[Alienware 17R4 / 15R3] - Disassembly + Repaste Guide + Results

@leeloyd,

As discussed these are the new benchs I made right now:

- 36x / 100000 / wPrime1.55 1024M 8 threads, no undervolt :



- 40x / 100000 / wPrime1.55 1024M 8 threads, no undervolt :



How does it look to you guys?

To me it doesn't look that bad for an out of the box unit, I don't see throttling, temps are a bit high and there is around 10° core difference.

@iunlock , @Papusan, @DeeX, @Mobius 1 : If you read this, let me know what you think, I moved here to discuss about it as it seems more appropriate than on the general 17R4 owner lounge.

As I posted on the owner's lounge, I did a test at 42x, 100000 and 1200 core volt but I got throttling and bad temps.

 

Yeah, more correct score. But still 13C degrees difference between coldest vs. hottest core.

 

So do I need to do the full thing? Repaste and repad? I am a bit afraid using liquid metal as I have never done it. If I understand correctly I have to make sure not to put some on the mobo?

Envoyé de mon SM-N915FY en utilisant Tapatalk

 

Yep, better not spill any liquid metal on the mobo (short circuit) or on any aluminium parts (corrosive).

Since your temps aren't that bad, you can stay @ 3.6Ghz and undervolt or aim for 4.0GHz and repast with Gelid Extreme or Thermal Grizzly Kryonaute.
I'm afraid 4.2GHz will need liquid metal, repad and some extra work on the heatsink to even the pressure an get rid of the temps gap.

 

Hey Pete!

I would absolutely love to when I get the chance sometime. I use the computer all day for work and then when I do have a chance to break I try to take the opportunity to play. That chance is rare and don't want to waste the little time I do have. Thought of running it over night, but I am overly cautious and would want to monitor it.... If it starts going above 75 I would scale things back. I know the 6820hk can handle higher temps but I get nervous about shortening the life of the cpu and dealing with degraded performance. Maybe I am being too picky.

If I can find the correct guides put together by someone that REALLY knows what they are doing, I know there has got to be a lot of info out there written by people that "think" they know, I will definitely be doing this. I have never gone through the process of fine tuning a specific cpu as far as voltage, frequency, etc... So I know what I have been doing has been more of an umbrella "this should work on most" type of over clocking/benching.

When I find these very specific step by step guides I would love to spend the day testing frequency and voltage and beating it up a bit.

With the little bit of occt I have been doing, half hour times, I have noticed WoW actually pushing it to higher temps than occt, mid 60's and sometimes approaching 70 at around 4.1 frequency. I wonder if this has to do with it being a bit more of a cpu intensive game than others.

I don't have Battle Field. I never really got into fps games. Though I enjoyed Destiny and plan on purchasing Destiny 2 if released for PC.... Looking forward to actually using tobii; I've yet to find any real uses for tobii which kinda sucks.

If I could some how control the curser and get tobii to move the faders in UC Surface for me while I am playing out that would be sweet! I could mix and never take a hand off of my instrument!

 

Repad is optional, but highly recommended.

Repaste is mandatory for such a high core temp difference.

 

I'm getting my aw 17 r4 gtx 1080 next week.

Which thermal pad should you guys recommend? I saw something like 11, 14, 17 and im a bit confuse of what's the difference..

Also planning to repaste it soon it would be my 1st repaste. I wanna go all in to Loquid metal

 

Thanks.
Leeloyd, if I am correct you are French as well. Did you Repaste with lm?
Where do you live at? Maybe we could have a go together at my unit if you are not to far away?
I will soon order everything needed to work on it

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You're correct I PM you with extra info.

 

Has a guide been made for the r4 with the 1060? How important is installing new thermal pads in order to get a reasonable result in this process? Also, because there is no guide for the 1060 on this post I wouldn't know how much of each of the thermal pads to buy.

 

Pretty much the same exact teardown. Can't comment on the pad sizes though, since even Dell has been wrong with them

 

@iunlock Over on the r/alienware there was mention made of you being in the Seattle area as well as being able to aid/assist in repasting. I tried to send a DM but because I'm a new member (i'm assuming) There doesn't seem to be an option to DM you about this.

 

Maybe a stupid question but I've got some Conductonaut arriving later today and I've got the tape to make sure it's an easy process, but before I go in I wanted to ask how much of a difference would repadding make? How much of a difference would it make between Fujipolys 11 w/mK and 17 w/mK pads? If it's only like an extra degree cooler between stock pads and the Fujipoly pads I may just deal with it because of the prices.

Also how hard is it to repad? Are they easy to remove? As in, they just peel off without leaving any sticky residue behind or chunks?

Thanks!

 

I had a hard time cleaning the old pads, they were very sticky like they had used glue or something.
The pads' highest thermal conductivity is an extra. The most important factors are their thickness and their softness, their goal is to even the heatsink pressure.

 

PM sent.

 

So I've reviewed about 70 pages here reading up on liquid metal paste for laptops... I've used CLU in my desktop but now I have a new dell on its way and I'm wanting to repaste with CLP... few questions...

1. Have users reported the paste drying up? I've read there's some electrically conduction going on between the copper and gallium/gallistan which is causing the paste to dry up... anyone experience this? Reduction in performance? Repaste needed?
2. I'm planning on using a very very small square of thermal pad to protect the rest of the components around the die's from the CLP pumping out and possibly dripping on something. Any problem with that? I'm planning on matching up the correct thickness thermal pad with the height of the die's to the cooler. That way it'll basically create a seal between the die and cooler so no paste can get out... good idea?

