[Alienware 17R4 / 15R3] - Disassembly + Repaste Guide + Results

Yes, that's the one. I meant there's another kind of black non-vinyl tape under the heatsink around the copper block.

 

Ah okay got it

 

How you can stick that little heatsink to PCH dude?

 

The heatsink has 7 screws numbered from 1 to 7. I assume that it has to be adjusted in that order. My question is, should I adjust them to the maximum one by one or do it in two passes? First, place all the screws without tightening them to the maximum (following the order of the numbers) and then, in a second pass, adjust them to the maximum pressure. Do you understand what I say? Does anyone know the "torque" I should give to heatsink screws?

 

Just wanted to write a quick review of sorts here. I had originally purchased all of the items to attempt to do this guide myself, and while I figure I could have done it, I had some self-doubt that I wasn't able to overcome. So I did the next best thing: acquired @iunlock services to do all this for me, and boy am I glad I did!

There are not enough words to describe all of the good things I feel need to be said about him and his services. Professional every step of the way, keeps you informed of everything, explains everything, and just reassures you your system is in the best possible hands. If you're going to trust anyone with your system, it should be iunlock. Hands down.

For all those concerned about liquid metal, it's the real deal, and when done by someone like iunlock, you don't need to worry in the slightest. It withstood the shipping process, which I'm sure means it was thrown around and in varying orientations, and I've had it in my backpack, vertical, moving it around, without issue. Temperatures before were high 40s to low 50s at idle, and 95 degrees when at full load cpu/gpu. After LM application, at idle it's in the low 30s, even hit as low as 29C! His custom tuning is beyond excellent, and with various components running at their full unlocked potential, idle is in the low 40s, with only ever reaching in the higher 50s for long gaming sessions in HotS or OW. I played Witcher 3 for a couple of hours, and the CPU/GPU only reached low to mid-70s (and that's with Hairworks on!). Benchmarking also kept it in the low to mid-70s at full load CPU/GPU.

His OCD is definitely real, but in a very, very good way. All of the little things he does just complete the entire experience.

Pro-tip: If you're sending him your system, take off the windows password, or at least let him know what it is so he can get into the system. Hah, my bad on that one.

TL;DR - @iunlock is definitely who you want working on your system!

 

This question may have been answered already, but would any one of the three pictures that contain the thermal pads on the heatsink be applicable for the 7700HQ / GTX 1070 configuration?

 

Yes, it's identical.

 

I saw a video guy was doing repaste on alineware r3 15" and he did not removed the motherboard he just removed the heatsink and removed it from the fans. So he did not remove the whole thing. Can that be done on r4 17" ? It will be kind of less risky i guss even after undervolting the CPU with -125 I still get temperature like 92c but the ambient temp is like 29

here is the video


I want to repaste it with Kryonaut not with liquid metal cause I don't want to risk.
Will that be helpful? what temps should I get ,if I will do the good job in applying the paste?
I as I said before it's going up to 92c with undervolt -125 at ambient temp 28c and sitting on the flat surface(desk), nothing blocking fans ofc, while playing BF1 at all maxed setting at FHD
It's r4 17" 7700hq 1070gtx

 

Do not remove the fans. I can't remember why specifically but @iunlock suggested against it.

 

That's the lazy way and dangerous way.

Correct. There is adhesive under the fans and to get that off takes some force. If one pulls on the heat sink wrong way, which they will, it'll bend the heat pipes (even ever so slightly and one would never know). Then there is another issue, which is TL;DR to get into, therefore, it is not recommended.

The philosophy is...do it the right way (especially with LM) or don't do it at all....er just use traditional paste. Fail proof.

 

removing fans? you mean not to remove the heatsink out of the fans? like in the video I posted? better remove it as one united? with fans?

 

I want to repaste it with Kryonaut not with liquid metal cause I don't want to risk.
Will that be helpful? what temps should I get ,if I will do the good job in applying the paste?

 

Yes, remove the whole motherboard, especially if you're working with LM.

 

I have my Kyronaut temps in the OP. It is still recommended to remove the whole motherboard.

 

Sorry asking too much questions =/
what is OP? =/
Can anyone tell me what was the ambient temp when testing the temperatures? maybe its too hot in my god damn room

 

It means original post.

 

Thanks for reply guys, maybe I will do it if I will find courage to open it up =/

 

Just take your time and be mindful of everything. I can rip mine apart in <10 minutes now.

 

I used IC Diamond 7 Karat

 

Temps?

