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

In order? I did tighten all the screws down When I held it up to
The light i could see gaps and could actually easily move the thermal
Pads with tweezers so I added more pads like was suggested. Guess every heat sink is slightly different with tolerances during manufacturing. Think I read that somewhere in this thread.

 

Most of their heatsinks have up to 1.4 mm warp in them.


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The heatsink screws are numbered 1-7. I've always tightened them down in order. First I would go in order and just get them snug, then go back and tighten them down fully in order. Not saying this is your issue, but I've read people not going in order and having heat issues. Might be worth going back and giving that a try. Hopefully you get it figured out.

 

I'll give it a try Also nobody has answered the question about the thermal paste on the circuits that have thermal pads on them.

Is it necessary to put the grizzly paste on them before lowering the heatsink with the thermal pads attached?

 

So is this implying I need to bend the heatsink.
I did bend up the attachment point side where it's only held down with three screws as recommended. Just that one post...

 

Didn't say that I would never bend if you don't know what your doing


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Found out what the burning smell was so when the dell tech came by to replace the mobo he didn't place the wire for the lighting back where he peeled the tape back and instead of putting back where it was a screw went through it. Well when I opened it up I noticed the connector was not connected when I originally took it apart for the repaste
So reconnected not realizing that the dell guy had moved the tape grrrr now what to do

 

Put more LM on and it doesn't overheat immediately, but the minute any kind of load I get power and current limit throttling and the package temp climbs to 100c'

Guess I need to just clean this up, put the original pads back on and return this to dell grrrr.... well I tried

 

I went through 4 replacement systems and was scheduling a full return before I let someone else LM my system. After someone else did it for me, lapped and properly leveled the heat sink, proper pads to balance, and LM. System performs how it should have from the factory.

You have two options. Return buy msi which has not had as many heatsink issues but has its own issues.

Or pay someone to fix this one.

If within 30 days ask for new replacement, see how it performs when arrived and send it off to someone.


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What's the freezing point of LM?
I'm going to be carrying a laptop to school with me, and it will have LM on it.. and I read somewhere that it can freeze in certain temps, so what would that be?
Should I even be worried?

 

10c (putting a safe margin of error here, it's actually a bit lower).


But if your ambient is that low then maybe you can use normal paste and still get good results.


I have taken laptops with LM on a roadtrip and it's fine. As long as you know what you're doing when applying the LM and not use excessive amount LM will stay in place.

 

@Mobius 1 I repasted and repad my 15 r2 yesterday at first I applied too much paste and screwed in the heatsink and pressed the HSF a little hard, after a minute or two, I opened it up and it was a mess. Then I applied a ultra thin layer and everything is perfect. Is it advisable to do the same with LM along w/ Tape or Kapton tape?

 

Yes, but I believe our winters here get to about 0C or 0F.

 

Oh no :|





@Vasudev

I usually use Kapton tape on the CPU because it's thinner, the GPU can do with electrical tape or just the kapton tape.

You might want to take caution with the GPU side, some Kapton tape don't stick well to the transistors around the silicon.

 

Then stick with Traditional Paste like Kyronaut or Phobya nanogrease extreme.

 

It might sound off-topic, but the screws holding CPU fan those smaller screws, don't screw it correctly yesterday. So, I used masking tape to tape the CPU fan section, so far it stays put. Anything issues in the long run??

 

You mean the small metal plate connecting the fan's top cover to the heatsink? That's fine.

I once put thermal paste on the metal plate once for fun, it didn't improve temps

 

Its okay right? I also put 1.5mm on PCH and so far its good. Alienware palm rest assembly is quite good at dissipating heat, the case is hottter but temps are cooler on CPU and GPU, I'm seeing a drop of 10-15C after repad even on high ambient of 33C.

 

Uhh

You lost the screws?

Sometimes that might cause vibration.

 

I can't screw them in and it pops out when reversing the heatsink.

 

So you stripped the holes? :|

 

Hey @iunlock I would like to do the repaste on an Alienware r4 17. How can I have more info?

 

The easiest way is to contact him via Discord - he's almost always online in the LiquidHz Server.

 

Thanks man!!!

 

Here home can we have -30C. But this doesn't mean I use my computer outside

 

I wouldn't use mine outside, but wouldn't walking from car and around campus or something freeze it?

 

There is a big diff between 0 F and 0 C. 0C is 32F. I would not expose the LM to freezing temps.

 

I expect you to have a good laptop bag. Many of them isolate well. And you shouldn't fire up your laptop immediately when yoo come inside, if your laptop has been exposed by the coold long time. See ... condensation

 

Well, I have an alienware vindicator, and it wouldn't necessarily be sitting in the cold. Basically just walking around campus a bit with it in the bag.

