AW15 R3 and Copper Shims

My spaceship of a notebook is coming in next week, and I'm already preparing all the stuff required to repaste that thing. During one of my hunts for info on how to reduce temps, I found out adding copper shims would tremendously increase heat transfer between cpu/gpu and the heatsinks, thus lowering temps.

Now, for the real question, to those proud owners of the new AW15, could you please tell me how thick is the gap between the cpu/gpu and heatsinks? More accurately tho, how thick of a copper shim do I need to get so that it would fit all snuggly in between? (with paste ofc ).

 

Using copper shims is primarily useful as a workaround on systems where the heat sink does not have enough pressure to make good contact with the die. Using a shim when the fit is proper could actually increase temps or fracture the CPU or GPU if it increases pressure too much. When doing it is necessary it is useful, but the application is not universal.

 

Ah! Thank you for the information! Did not know that it would have such an effect.

Now that I've got this info, does anybody know whether that the heatsinks on the AW15 makes perfect contact with the cpu/gpu? If there's a little gap, I might put a very thin shim (if necessary).

That aside, anybody got any other idea on how to lower temps other than undervolting and repasting? I'm seriously worried about the AW15's temps. Hearing about it is already a nightmare...

 

No problem. You're welcome. There is a lot of great stuff already posted, but this big forum takes some time to become familiar with and know where to look.

You're in the main forum, which is not the correct place to look for model-specific info. It's mostly for generic discussions related to the brand in general. Below is a link to a thread in the sub-forum related to the 2015 and newer BGA Alienware notebooks.

You'll need to take it apart and use an excellent thermal paste like Liquid Ultra or Conductonaut. Doing so will be unavoidable if you want decent temperatures, as the factory thermal paste is junk and the machine will overheat out of the box. Apart from the lousy thermal paste, all indicators are that the fit of the heat sinks is not a problem.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...5r3-disassembly-repaste-guide-results.797373/

 

Thank you again for the info! I'm new here, kinda lost everywhere :/

Thank you too, for the link to the forum

 

Exactly this, dont risk it! Those corners on the GPU and CPU die are very fragile and using shims can out too much pressure on it if the heatsink is not made for it.