Common mistakes people make when repasting?

Hey guys, I'm about to do my very first thermal paste on my 7970m. I have ordered a mx-4 and Fujipoly 1.0mm thermal pad. I'm going to end up doing it sooner or later so it might as well be now I've read through http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/561599-m17x-r3-cpu-gpu-re-pasting-guide-w-pics.html and Slickdude's GPU replacing guide.

Just to make sure, you only have to separate the heatsink while leaving the GPU intact right? I think I've seen this other youtube repasting guide on Alienware m17x R3, and he took out both GPU and heatsink while they were intact. Alienware M17X R3 Re-pasting Guide and 6970 re-pasting guide - Newegg Promo Code - YouTube

Also, since I'm not switching out my GPU so I assume I can just straight up go for repaste without having to work with BIOS or anything. I think I've read about this one guy here not long ago who forgot to "turn off his GPU(?)" and ended up with beeping black screen.

Lastly, should I be spreading the thermal paste (with flat card) like its shown in the youtube video or just put a little dab and rotate it with heatsink? I'm hearing different opinions on this.

Oh and it would be great if you guys could point out things that I should watch out for.

I may sound greedy by repasting an almost brand new machine but I really want to learn how to do it.. Please excuse me for being so novice but everyone has to start somewhere!

Thank you.

 

I'd say using too much is the most common mistake. I never spread mine. About a grain of rice in the middle is good enough. Then just take the heatsink, press it down, and screw it in.

 

Unless you're running into some heat issues, I wouldn't bother with repasting and repadding right now. It doesn't make sense to me. Some would differ and say you have to repaste because Dells paste is crap. From what I have seen and heard, Dell has been using some good paste as of late.

What are your temps right now, and why do you feel you have to repaste right away?

 

I agree. Unless you are experiencing temp. issues, I wouldnt waste time and money repasting. Dell's TIM is designed to last alot longer than aftermarket pastes - sure, you might gain a few degrees in lower temps but you may well have to repaste more often.

"If it ain't broke - don't fix it" is my mentality on this one....

 

Hmm good point. My idle temperature is around 60C and around 70C when playing my deus ex on higher (not fully max) setting. From seeing other people with similar spec, mine seems to be on the higher side. I can live with this but I'm hoping to reduce my temperature while gaming to around 65C. That is when my fan usually goes a bit loud (which is normal for this beast) and wish to keep it around there to potentially not having to have my fan constantly run so high. I don't have any laptop coolers but I do have my backside lifted up.

 

I used Pk-1 with the card to spread a thin layer across mine. I like to see the paste covering everything and not wonder if I put too small of a dab on.
I also replaced the thermal pads with Fujipoly Premium System Builder Thermal Pad - Thermal Conductivity 6.0 W/mK.

When I received my R4, I booted it up to make sure everything worked then shut it down and re pasted/reinstalled new pads.

My temp topped out at 62c when I ran my last benchmark @ 990/1400.

AMD Radeon HD 7970M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3720QM Processor,Alienware M17xR4 score: P6655 3DMarks

 

I repasted my R2 a while back for the first time, and I am new to the AW "club" as well. I was unsure on using the spread method vs rice grain method. I initially did the spread using a credit card. After booting it up, I found my temps to be worse( >95 vs low 90 before repasting). I went on to repaste again using the rice grain method ( half grain is probably sufficient), and temperatures have been great since (~70-75 when playing BF3 with injector). The fans don't spin on max anymore either.

It seems like you have done some homework. If you do decide to go for it, my only advice is take your time and follow the guidelines you have come across. I was super nervous at first, but I found it really fun. Its really not hard at all.

 

AncientBarb, before you go through the excercise, what are your temps like right now?

for CPU...download prime95 and HWINFO64. Run the prime95 blended 8threaded test and look at your temps in HWINFO64, go through 3 iterations

for GPU...download furmark and run the burn-in test...5 mins

Dell is using very good paste now. It wasn't always true, but since the revision in the 580m heatsink, the stock paste is top notch, you may not have a need to redo the paste.

Oh and another tip...keep the back of your laptop raised up. I use flat bottle caps on either side...that will drop your temps 5-7c for free

 

I'll try those once I get home from work. Even though it does not matter as much, I do have have idle temperatures on top of my head. My cpu idles around 50C and my GPU at 60C. If you happen to have played Deus Ex, you consider that a demanding game? I play it while near max (normal shadows) and my temp seems to go up to 70C. My diablo 3 usually stays around 68C-70C. My ambient temperature is around 27C and always had my my bottle cap mod installed I think my temperatues are passable but it seems like everyone around here seems to get better temperature than I

@jwimsett and batfuse
See another split opinions! I guess its just up to the personal preference on this one. I'll just flip a coin! jk.. Thanks for the suggestions guys.