 

Hey I speak from experience here and I understand your concern but I really don't think it's needed. I've opened my laptop 3 times now after two LM repastes and every time there's tiny to no pump out. Just protect with tape as per Iunlocks guide and you'll be fine. I really don't recommend any pads etc around the LM as with the tape surrounding it, there's miles of protection and just the height of the tape overlapping can be enough to dislodge the heatsink from lying flat on the die. In fact, i had to remove some tape overlapping and carefully line them up side by side to even my temps out. A bead of regular paste surrounding the die is probably a better idea imo if your dead set on doing something (but i think that's overkill)

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@zergslayer69 I saw Mobius 1's post on reddit and was hoping you could help me with a liquid metal repaste on my 6820hk 1070 15r3

 

My idea is to use like a 0.5mm thick thermal pad cut to the size around the die. Basically the thermal pad would act as the barrier between the liquid metal around the die and heatsink and no allow any out once compressed via the heatsink. Only concern with this is if I don't leave any hole in the thermal pad I wonder if the heat differences will build internal pressure and cause some issues...? I'm more worried about using liquid metal on the GPU than the CPU since the GPU is surrounded by caps on the substrate. However, with all that said. I plan on using a very thin layer of liquid metal so I'd think I wouldn't have any pump out concerns... Maybe I'll do the thermal pad idea and just leave a corner open or something...

 

1. Paste will not dry up, there is no electrical connection between the silicon die and the copper heatsink. LM will outlast any laptop that it it applied on, so practically it would last almost forever.
2. Use 3M tape, it is easier.

@zergslayer69

stan

stan

stan

When putting thin layer of LM, always check if there is proper contact with the heatsink. Usually 30% of a ricegrain size of LM is enough for the GPU or CPU.

 

He was probably referring from this post http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...-compatibility-with-copper-heat-sinks.800890/

 

You would be correct.

I don't believe though we have any reports of laptop's or chips dying due to liquid metal staining over time... only poor application methods cause short circuits and that's about the only way to kill it...

 

Yeah, I have never seen chips dying due to liquid metal staining over time. Never!!

 

And with that I'm pretty confident that I'll be able to use a super thin strip rectangle cutout of thermal pad around both the CPU and GPU to protect any fallout from the liquid metal TIM... I'll be sure to make the height of the thermal pad the same height as the die's so none of it is lifting the heatsink on accident...
Some new thermal pads on the memory... thermal pads on the VRM dumping into the bottom of the case...laptop should be rocking a rolling.... Planning on using a 70mm fan for gaming sessions on the desk underneath the laptop when not traveling with it...

 

hey

better idea

 

Or

 

lol! I had a CM U2 cooling pad running those fans with a charger at 7V instead of the USB 5V... Definitely don't have that anymore but that was fun..lol

 

you live in snow area, cheater

 

@Papusan: Your room temp is 16C? Is it cooled by an AC because your PC temp is 16C.

 

he lives in norway

 

I thought @Papusan was gaming in underground lab created by him. Norway has very spine chilling temps. Hey, doesn't that mean metal paste can change states at lower temps right?

 

he's made of ice

 

That means metal paste like conductonaut cannot be applied, right?
Next time we will name @Papusan as Ice man who likes to cool CPU and GPU so that gamers can play all day long.

 

Conducto cannot be used in temperature under 10c degrees, so he's still ok.

Also keep in mind that the silicon will warm up the LM paste even when the computer is idle.

 

17.3C and not 16C. The pc harware is 16C and colder than inside temp.(In fact it's possible to have a lower hardware temp than the ambient ). No AC. Inside temp can go down to such temperature in the winter when we wake up in the morning before we fire up in the fireplace. And I don't live in a igloo if you wonder

@Mobius 1 Even while I'm icy, I puke by the thought of BGA

 

What kind of fan settings is that measured with?

 

@improwise, it's with stock fan settings, fan perf mode disabled

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Yeah well for reference in case it helps I run my daily at 4GHz with a 1.1406 target ( <1.2V actual) and 8 hrs OCCT max temp is 60C. With GPU being used in BF1 for 90 mins it can creep up to the high 60s

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Oh, so @Papusan lives in Norway, interesting. Anyone else that has applied LM / has experience with LM living in the Northern countries? Specifically Denmark?


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Do you guys heat up the liquid metal at all prior to applying it? CLU is notorious for being incredibly difficult to get out the last 0.5g from the tube and CLP seems to be much easier this time around...from what I've used of it...

 

YOU'RE AS COLD AS ICE
YOU'RE WILLING TO SACRIFICE BGA LOVE

 

YEAH, RATHER FREEZE TO DEATH BEFORE I GIVE BGA ANY LOVE!!

 

Is this applicable to 17 R2 ? Seems like the cpu and gpu surface is aluminium to me.

 

Hi @iunlock,

I heard you could repaste and fix the thermal issues on 15 R3s if we sent them to you? I don't feel comfortable fixing mine myself, and you seem to be quite the pro at it. My system has a 6700HQ and a 1060. I've since deleted the stress test records, but there is a large core temp differential. Any temporary fixes I can do until I can get it fixed?

 

Hey there. PM sent. Thanks.

::iunlock::

 

I had a question about thermal pads for my 15R3. I have the 6820hk and 1070 model and I see that you list the amounts of thermal pads for the 17r4. Is the 15r3 going to be any different? I really want to make sure I have enough of each size before tearing my computer apart. Thanks

 

Hello @iunlock as I see from others you're doing repasting service? I'm interested if possible

 

hi @iunlock

Which configuration do you recommend to make a stable overclock?
Thanks

I have alienware 17R4 6820HK and 1070.

 

liquid metal definitely

 

the four of us do repasting service

@iunlock Seattle
@DeeX Florida
@zergslayer69 (stan) near SF (CA)
@Mobius 1 NYC (free display calibration service)

contact whoever is closest to you

roughly the same