Replacing Laptop Thermal Compound

[Mojo-Jojo]

I noticed that my laptop's been heating up a lot recently even though I just cleared the heatsink and fins of dust.

It idles at around 60c and under even light load'll go up to 70-80c. Not good.

 

So, I've ordered some Arctic silver 5 since I'm almost out, and am planning to replace the thermal compound.

I expect to find horribly crusty old cheap compound  :rolleyes:

 

I want this to go as smoothly as possible.

• I have an ESD safe mat
• I have a grounding wristband
• Gonna let the lappy do some work before removing it to make removal of the heatsink easier
• remove battery and charger obviously
• gently remove the old compound and clear the rest with denat alcohol
• Apply new compound
• wiggle wiggle wiggle wiggle wiggle yeah
•  \
• let it fill the microgrooves for a bit
• ??
• profit

 

Now my questions to you:

1. Any hints or tips? Do's and don'ts?
2. I have never replaced laptop thermal compound before. I know there's no heatspreader. How easily will I damage the chips?
3. Since there's no heatspreader I expect that I have to use a different method of applying the heatspreader. What's the best way?
4. I also suspect that I'll be needing to apply a different amount of paste. Less or more?
5. Or does the uncooked grain of rice method still apply?

 

It's one of them GPU+CPU combo heatsinks.

I've googled a bit and found various results, hence my questions here.

 

Thanks for your time!

[DarrenP]

I noticed that my laptop's been heating up a lot recently even though I just cleared the heatsink and fins of dust.

It idles at around 60c and under even light load'll go up to 70-80c. Not good.

 

So, I've ordered some Arctic silver 5 since I'm almost out, and am planning to replace the thermal compound.

I expect to find horribly crusty old cheap compound  :rolleyes:

 

I want this to go as smoothly as possible.

• I have an ESD safe mat
• I have a grounding wristband
• Gonna let the lappy do some work before removing it to make removal of the heatsink easier
• remove battery and charger obviously
• gently remove the old compound and clear the rest with denat alcohol
• Apply new compound
• wiggle wiggle wiggle wiggle wiggle yeah \
• let it fill the microgrooves for a bit
• ??
• profit

 

Now my questions to you:

1. Any hints or tips? Do's and don'ts?
2. I have never replaced laptop thermal compound before. I know there's no heatspreader. How easily will I damage the chips?
3. Since there's no heatspreader I expect that I have to use a different method of applying the heatspreader. What's the best way?
4. I also suspect that I'll be needing to apply a different amount of paste. Less or more?
5. Or does the uncooked grain of rice method still apply?

 

It's one of them GPU+CPU combo heatsinks.

I've googled a bit and found various results, hence my questions here.

 

Thanks for your time!

What laptop is it? 

[Zeke]

Take the photo of the internals before disassembling. Never apply excessive force, instead look for extra screws/latches. Maybe you'd need a bit less thermal paste (depends on the size of the chip) than on desktop PC, but the method is pretty much the same. Oh, and mark the screws, I once had a laptop with two almost identical types of screws (the length was different). I've messed them up just a bit, and some of them bent the plastic near the keyboard.

[Mojo-Jojo]

What laptop is it? 

Man I keep forgetting to add my system to my signature. It's an Asus n55sf.

[DarrenP]

No point in changing the thermal compound. You're not gonna notice a huge difference and 60*C isn't a huge deal anyway. That's normal for a laptop.

[Mojo-Jojo]

No point in changing the thermal compound. You're not gonna notice a huge difference and 60*C isn't a huge deal anyway. That's normal for a laptop.

At idle though? Even opening up chrome it shoots to 80c. It was never this way when I got it, it'd be at a much more comfortable 40-ish when idling.

[DarrenP]

Likely needs cleaning than. Blow it out with an air compressor. 

[Mojo-Jojo]

Likely needs cleaning than. Blow it out with an air compressor. 

Actually already did that as stated in first post, but thanks for the tip anyway

 

I think I'm gonna be stubborn and try it anyway. Once I'm done I'll post the results. Maybe I'll take pictures or make a video and turn it into a guide. Who knows!

[DarkEnergy]

You're lucky. Mine reaches 100c. And the bad part is that it uses thermal pads instead of paste so I have to order them. 

[Mojo-Jojo]

The old paste had gone crusty.

After applying new paste (paste I had lying around, my arctic silver 5 shipment got delayed) it idles at 40-50 and under full load it's at 80-90, however the fan doesn't have to try as hard.

There's around 10c difference between the hottest and coolest core under full load, possible bad thermal paste application, but still manageable even for the hottest core.

Much better than having it be 80c just browsing the web, and much less throttling in games.

All in all it's shaved around 20c off idle and light load tempsp

I'll redo the paste when my arctic silver comes in, today was just a quickie.