 

Hey whats the best methods to clean off liquid metal from a chip and heat sink? Whats the best cleaning solutions and wipes so it catches it all?

 

Many, many q-tips

 

Just thinking, what about cotton balls? Think those would work?

 

They should work as well, just make them smaller, like a pea size, or you can wind a little of cotton on a toothpick or match.

 

Hey man. I used paper towel and iso alcohol. It worked fine. Just be sure to swipe once, then throw that piece out. It's not difficult at all, don't worry.

 

painters tape to lift the LM off the die and heatsink

once there is only a little LM left, you can remove as normal

 

After getting my 17 r4 replacement back (7700HQ and 1070) and seeing it skyrocketed to 99Ccore 0 in BF1 ultra...decided to try and do a repaste./repad.

Short story:
I bought the original one in the US a month and a half ago , and sent it for the heat issue....it came back with changed heatpipes and fans buuut....also with broken Tron connectors...and when the field tech came to see what happened....., he shorted it out.A dead brick,basically.

So you can understand why i'm scared as hell on damaging the new replacement sent by dell...especially since now i'm out of the US for good (moved away)...and dell support in Europe is kinda hit 'n miss.

Since i dont want to void anything, and if european Dell support opens it up(anytime in the future), i want to make sure they dont see anything funky like PCH mod / super 33/+ or bent tab- just to give them a reason to refuse service in the long run.

-i'll stick to repad 0.5 /1mm and thermal pasting with noctua nt-h1.


Sorry for the silly questions...
-Any idea what temps i should be expecting ? I mean....i'm HOPING it would get down from 98-99C to at least a manageable 85-88C....
-Is that a faraway dream with a partial / nonconductive paste/no bending/no PCH ?
-Should I try and do the PCH mod also? I tried reading a bit but can't find info on the small heatsink or its importance (sorry, noob here).
-Should i undervolt it also? what undervolt can i get in a 7700HQ (stock, cpu perfomance mode in bios ON)

 

1: depending on the outside temps, Idle temps of 28-33C are what you want to aim for and for when it is under load, well for me it now tops out at 80C.

2: I used Kryonaut with the bending and no PCH and now my temps are much better with almost no temp differential between the cores.

3: I can't say. I never tried it or looked in to it.

4: Yes. Undervolt it for sure as it will help keep temps down without affecting performance much if at all. As for how much? It depends. You need to start with something "safe" like -40 or -50 and then stress test it and see if that is stable. If it is, increase slightly and re-test...and so on...and so on...Until you get a crash (its ok if it crashes as that will tell you that you went too far and the reboot will reset the undervolt back to 0).

Hope that helps.

 

thank you for the reply kyussmanchu

today i changed the thermal pads and cleaned the crap that was on.



used the 1070 pic iunlock posted in his guide:


and , since amazon doesnt send fujipoly to my country (dammit..) ,went with some Thermal Grizzly Minus pad 8's of 1mm and 0.5mm and , since super 33+ was hard to find today...went with noctua nt-h1, as i said earlier:
(also, i bent the small tab to have a little more pressure)




BUT.....
after turning on, and even undervolting -120mV....sad news came:




I must be cursed (
it literally barely did any change...only ~3 degrees Celsius drop.

 

Noctua nt-h1 is trash on laptops. Can't compare it used on laptop vs. desktop harware.

 

you put in all that work just to put in inferior thermal compound. For AW it is LM all the way my friend

 

ok....then what non-conductive can i use on laptops? i'm not thinking of liquid metal because i cant risk a spill. cant find a damn super 33+ around here.

 

Your're welcome!!

 

Traditional paste like Noctua will give similar temps on stock clocks and fan profiles, use HWINFO fan profile and set custom fan speeds. Even mine on stock fan produces 90-97C and with HWINFO fan curve it was 85C on AIDA64.

 

what is the average fan speed when pasted with LM are you guys seeing? I have pasted kryonaught and under full load 60 on GPU 72 CPU I pretty much always max out fans at 4200 rpm after about 10mins gaming. it's loud enough to piss off the misses . wondered if pasting with LM may decrease the fan speed some. cheers

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk

 

It's pretty much the same with the LM. Also it depends on how heavy the game is for CPU\GPU. If something like GTA 5, fans will be maxed out in several minutes from the beginning.