 

the R4's have high idle GPU temps because the fans don't kick in until like mid 70's...so it may be ok. I wouldn't stress about idle temps as a result. It is the stressed temps that i would be concerned about....going to 70c while in game isn't bad. But run those two tests and post back. I'm curious. Furmark test is about as hot as you'll get on your GPU and same with prime95 on CPU

PS, my GPU idle temps are typically around 55c and my furmark burn-in temp is 65c

 

I heard that the fan of an r4 will begin to run in full speed when the temp hits 69~70c or so, not mid 70s, is that true? I can't know that since Ive never reached any temp beyond 71
However I'm waiting for ur practice Ancient and Im going to collect those stuffs

 

My fan will run at about medium speed once it reaches around 66C. I've had my fan run at full speed (very loud lol) occasionally while playing GW2 beta and TW:MW2. I'll be running one of those games tonight and see what my temperature is when my fan goes all out.

I will prolly be running some furmark tonight and will probably doing the repaste tomorrow. I wish I had wait a bit but newegg already sent me my stuff I had a temperature problem with Enduro not long ago which made me freak out and bought the paste/pad without thinking twice lol..

Are you planning to do the repaste too? I'll gladly be your guinea pig and see how it goes if I decide to do it tomorrow.

 

@Slickdude
I just ran furmark for 5 minutes (too short?) and the max temperature it went to was 69C. The fan ran at its highest speed once it hit 68C-69C and the temperature went down to 66C and the fan kept running on its max speed. Have you already repasted your GPU? If you did, it makes sense your temperature are overall around 5C cooler than mine. It would be perfect for me if my temperature can stay below 66C since that is when my fan starts to kick in. Do you think I can achieve that by repasting?

zz I took a screenshot but I can't find where its stored..

@Vaduplex
My fan started going crazy at around 69C. Definitely before 70C.


Edit: Ahhh.. sorry I should have edited my last post.

 

this is the normal behavior...so you end up at 66c. I don't think you need to do a repaste, but that's up to you.

Both my CPU and GPU are repasted with PK-1...my temps are generally excellent compared to most (if not all)

 

Hmm its strange since furmark is giving me better temperature than Deus Ex. There are some parts where it rapidly goes up to 70C and the fan instantly turns max to drop the temp. Rinse and repeat. Its good to find out my temps are fine. I'm feeling greedy though I'll see I guess.
Thanks for the help like always!

 

yeah thats what i have, 69c exactlly and i can keep my temp below 70 in running furmark/bf3/metro2033 so i dont know if thats 100% of my fan speed, but really noisy.
I dont worry about the temp at full load but in idle, keeping 60c~65c all the time is not a good idea so i will do the repaste, still a bit nervous though
What makes it worse is that I updated my driver to the 12.7 version this night and feel really regret now since it brings me only 1 or 2 fps improvement while makes the enduro unavailble (I installed it several times and finally it can work in dgpu mode)


btw, im not sure which kind of cutton balls shall i buy? i have a bag of them intended for medical use, if i can use them then all i need is a rub alcohol
thx

 

60C -65C+ is what I get on Enduro. I just turn it off to save all the trouble. I'm planning to just use a q-tip to clean the old paste. Just make sure you don't leave any cotton residues. I have an artic cleaner but the guides say 90%+ alcohol should work just as good. These are what I read from all the guides. I need to actually try it myself in order to give any real advice though.

 

Application
U might also want to see this, I found it minutes ago and the amout of paste is way larger than i imagined
Are you planning to use this method or draw the diagonal line?

 

I think they heat the ICD because it is one of the thicker ones and its harder to spread than other thermal pastes. I'm going with mx-4 btw. I think I'll just put a little dab in the center and and put the heatsink on it with little bit of rotating. I've read there's a higher risk of having air bubbles if you decide to spread them.

Edit: If I saw that much thermal paste before I did some research, I probably would have thought that is too little lol. It seems about the same as what other guides suggest. Maybe little less than that.

 

will you take some photos?
i remember someone said to me that u guys are always overconcerned about the temperature and crash ur core when repasting to protect it. so i dont dare to rotate it, i think simply put the heatsink onto it is enough?

 

I don't think I can really take a picture of me putting on a heatsink. I think the links on my original post can provide you enough detail on how the inside should look. Also look at Slickdude's GPU replacing guide. Just ignore the switching out part and it should be what you are looking for. I'll try to take some pictures that might be useful if I can.

Edit: Even though I'm a bit nervous myself, seeing from the guides, I can't really see it going wrong. But then again, I'll update you once I do the procedure how it went. I'll still post even if my laptop blows up lol.

