AW 13 R3 Battery Replacement (& Repaste) ***56k Warning ;)***

***** 56K WARNING! *****

AW13 R3 Battery Replacement
(& Repaste)

Ok, long story short......My new AW 13 R3 battery hit 13% wear after a few weeks and was getting worse.
After telling a dell tech how to actually replace the battery, he was kind enough to send one out to me to fit myself! (Rapid shipping by the way! Full credit for that!)

*** This will be a bloody big post so apologies for that.
On the flip side, you get shiny shiny imagery that will look glorious for those of us who went OLED ***

Anyway enough crap. Onto the good stuff....

Workstation for the night
Cleaning Fluid - Driver - Lint Free Cloths - Wrist strap - Thermal Paste - Oh and Laptop!


Underbelly - Usual 5 Screws and pop the back panel off....


Bit of liquid luck (Great stuff this if you like spiced rum)


Remove Ram & SSD's (I kept WIFI in as not swapping it out) & UNPLUG BATTERY!!!


Remove the 2 screws from rear I/O panel then slide off.


Unscrew all 14 M2.5xL6 screws (Note the square box, i moved this one onto my second ssd as never came with one, will replace in future.....sometime)


I do like working on this machine.....very tech friendly ....


Once screws are removed, proceed to pry the case off, very bloody carefully, those clips are small. Use a pliable card of some sort.


Nude shot........& Bit's and bob's upto now


Battery just lifts straight out, no glue, no screws, no messing!


Old (well, brand new really) battery Red Circle
New (New, new really) battery Green Circle


Now this IS interesting, different dates are more importantly...different product codes.
Again: RED = OLD *** GREEN - NEW


Cleaning paste off, not a bad spread but will get it better this time round (Still great temps with Line & Pea/Line method)


New Noctua NT-H1 Paste (Blame the rum!)


Went for the method mentioned on here of just tightening the screws fully IN ORDER.
The quality of the screws is kak at best, so will be purchasing more.



Well, we goth there....now go back through and reassemble!


Power on and pray you didn't break anything (especially after that rum)
(The machine will take a little longer on powering back up, just running a system check to make sure its all ok!)
......
I didn't break anything!


2% Wear!!! I'll take that. Will keep a close eye on wear over the next few weeks to see what changes!

Thanks for using all your bandwidth in reading this thread.

I'm sure i've missed something so just let me know if anything needs adding or removing

Hope this helps anyone wanting to get her open

Cheers

Rairch​

 

Have you had any other problems with the computer, just curious. I have had a bunch.

 

lol @ 56K warning.

 

No issues now Temps are sorted.
New battery is great, repaste kept Temps under 77oc max load.
System runs great.

Only slight niggle is that the fans can get a bit louder than desired really. Playing with headphones is fine, but wife threw the eyes when hammering doom on sofa.... whilst she was watching some rubbish on the telebox

There are still quite a few with issues, what are you experiencing?

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

 

Paying homage to the teardown guides from a few years back

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

 

Finally got my battery swap approved and done - just wanted to say thanks for this guide - had it open on my tablet the whole time the tech was here, made things a lot easier for the both of us!

 

Great stuff!

'A lot easier for us both'... Heh.
Just the image of the tech taking a looksie to get it done made me chuckle.

Anyway, my ex battery hasn't moved from 2% wear with numerous discharges now so think we're golden.

 

Are you able to see how much room is between the PCH and the plastic shroud? Trying to figure out (before my aw13r3 arrives) what options I have for a small heatsink or copper shim.

 

Funny this, as have been thinking about the same thing.

See this post in the AW owners thread:

*OFFICIAL* Alienware 13 R3 Owner's Lounge

I'm looking into the ebay copper heatsinks.
Just awaiting info on size and mods to get them on. Plenty of room, just need to find a way to secure them.
Think someone used thermal pads on top of the heatsink, this will be in contact with the bottom cover when put back on, fixing it in place.

 

Yea, I saw that thread, just couldn't get a good idea on the space we have to work with. I have lots of small copper heatsinks, shims, thermal adhesive tape, and thermal pads and figured I'd 'wing it' if I can't find out how much space is there beforehand.

 

Nowt like a good little 'wing it' mod!

I'm going to repaste again soon (possibly tonight if i get chance) so will measure the surrounding area for you.

What specific measurements were you after?
Thinking the size of the die itself, the area around the die (total chip size) and the free space around the chip?

I might try to see how much clearance there is above the die (top bottom cover) but might struggle with this measurement.

Cheers

 

Above the die; the space between it and the shroud.

Whatever you can get away with on getting a ballpark measurement will be fine, it doesn't need to be exact.

 

Roughly (as misplaced my decent ruler)

Die = 12 x 7mm
Chip = 25 X 25mm

Die to bottom cover = 7mm (ish, but 7mm max)

Hope that helps.

 

Perfect, thank you for checking that.

 

No worries!

 

Now I'll need to debate whether or not to cut the shroud and allow for a few extra mm of heatsink or just sandwich something down there.

 

Just my option, but I'd leave the shroud alone tbh.

For me, I'm going to use it to keep the pressure via thermal pads.

Though about getting the dremel out...... ;l

Just if you ever need Dell tech support.... A modded shroud would surely invalidate warranty!

Cheers

 

Yea, it probably would, but I wouldn't want that to keep me from having good PCH temps. I have no issue trying a few methods before modifying the shroud and if they prove adequate then I could leave it at that.

I'll be using thermal tape to help hold it in place, but some pressure from the shroud certainly wouldn't hurt.

 

Be good to get a few different methods and results to see how much of temp drop can be achieved.

Be bloody liquid metal on it soon!

 

Do you have specs on those screws that are garbage? I would like to order some for mine but cant find details on them.

 

http://m.ebay.com/itm/190903860248?_mwBanner=1

Sent from my Frosty Nexus 6P

 

I just wanted to say, thanks for putting so much effort into the teardown and repaste guide. I'm only here for one reason though, how is the new battery doing? Wear level still holding? I'm at 8% with a 1 month old laptop, and I'm just trying to nail down a prognosis.

 

Thanks

Not a problem, just hopes it helps people out.

My current wear is 6% but hasn't moved in a while.
Dell says this is perfectly acceptable..... Will keep an eye on it. But more stable than my previous.

Sent from my Frosty Nexus 6P

 

IMG_12 by Aikimox posted Feb 12, 2017 at 6:00 PM

Tried both and cutting seems to get much better results. But it still reaches 80c during long gaming sessions. Previously seen up to 98C, so 18C difference. Sandwiching doesn't help much as the heat is trapped and has nowhere to go. Plus, you can now benefit from a coolerpad, the PCH temps then drop to below 75C. My room temp is hovering around 25-27c.

 

Nice work!
+Rep for taking a dremel to a sub 2k laptop!

 

Haha, thanks. Not as scary as this mod

Custom_title2 by Aikimox posted Mar 31, 2017 at 11:50 AM

Custom_bezel_2 by Aikimox posted Mar 31, 2017 at 11:50 AM

Custom_bezel_1 by Aikimox posted Mar 31, 2017 at 11:50 AM

Custom Bezel by Aikimox posted Mar 31, 2017 at 11:50 AM

 

Absolute mentalist!

Sent from my Frosty Nexus 6P