Alienware 18 R1 CPU Heatsink

Greetings,

Im encountering a weird problem with my Alienware 18 R1 ( the one that comes with 4940Mx). I believe the cpu sink doesnt sit properly on the die not making solid contact, thus temperatures not controlled. I applied coollaboratory liquid ultra and that helped to be frank; however, the exhaust temperature not high compared to GPU (880m).

Then, I tried to install coollaboratory Cooling Pads, it works perfectly, but the temperatures rises above 90s after a week or two. I noticed that the pad is not president on the die anymore! I concluded that the sink probably not making a good contact, this is why the pad passed through...

I'm confused now, should I buy a new sink? or use a certain CPU paste ?

In conclusion, Intel 4940mx is rubbish.

Regards.

 

Remove the heat sink and clean everything up. Put a rice grain sized dot of thermal paste on the CPU die, then install the heat sink, tightening each of the screws a bit at time in a "star" pattern. I don't own an 18, but my CPU heat sink has a numbers on it indicating the order to tighten the screws.

After everything is tight, pull the heat sink off and look at the thermal paste on the the heat sink and the die. It should be evident that the heat sink pressed down on the die and squished the thermal paste around. If it didn't, then you do have some sort of contact problem. Do a visual inspection to see where the sink might be hanging up. There may be some extra material where there shouldn't be any from when the heat sink was manufactured.

You could take before and after photos to compare them. It is not recommended to use thermal pads on CPU dies. They're not made for the kind of heat that a CPU generates, and that is most likely why your temperatures go up after a couple of weeks. The thermal pad is drying out.

How hot does the CPU get using thermal paste?

After a bit of research, is does look like the 4940MX runs pretty hot.