1520 + Arctic Silver 5

So, I finally worked up the courage to do it. After work tonight, Im going to follow the service manual and tear apart my lappy. *tearing apart* sounds so barbaric....Im going to very carefully disassemble my laptop and replace the heatsink thermal pad on the cpu and the northbridge with my arctic silver 5 that I found from a build 3 years ago.

I wish I could take pictures for you all but I dont have a digi. Only problem is Id like to put arctic silver on the gpu and heatsink too, but the service manual says nothing about disassembling the heatsink from the gpu. Also, arctic silvers directions for application on a dual core are very thurough (thin line down the middle and a slight twist when applying heatsink) But, for the northbridge, I wonder if I should just apply a small dab, then put the heatsink straight on and twist, hoping is disperses evenly underneath. I will be sure to keep you informed how everything works when I get to the disassembly.

sOnIc

 

Oh yes... The reason Im doing this. With intels thermal analysis tool, Im getting around 50c to 55c idle temperature on each core! Ive read into this and apparently it has to do with the temp sensor being on the die. But with speedfan Im getting approx 30-35c idle, big difference! Id like to see if Arctic silver will help me drop the temperature at all...

 

I heard somewhere that old arctic silver decays and performs worse than stock heatsink pastes. Personally, whenever I applied arctic silver to my desktop's heatsink temperatures didn't go down at all.

 

so thermal paste goes bad after a few years?

 

for a 3rd opinion, i would use I8kfangui. that should tell u where the other 2 temps fall in comparison.

 

Just as a headsup. When I puyt together my desktop a few years ago. AMD X2 4200. Applying arctic silver voided the warranty as the compound was capable of shorting out the mobo if it came into contact with it.

 

If you want maximum heat transfer you need to reapply the thermal paste every 12 months.

 

You can fix that by using Arctic Alumina which is not conductive.

 

There is almost no difference between ANY kind of thermal paste.

 

seems to me there is a difference there

 

not really because he's talking about 2 different compounds

 

ok guys need help here. Got her taken apart, have everything off including the thermal assembly for the cpu and the graphics card. The northbridge uses a thermal pad rather than a thermal grease. Its a relatively significant gap there. Probably like 1/8-1/4 of an inch. Should I keep the thermal pad there on the northbridge heatsink or should I apply the arctic silver? Will it close the gap? Ill post some pics of it in the meanwhile.

 

here we go....

 

Read about these here at NBR, haven't used them myself:

http://www.burnoutpc.com/modules/smartsection/item.php?itemid=245

 

and another

 

so can i remove the pad and put down the arctic silver or is the gap too large?

 

another...

 

well Ill ateast clean off my cpu while i wait for some posts...also the whole heatsink that connects to the gpu is all thermal pads....not sure If I can remove them...

 

That pad looks pretty thick...

 

can I just leave the pad on? or is it not good anymore considering its been removed? thx guys...

 

While you're at it you should take a few pics of the GPU and heatsink too.

 

Definitely leave the pad on unless you have a replacement.

 

The thermal heating pipe is all that was removed, otherwise the heatsink is still attached to the gpu. Id remove the heatsink from the gpu, but its attached with thermal pads....Just like the northbridge was. But I mean this is a golden opportunity I suppose. I believe Im the first one to take apart my 1520 God Im insane.

 

Bye bye warranty.

 

That's retarded, because how would the mobo manufacturer KNOW that you used AS5? It's not like you get it all over the motherboard. But if you did manage to, you could easily take it out, spray it off, let it sit for a few days to dry out and THEN send it back and they would never know.

 

Ok, I see now.. that thick pad goes over the northbridge... how thick is the stuff where the CPU hits the heatsink?

If you can, please take a pic of the GPU module and heatpipe. Thanks!

 

Actually, this is quite disappointing (to me) but it looks like dell uses a silver thermal compound on the cpu. So its very thin. The thermal pad goes to the northbridge heatsink. Im plagued by a small dot on my cpu die, I tried to get it off with a q tip and alcohol, but it jsut wont come off...I dont think its an issue though...let me see if I can get you all some more pics. Again, I did not take the heatsink off of the gpu...

 

And yeah, I really doubt dell would know I used AS5 on the mobo. Id really like to do up the gpu too, but its all thermal pads...

 

I'd love to see images of both side of that bare GPU board but I understand why you wouldn't want to take the cover off..

Can you see any RAM chips on the GPU module? If so, can you see any codes on them? I know it's a lot to ask but could you post them? I'd really appreciate it.

 

Im sorry, already started putting it together, didnt even want to disassemble the heatsink from the gpu, it even requires a starbit aka "keep out" lol. God I hope I dont overheat when this is all over, I dont feel like disassembling again.

 

Ahh, bummer. I was just curious about the ram because, technically, it should be possible to solder on higher spec gddr3 chips.

Good luck on your reassembly.

 

*shrug* a bunch of shorts around the processor I'd assume. I was just letting the guy know so he didn't involuntarily void his warranty.

 

so far temperatures seem to have dropped significantly ~5c. Isnt arctic silver supposed to have a break in time too? Is performance supposed to get better or worse over the first givin 200 hours? Thx again gents.

 

and I have noticed my processor makes that "click clock" sound a bit more. When it does it tends to glitch my games for a second and temps do a sharp increase for a second.

 

I'm pretty sure your supposed to keep the laptop on for a whole 200 hours without turning it off.

 

Way to void your warrenty...

 

If I ever have a problem I cant service myself, Ill just get some generic silver thermal paste and send it back

 

The flat surfaces your seeing are just like everything else... not really flat. The pressure and heat between the two slowly forces the thermal compound molecules into the minute imperfections, allowing for a more complete thermal bond and as a whole, better temperatures.