Thermal paste in unibody laptops

[FreshGuy6204]

These days unibody ultra-thin laptops are pretty popular, but one question continues to bother me, which is how to perform maintenance on them.

Sure, these laptops are generally not powerful, so they don't require large amount of airflow to cool themselves, as a result dust may build up a lot slower than in gaming laptops (maybe, I've no idea). However what about thermal paste in these machines? I've heard that thermal compounds do not stay potent forever and need to be redone once in a while, which is admittedly easy to do in gaming laptops, but these so called 'ultrabooks' are often sealed and not capable of been taken apart (is that how you say it? I'm not native English speaker so...). So how do we change thermal pastes in them?

 

I own a surface book, which is one of these unibody laptops. As it's one year old now, this question is increasingly disturbing to me...

[slightlyjaded]

Just now, FreshGuy6204 said:

These days unibody ultra-thin laptops are pretty popular, but one question continues to bother me, which is how to perform maintenance on them.

Sure, these laptops are generally not powerful, so they don't require large amount of airflow to cool themselves, as a result dust may build up a lot slower than in gaming laptops (maybe, I've no idea). However what about thermal paste in these machines? I've heard that thermal compounds do not stay potent forever and need to be redone once in a while, which is admittedly easy to do in gaming laptops, but these so called 'ultrabooks' are often sealed and not capable of been taken apart (is that how you say it? I'm not native English speaker so...). So how do we change thermal pastes in them?

 

I own a surface book, which is one of these unibody laptops. As it's one year old now, this question is increasingly disturbing to me...

As someone who's had to pull one apart to replace a dud SSD...You don't. Most of these are intended to be throw away when dead.

 

They are a bitch to work inside requiring the fingers of a two year old.

 

Thermal paste does not last forever however it does last a long time unless you're very unlucky, it isn't really a concern for most people that will probably be replacing their laptop after 2-3 years anyway.

[FreshGuy6204]

1 minute ago, rrubberr said:

HAH! I have machines from 1997 with thermal paste that's still good and moist (moist).

Really?! I heard there's something called 'pump out' effect that will degrade thermal paste after thermal cycling(s). Also maybe older machines generate lower heat? So they live longer?

[MSWindowsinside]

I honestly feel like the "thermal paste deteriorates after a while" story is a hoax. My sister uses a Core 2 Duo PC form 2006 every day and the thermal paste hasn't been replaced ever. Sure, it might run cooler with new thermal paste, but I will only replace it if the machine shuts down because of overheating.

[FreshGuy6204]

7 minutes ago, slightlyjaded said:

As someone who's had to pull one apart to replace a dud SSD...You don't. Most of these are intended to be throw away when dead.

 

They are a bitch to work inside requiring the fingers of a two year old.

 

Thermal paste does not last forever however it does last a long time unless you're very unlucky, it isn't really a concern for most people that will probably be replacing their laptop after 2-3 years anyway.

Yeah but I will probably sell it when it's obsolete.. So it better be working when I do that.

I doubt people will ever just throw laptops in garbage to be honest...

[slightlyjaded]

depends on the thermal paste I suppose. I've usually heard of thermal paste dying when it was applied direct from the factory...Maybe they tried to cut some corners and used cheap stuff?

[FreshGuy6204]

4 minutes ago, MSWindowsinside said:

I honestly feel like the "thermal paste deteriorates after a while" story is a hoax. My sister uses a Core 2 Duo PC form 2006 every day and the thermal paste hasn't been replaced ever. Sure, it might run cooler with new thermal paste, but I will only replace it if the machine shuts down because of overheating.

Speaking of this, I think computers nowadays will never shut down due to overheating anymore. Thermal throttling, right?

I remember someone said modern CPUs will continue to run even if you take the heatsink off. They will throttle down so hard, maybe to a few MHz, and still runs.

Is this true? Legit question here.

[Pendragon]

38 minutes ago, FreshGuy6204 said:

Really?! I heard there's something called 'pump out' effect that will degrade thermal paste after thermal cycling(s). Also maybe older machines generate lower heat? So they live longer?

 

 

 

Pump out only occurs when the heatsink is uneven. 

 

29 minutes ago, FreshGuy6204 said:

I remember someone said modern CPUs will continue to run even if you take the heatsink off. They will throttle down so hard, maybe to a few MHz, and still runs.

Is this true? Legit question here.

 

 

Whoever told u this is a plain stupid. LOL. They thermal throttle, but the CPU will still ramp up in heat. Even throttling will not stop it from reaching TJMax. 

[slightlyjaded]

26 minutes ago, FreshGuy6204 said:

Speaking of this, I think computers nowadays will never shut down due to overheating anymore. Thermal throttling, right?

I remember someone said modern CPUs will continue to run even if you take the heatsink off. They will throttle down so hard, maybe to a few MHz, and still runs.

Is this true? Legit question here.

nope. They'll shut down. It's what happens when a Corsair pump fails on an AIO (cheap piece of shit)