GPU temps

Ok, so i posted about this before, but seems i will indeed need to replace thermal paste on the lappy, as temperatures are getting out of hand on GPU, now i turned on some Race driver grid and straight away i had frame-drops... checked temps and just when it gets more load it rockets over 90 even with cooling pad with some fans supporting it.

So i would like to ask expert disassemblers for video/detailed picture guide and to confirm that it will not void my warranty, as i would like to use my arctic cooling mx-4 paste rather than some unknown stuff.

 

If it has warranty, why not call up Dell? Either they replace the entire motherboard, or get them to send out a technician? If they send out a technician, just tell him that you want him to use your thermal paste instead of the Dell supplied paste. Shouldn't be a problem.

Don't mention to Dell that you want to use your own paste though, only tell the technician. They might not allow it, but the technician himself will most probably not have a problem doing it, usually they disagree with Dell about many things.

 

i don't really have time available to do that, prefer doing it myself on time right for me. I'm not an amateur in these things, so it isn't really a problem and i trust my hands way more than technician's.

Just need to confirm theres none of them pesky warranty stickers anywhere and find a disassembly guide to make sure i don't miss any screws, as it isn't something i would want in my relatively new 800£ laptop.

 

Wow, they are some high temps! I've been thinking about repasting mine but the highest I've ever seen on the GPU was 74 C and it is usually < 70 C will gaming, so I don't think that I need to just yet.

If I end up doing it I'll be sure to post a guide and document the experience for you.

EDIT: No, I didn't see any of those annoying warranty stickers the last time I took mine apart, so I'm sure they would never know.

 

No, there are no warranty stickers.

But if it ever needs to be repaired or needs a new motherboard, they WILL notice the repaste and if they see that no technician was ever sent out to do that, that's how they void your warranty.

Doesn't matter if you trust your hand more than a technicians, the difference is that the laptop is covered by warranty against the technicians hands. Not yours. If he screws up, you get a replacement. If you screw up, you get to buy another 800£ laptop.

 

it is a tad strange that i can replace the thermal paste, yet it would void warranty when i think about it... why not slam a warranty sticker on it then...? ill go try reading the warranty terms, if i can find them but from searching a bit, i found this http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m11x/557362-should-you-do-thermal-grease-m11x-3.html based on which, it seems it is cool to replace the grease... As long as i don't damage it, and considering i opened countless laptops/phones etc. without breaking them in the process of either assembly or disassembly, I am fairly confident of having higher chance of carrying this out than a technician, specially after seeing some local ones at work (mostly indian/arab with no idea of how/why the devices work in general, only barely capable of diagnostics).

 

It's in the user manual, and i've confirmed this with Dell, the user is only allowed to remove/replace the HDD, RAM, battery, and keyboard. Taking it apart doesn't void the warranty, but doing any sort of replacement/repairs of components outside of those specified will void the warranty.

Dell classes the system board including the heat-sinks as 1 single part. If they had different part numbers, that would be different. But they don't. They classify the entire thing as 1 part, so removing the heat-sink from the system board is classified as "repairing" a single component. To them, it's no different than trying to solder new transistors or replacing the GPU.

It's not a matter of you being able to do it without breaking anything. But if something does break FURTHER down the line, they can very easily put the blame on you and hence refuse to fix the issue. It's a matter of liability, not skill.

Also, the technicians Dell sends out are local technicians in your area, who have simply been "Dell certified". Sure the "support" team is in an Indian/Mexican call center somewhere, but the in-home technicians are IT professionals who are local to you. They are contracted by Dell either individually, or work for a company contracted by Dell.

 

Yes, thats what i meant, local ones in them shops. Not very reliable looking. Guess ill need to figure some time for the technician or something then... It really is crap if it is so...

Still got 239days of warranty left (apparently they give 1year+1month) also i hate how they keep pushing CALL FOR SUPPORT option as i don't feel much pleasure in talking to an indian bloke who can hardly understand me and whom i can hardly understand 50% of the time... US has online chat support, which actually works until i tell that im from UK and they tell me they can't help cause somehow same problem is different in UK than in US.

