2022 at 8:49 AM, Kanishk Modi said:

Hi, sorry to say but that was incorrect. I bought the 1.5mm pads and put it on my GPU VRAM chips. After assembling, when I stress tested my laptop, the CPU stayed at chill 65C and my GPU shot straight to 93C before I could even scroll down in HWinfo. Most likely, because 1.5mm was too thick, the heatsink didn’t make proper contact with the GPU die. Also, I didn’t forget to repaste so don’t worry there.

 

I’m ordering a 3 pack of 0.5, 1 and 1.5. Since 1.5 is not an option, I’m gonna try both 1 and .5 and reply back with the correct answer. Thanks for the help anyways!

did you find the right thermal pad thickness??
And is there any drop in CPU/GPU temps after changing pads and repasting?
Thanks in advance.