 

Just placed my order of alcohol and now im watching u

 

+1 for the grain of rice method. Spreading is a pain, especially with thick high quality paste and more often than not (in my experience) temps are worse. Plus you can run the risk of trapping microscopic air bubbles. The grain of rice method is least likely to do this.

 

Using to much
Using conductive paste and shorting the GPU
Thinking spreading it will work better
Not tightening it down properly
Using cheap stuff when they have already done all the work to get there

Just dab it on and tighten it down.

 

So I just finished got done repasting my 7970m. Sadly I was only able to take the picture until I took off the heatsink. Stuff just got too intense after that lol.. I'll just share some of my experience and some advices(?). Please correct me if say something wrong. Parts I had the most trouble with was separating the heatsink from the GPU. It just refused to move until it finally gave up and came off. I took about 10 minutes.. Cleaning off all the paste was also a tedius job as it seemed like Dell put a little too much paste. There were alot of paste outside of the GPU die and it kind of got messy to clean all that up. Whatever you are using to wipe off the old paste, try not to use something that leaves too much residues. I used Artic cleaner but if I could go back, I would've gotten high % isopropyl alcohol instead. Artic cleaner seemed to stick around a bit too long and it was a bit hard to wipe it clean. Isopropyl alcohol should evaporate at much faster rate. Before actually pasting, I did some practice before actually putting on the heatsink since you can't really check afterwards. I practiced until I was sure I can put it in the right spot the first time.

I didn't get to take the picture of the most important part of how much thermal paste I put on the die. I did some comparing with how much Slickdude put (on his gpu installing guide) and I can safely say that the amount I put was very close to what Slickdude put.

I'm not sure if I did it entirely correctly. Before the repaste, My idle temp would stick around around 58C-60C. Now it rarely goes above 58C and stay at 56C most of the time. Not the greatest improvement but its still an improvement.

I still need to run some furmark but I'm wondering if I should wait a bit. Does anyone know if mx-4 requires some time before it shows its full effect? I know thermal pastes has their "settle(?) time" but I'm not sure if that applies for mx-4 also.

Edit: I just ran Furmark and played some Deus Ex. Furmark seems to show similar temperature as before the repaste (65C) but it runs much cooler for Deus Ex. Before, it always reached 65C and sometimes even went up to 70C. Now its staying around 62C- 63C which and only goes up to 65 during conversation scene. This is perfect since 65C is when the medium speed fan kicks in. Strangely not much difference when running furmark. My max temperature went down by 1C lol.

 

second that, simple, easy and very effective!

 

Did u Sqneeze the sink after pasting or simply screw it on?
The effect seems to be under my expect and I'll try less paste on in, just as an experiment to see if it's going to be better

 

I just put the sink on without doing anything. Yea try putting less thermal pastes on it. Less is better than more I think.

Edit: Okay I just ran another furmark and it seems like my temp dropped a bit. Yesterday, I was getting 66C after 5 min. Today, I get 63C after 6 minutes.


And here is a youtube video I found that convinced me that I shouldn't spread.
How Thermal Compound Spreads - YouTube

 

Yeah i read that thread also. I have my old top with me and i decide to do the repaste on it first as a test. now im waiting for my alcohol which will spend my about a weeks time

btw, what about ur cps's temp?

 

Ancientbarb, your temps are excellent.

 

im gona be repasting with ic diamond soon

 

are there guides with pictures step by step for clevo?

 

I haven't repasted my CPU yet. My idle temp for CPU is around 45C and I'm satisfied with it for now. Like other have pointed out, I too don't think Dell uses such crappy stock pastes. Not too much different in my case. Its either that or I just suck lol. I hope you get great improvements though.

@3Stars&ASun
I'm not sure which Clevo model you are talking about but I have come across this guide: http://forum.notebookreview.com/sag...e-guide-upgrading-thermal-paste-your-own.html
If you are now purchasing the machine, I think its better to just have them do the pasting since you are going ICD anyways.

@Slickdude
All thanks to your guide! I think I have a minor problem though.. I can't locate one of the plastic stoppers that should be on the screws that connects heatsink and the gpu. Though I can't say if it wasn't there to begin with or I just lost it (I've been super careful..) But anyways, do you think its a big deal? I mean I can call dell and have them send me some plastic stoppers if I care enough too.. Maybe I should incase I need to send it back for warranty and they bring this up?

 

my cpu is 55 when idle and can hit 70 even when using IE only, seems i have a lot work to do now

 

@vadupleix
Hmm, are you using iGPU by any chance? I turned Enduro off. Its a troublemaker.

 

yes i was using the igpu, since i upgraded my driver now i can only use one of them and switch to another by a reboot.
anyhow, im enjoying my overclocking now and i find myself having a card in my laptop that just equal to a GTX580~