E6400 tips needed on replacing system board

What are you referring to? The CPU should have a ZIF socket screw you turn with a flathead and it comes out.



The GPU is soldered onto the motherboard, it is not a removable module.

 

The CPU thermal paste is no good once you remove the HS from the CPU.
Sometimes Dell dispatch will remember to include a tube of new thermal paste, but most often they will forget.

Get a good thermal paste cleaner liquid (or use rubbing alcohol at least 70%) and some q tips to clean the HS and CPU of any residual thermal paste. then put on a nice thin layer of quality thermal paste (Arctic Silver 5 is pretty good).

Same goes for the GPU. The pad is not reusable (if you want good heat transfer). Clean it well and apply a good layer of thermal paste.


I'm a dell certified tech and have worked on thousands of Latitude laptops replacing MB's. and trust me, the thermal paste they use dries up after about 1.5 to 2 years. I've seen so many complaints of overheating (or throttled) systems, all caused by the poor quality thermal paste. first thing I do when I get customers with these complaints is replace the thermal paste with AS5, and clean out the HSF of build up dust. This usually reduces cpu/gpu/chipset temps by a good 10 to 15 degrees Celcius.

 

GPU stays, but CPU comes off.

 

Thanks for the info. the mobo did come with a Chem Pad cleaner and a "processor phase change thermal interface pad" actually a kit if 2 pads. I am assuming at this point that I will need to clean the CPU GPU and heat sink for for both and apply the provide thermal interface pads to both before replacing the heat sink. If I did not have the pads I would use the Arctic Silver. Are the included pads as good as or better than the Arctic silver?

 

You should only use Arctic Silver for the CPU. Thermal pads are needed for the other two because the gap is larger.

 

"other two" ? So just to be clear I thought the CPU and GPU were the only two items that contact the heat pipe. I also thought that the two included thermal pads were for the CPU and GPU.

Am I better off using arctic silver on the CPU and one of the pads on the GPU? Basically what is the best method?

Thanks

 

If I'm remembering correctly, there are three items on the heatsink if you have Nvidia graphics: CPU, GPU, and northbridge. The GPU and northbridge have thermal pads.