 

Yeah, same as you wear clothes. Shouldn't be icecold. Hence no problems as you never fire up an ice cold notebook Or similar as yoo never walking outside naked in the cold

 

Nice! despite me setting a lower and lower offset, no matter what I set mine to in TS for 4.3GHz it's always ~1.17v

 

Hey buddy,

I've just successfully completed this after 4th attempt on my 7820HK and then 1st attempt on my 6820HK.

Best advice I found was to use iunlocks guide and then apply pads as he has detailed with the exception of the top VRAM pad labelled as 0.5 to be 1mm. After I dry fitted that I looked for gaps and any that looked 0.1 - 0.2mm I applied a layer of K5pro and then applied larger pads for larger gaps. I used super squishy 6w/mk pads too which I think are super important!

Both laptops now 2-3C temp differential now and never any more throttling or GPU stutter after hours of division and BF1!

 

Still concerns me if I want to do it or not... The thought of it freezing scares me.
I already have conductonaut and kyronaut sitting in my closet, and have my laptop.
Don't know what to doooo

 

This isn't my picture, but I have the same laptop.
It has this yellow type tape around it. Is it still safe to put electrical tape over it?

 

Is it safe to remove it? Thermal paste got stuck under it from stock, and I'd replace it with electrical tape.
I don't know if it even has a purpose, I've never seen this on a laptop before

 

Not if yoo go for Liquid metal.

Just remove it (and replace with electrical tape). Or just use without if you go for conventinal thermal paste who isn't electrically conductive. See... Grizzly Krynoaut, Gelid osv.

 

Thanks, I'll post my results. This is with an Asus G751J btw, and before I just tested playing Assassin's Creed Unity for probably 15minutes, and it hit 90C lol

 

Know what's harder than applying liquid metal?
Plugging in the wifi/bluetooth cables.

 

Well... I took apart my Asus G751J, and I know this isn't an Asus forum but I used this guide for my results.
Long story short, cleaned it all out and replaced thermal paste and applied liquid metal conductunaut
This is with everything at stock.
Stock paste:

Repaste:

 

As normal. @hmscott As yoo know, People shouldn't use Liquid metal

 

With the current thermal pad, ill fitting tri-pod heatsink, and bad paste QC, buying Alienware goes against all the precept's of common sense, you know it's gonna suck, why buy it?

If you want to ignore all common sense, then use conductive thermal paste, and take the risk of losing it all, many have - quite unexpectedly I might add, it's quite the shock to kill your laptop with Liquid Metal paste, very exciting.

His temps could have been just fine with undervolting, and maybe even skipping the re-pasting. That would have been the first thing to try. With 90c CPU temps he likely didn't undervolt before re-pasting. So sad.

If you use your common sense, and want to get temperatures good enough for gaming /apps, undervolt and don't repaste first.

If you got unlucky and still need to drop temperatures further after undervolting, return / swap the laptop for another unit, or buy another brand (not Alienware).

Don't do their job, let them fix it.

 

Maybe he can start with undervolt now And push the temp further down?

 

It's too late to "start" with undervolting, but yes, there is likely still lower temps available by undervolting

 

I meant NOW Sorry my English

 

Hey, @iunlock can you fix a typo in the question about repasting 17 r4 & 15 r3.

 

Just did the repaste last night. Problem: After everything was all put back together and the computer turned on, I had an error come up before windows booted saying it didn't recognize the power supply. And then when I go past that into windows, it says it is, "plugged in and not charging." The bigger problem is that the processor goes down to 800mhz when plugged in and back to normal when I unplug it. Everywhere I look people seem to say it is either a charger problem (which I can't believe because everything worked fine before the paste) or a heat issue. Has anyone seen this problem before after a repaste? Thank you.

 

Did you check the connector after disassembling it? Might as well run ePSA test before screwing down everything.

 

Thanks for the reply.
I did that and it says there are no problems. I also flashed the Bios and still no luck. I can't imagine I did anything that would cause this to happen other than forget to plug something back in correctly. I'll take it apart again and recheck everything. Is there a way I could have messed something up from the AC input in the back of the computer to where it plugs into the mobo? Either way, it's under warranty so I just have to do that.

 

Press F12 before seeing Alien Logo on screen and select diagnostics. Cancel LCD test you see first, then click on an arrow on bottom right corner and run each test with AC adapter plugged in, if it detects there, something is wrong with Windows.

 

Okay, I'll try that. So even though it won't recognize the power adapter in the Bios, it could still be a problem with Windows? I'll keep you posted as I try some things