 

@Vasudev
I turned on hwinfo a little earlier and maxxed fans full blast at 7000rpm.
laptop ran 88-92, with peaks to 95C within 5 minutes.
on idle it stays at 53C
im going to get liquid metal....dammit.

ps: looked at Intel Ex utility and at -110mV, to up even at -130mV the laptop has no temp change whatsoever.
turned off Turbo boost short power max
reduced the Processor core iccMax from 110A to 68 A..nothing. No heat change.Still hot as hell.
what am i missing ...?

 

whats you ambient temp ? what paste are you using ?

 

I don't think you are missing anything honestly. Do you live on the sun ? Because 53C while idle is very high . Even before I did anything on my system, my idle temps were between 35-40C.

One thing you did not mention is if you are using anything to raise the laptop up from the surface of the desk. A cooling bad or something like that. because sometimes just raising it off the surface of the table/desk by an inch help quite a bit.

I know it sounds simple and silly and while it may not solve your temp issues, it can help a little bit.

All in all, if I was in your boat, I would contact Dell and ask for a replacement rather than do all this work to fix a system that you paid a premium for.

 

I believe you have lot of Dell installed Apps like Support Assist etc, try stopping the service or set it to manual. Also, are you running TS and XTU at the same time?

 

After reparte (LM + Fujipoly) my 17r4 7820hk to 4.4Ghz, my temperature is: idle 32-34 degrees and heavy benchmark 75-80 degrees max. Are good temps? Check everything several times and I can not lower more at 4.4Ghz. Í use x44 and PL1+2 230 in OC settings. Any advice?

The difference between core is extremely consistent, 1-2 degrees of difference all the time. And when I cancel the benchmark from 75-80 degrees to 32-34 degrees low immediately (A couple of seconds).

The Xtu benchmark score 1424...

 

well...actually it's 28-30 C here, since it's summer. and yes..i didnt remove any of the dell crap....i'll get on it.

ps: this IS the replacement unit....and sadly, i'm outside of the US for good...so sending it in for replacement...not gonna happen anytime soon.
before repasting, it had the same heat...ill try lifting it and placing it on an old cooling pad...try liquid paste once the super 33+ arrives on monday....duno...i'll try whatever i can.

 

LM should help a lot based on the results folks on here have posted. I have not tried it so I have no dog in that race.
Good luck!

 

I have undervolted it with -0.120v and when I turn on the laptop the temps are fine its like 40-45 max, just first 30 min
But after few hours just browsing the web it gets 50-55c
If I start the BF1 right after I start the laptop and play it like 30 min it gets max to 86c, same here first 30 min
But if I play it like 3h It gets to 95c.
Every number above was in the room with ambient temp like 28-30c
So I put this winston box under the laptop from the back side in the middle and after that even playing BF1 for few hours it gets max to 82c =)))))) Ye its funny but it helps really

When the ambient temp was like 22c it was 76c after few hours of BF1, with this winston box ofc

I notice a strage thing also, when I exit games like hearthstone or BF1 the game freezes for few sec and then exits
I think the OS is very loaded and fresh windows reinstall will help reducing CPU load so the temps as well


maybe this info will help some1
P.S sorry for bad English

 

iunlock, do you know of anybody in the UK who could help me repaste my new Alienware 17 R4?

 

Ask @Pete Light politely. He might do it. Not 100% sure though. Just give it a try.

 

Just some comments from me :-

What cpu do you have and what temps are you getting?

If all your temps are say mid 85c peak then leave it as is, be happy your temps are well within normal range.

If they do spike into the 90s (assuming you have the overclockable cpu) and it worries you, contact alienware support and get them to arrange a repaste - they will remote in and ask that you run some bench tests. Your laptop should be fit for purpose - pl don't pay someone else to do this as its covered by your warranty - if there is a temp issue that is....

If you have the kaby lake 7700 then temps of around 75-83c are fine and repasting really isn't needed.

 

LM not going to change the Fan speed, after a while you will get used to the 4200rpm, if not the new MaxQ is designed for you

 

Hi! Anyone know the standard size (or model) of the laptop heat sink screws Alienware 17r4? Where can I buy them? I am seriously considering trying a repaste (this time with 11Wmk pads), but I am not confident that that tiny black screw on the heatsink would survive another tear down...

Thanks in advance for any help!

 

Hi I have done everything here, repaste with grizzly conductonaught, repadded, and done PCH MOD, but my gpu temps are still hitting around 80 - 85°C why is it still high? I use a laptop cooler too and it's not OC'd, also still stutters now and again but not as much?