Repasted 17 R3 tonight

took about 3.5 hours. I am OCD and everything must not have any marks or scratches, so it could have been finished quicker.

I am glad I repasted. My temps weren't hot, but I could see the stock paste job bubbling from heat and drying. There was a LOAD of it on the GPU and little on the CPU. I will post pics tomorrow.

I used Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut. Did a quick test and it dropped the temps 10C across the board.

The R3 is a bit easier to work on than my 18. In some areas, trickier in others. Do not try to remove the tabs on the screen. There are none LOL.

 

Nice!!! That's great to know....wow 10C drop...pretty darn significant!

Looking forward to the pics...

btw, do you like Grizzly Kryonaut over Cool Labs Liquid Pro/Ultra?

I'm OCD too...it's always nice to see others from planet Pandora. LOL

ps...I'm on an OC frenzy right now....playing with different combos (voltage and multipliers)....trying to find the right combo....looking great so far....a repaste is definitely in the near horizon due to the OC profiles that I'm saving...

 

Could you try to play a game for maybe 10-15 minutes in 4k res? I'm curious if the fans still blast itself even with the much cooler temps.

Also, was there a disassembly guide you followed? I've taken laptops apart in the past but it's always good to be safe.

 

Zerg,

Playing BF4 and Hardline at 4k on ultra settings, at the absolute hottest temp is 60C on CPU and 52 on GPU. It helped a ton.

First time I have tried the Kryonaut, so far I love it. Works just as advertised. Never tried the liquid ultra for a couple of reasons. One, I don't like the idea of it wearing off and having to redo it.

Zerg, I didn't follow one so much. The only thing that stumped me a bit was the screen hinges. They come off on every other version I have ever worked on. These do not, it unbolts from the chassis and the tabs stay on. So it took me a minute to figure that out. The keyboard assembly comes off MUCH easier than the 18. The 18, I thought I was going to break it coming off. There isn't a mark anywhere on the R3 after dis-assembly, I am proud to say.

 

wonder how similar these are to the 15R2 strip down...... really want some lovely new gloop in mine.

 

Nice temps at 4k. How were fan noise? I keep asking about it because with stock settings the temps aren't too high but the fans always go crazy loud if I game in 4k. Even if the game is easy to run it'll still go really loud despite reasonable temps.

 

I would say the fans were at medium. Not loud at all in my opinion. It definitely isn't silent, but....

Skunk, it is identical to the 15 I suspect. The 17's motherboard says "Alienware 15 Only"

I can help any way needed in the repaste. It is major surgery for sure. I mean major, this thing has to come down COMPLETELY to get to the CPU and GPU. You want to talk about a laptop being non upgrade-able. This is it, lol. They made it as hard as possible to get to the components.

It is like needing to change spark plugs on your car and having to remove the engine to do so. Unreal.

It is very, very well built though.

 

Oh and a few photos for you. I did not take photos of the teardown, I just wanted to show you what the factory paste looks like. It was already starting to bubble, which is not good.

https://goo.gl/photos/fhpHsYWj6Dxnw6mN8

 

Thanks for sharing!

Wow that is the worst paste job I've ever seen from the factory....look at all that paste! Do they have 5 year old kids applying this stuff like silly putty? Just unbelievable.

That one pic with the black dot (shadow), I had initially thought it was a burn mark! Haha...

It should be mandatory for everyone to repaste upon receiving their laptop and have AW amend their warranty to state, "...We don't care that much that your thermal paste may or may not be a complete disaster of a job. Therefore, we encourage all customers to redo the paste as it would not void the warranty." ROFL....

The truth is....AW doesn't really care nor do the techs....I've never had an issue with having done a repaste....

 

You know, the temps were pretty good, so I was debating not re-pasting. Something told me to though and I did, glad I did.

It looks like a machine just stamps a big chunk on and goes on. Yea, just a shadow, it was caked on.

One note, there is a power cable from the keyboard to the motherboard that is covered in tape. You would think you pull it up, but you pull it back and out. There are a few tricky connections that you could easily break. Take your time, at all costs.

 

yours looked exactly how mine looked when i repasted mine 2 weeks ago due to temps. on mine the fans would be screaming just watching youtube or browsing facebook.

 

I've had my 17 r3 since 2nd december last year (6700hq, gtx 965m) and the absolute maximum sustained temperatures (when fans are running in third gear) are 63 for the gpu and 84 for the cpu, give or take a few temp spikes that happen before the fan could kick in.

Would you say that is ok??, also do you think Prolimatech pk3 is a good paste for a repaste?

 

Those temps aren't terrible, but the paste job isn't great on these. The Prolimatech seems to be good paste and I am sure it is much better than what is on the R3 from the factory.

The thing everyone should worry about the the terrible factory paste. It dries out very quickly and that is very bad. I have only had mine close to 2 weeks and it was already bubbling as you can see in the pics.

 

I imagine for people like me who got an outlet machine, the paste is even drier if not already dried.

 

This video should help. If you have a 17 inch, just unscrew the brackets from the monitor to the motherboard. Don't try to remove the hinges, lol.

 

Found the service manual if anybody is interested.

http://www.op-rentree.com/pdf/m17x/AW17-tech.pdf

 

Thank you!