Anyways, i suppose this means painful phone calls again <_< not feeling too excited about that considering i was calling to cancel phone contract few days back.

My luck eh...?

 

Ok so as an uptade, i pulled a bit of a dust bunny out of the fan and reapplied the paste, screw the tech i thought... And what an improvement it is!

The stock paste was quite stiff and sort of flaky, i think they just use a patch of it on the CPU/GPU as the pretty much whole copper area was covered with it. NOTICED AIR BUBBLES AS WELL, shabby china -_- build like my own my .

Anyways the GPU hardly climbs to 70 now and exhaust air is barely warm. with both CPU and GPU stress tests running it climbs to 73 after a while - both CPU and GPU, just CPU stress hardly goes to 65 degrees, not even getting the fan to kick in to max. On idle its 50ish.

These temps are without my cooling pad, just with a little elevation to let the fan grab some air.

Used the arctic cooling MX-4, had a tough time removing all the crappy thermal paste from the CPU/GPU as there was quite a bit excess dripped all around the main CPU/GPU centers. Might be one of few thousand case, but thermal paste was applied really poorly by dell's china workers.

 

Well i don't know about the other countries, but the US has no online support for Alienware, you can only talk to them via phone. The moment they hear it's an Alienware they say they can't help you and give you the phone number for tech support. And regardless of which department you speak to, the moment they get your Alienware service tag, they transfer you to Alienware Tech support.

It's really f*^&ing annoying.

 

yeah LOL can't understand what em Indians say most of the time too! got pissed off and just did it myself, if they blame me for any future warranty faults (pls don't break mr. Donkey) ill raise a storm. sry for the strong language

 

The Alienware tech support here seems to be all Mexicans/latinos, I'm pretty sure once i return back to Australia the tech support for Dell Australia will be in Malaysia.

But I can speak Malay, so maybe it will work in my favor... I guess we'll see

 

@un4tural, thanks for sharing.
Nice improvement after re-pasting.

Pretty disappointed with Dell tho, I would expected better from them in regards with a top gaming model.

 

was it hard to take apart? im thinking of doing this myself :] and replace the hinges did you also put paste on the graphic card? or u left the stock pad?

 

you need to take apart pretty much the whole laptop to get to it, but after you do it once it is a breeze. Just make sure you plug everything back in cause i had to take it apart again cause i forgot to plug in the fan - i know i am an idiot lol

But really, it is surprisingly easy to take apart/put back together really points to alienware/dell for the easy of assembly.

If your hinges are fine just leave them at it...

Also they weren't silicone pads there, it was thermal paste, just by the way it looked i think they apply a patch of fairly dense thermal paste onto the copper side and put it onto the cpu/gpu. Just do the screws little by little, not one at a time so you don't squish all the thermal paste out one end, try to screw as evenly on all sides as possible.

and you pretty much have to replace CPU and GPU paste, as you can't remove one heatsink without removing the other, it is 1 piece. 7screws total 3 for GPU heatsink 4 for CPU heatsink. again just do the all little by little to get the heatsink to press on as evenly as possible.

 

cool :] i cant wait ive replaced my sisters laptop dell 1545 screen and cover it was a breeze u didn't need to remove the screen to take out the board right?

 

need to unscrew the hinges as part of hinge platform is directly over the motherboard, it is just 4 screws tho, and gotta rip out the wifi cables. It is a breeze really, just the little cable from screen to palm rest bit is a bit annoying to undo due to lack of space. Other than that its a breeze

 

Okay cool :] thanx alot for this information

 

Also theres just 2 types of screws (except ones for LCD panel) so its really easy to put it back together, plus most of the screw holes are labeled with which screw goes there. really lovely job from dell on this.

 

Do you know the size for the bluetooth screw? as mine didn't come with bluetooth we had buy new hinges for my sisters laptop and got 4 screws left over u think those would work? same company dell

 

i haven't undone the bluetooth module, but i think its the same 2.5x3 (i think x3 might be 2.5x4) screw as used for keyboard and motherboard etc. at least looked like it