Thermal grease

im planning on replacing my graphics card and im goind to follow this guide http://4help.alienware.com/cgi-bin/...nBfc2VhcmNoX3RleHQ9bTU3OTA*&p_li=&p_topview=1

It says that i need to clean off thermal grease residue from the cpu. I was wondering what i need to use to clean off the thermal grease and how do i apply and how much do i apply of thermal grease to the cpu and what do i use to apply the grease also.

Also please dont tell i cant replace my graphics card because its an MXM III and the guide that im using off alienware says i can replace it.

 

Use Arctic Silver 5, and ArctiClean.
Here are a couple of guides:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=77860
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=3339276&postcount=1
http://www.arcticsilver.com/arctic_silver_instructions.html

 

Use a paper towel to clean off the thermal grease, apply enough grease to cover the CPU with an even, thin layer.

 

I suggest purchasing Arctic Silver 5 with Articlean 1+2 for best results.You can use Acetone as a substitute.

Then gently use cotton tips or a small lint free cloth and wipe the surfaces clean with it.

After its been fully cleaned, apply a small amount of AS5 on the cpu's surface and spread it evenly using a creditcard or whatever.

 

before you do anything let us know if the graphics card uses compound or thermal pads.
If it uses thermal pads, then do not use paste. The pads are used for a reason. They are thicker than paste, so that they can conduct the heat into the heatsink.
Paste is thinner than any pad, so if you replace a pad with paste, the gpu core or gpu memory will not touch the heatsink, causing overheating and gpu failure.
If you still want to proceed, the only thing you can do is, copper mods. Basically get thin copper and use that to replace the thermal pads.
Make sure the copper plate is the same thickness as the thermal pad for best efficiency.

K-TRON

 

ok according to the alienware guide "The video card uses thermal pads, these pads can be reused, unless they are worn out or extremely dirty. The CPU however needs to be clean of any thermal grease residue and new thermal grease should be applied every time the heatsink is removed."

so i only nee the thermal grease on the cpu and thank you for the warning.

it also says "If a new video module is being installed, locate and remove any covers that may be protecting the surface of the module's blue thermal pads or the chipset itself"

what would the covers look like?

 

You wont miss it. Its like a film protecting the chip or heatsink from scratches

 

rubbing alcohol with a paper towel is awesome for taking the original paste off.

arctic silver 5 is good also, but recently i switched over to Arctic Cooling MX-2 which is supposed to deliver 2-3 degrees better temps. either way you can't go wrong. right away i noticed far less fan run-time and magnitude on my Acer Ferrari 3000 back in the day when i swapped out the paste lol