M17X R3 6970M Re-Pasting Video Guide

Many people had sent me a PM asking me to make a video for re-pasting the GPU.

I finally made it. Sorry it took so long:

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What is your température now and before ?

 

I gained about 8 degrees celcius while playing Starcraft II and 6 degrees on a Vantage run.

 

Great Video! Very informative.

I also have a question:

If you repaste your GPU/CPU and later have to send it in for a GPU problem, won't they [Dell etc..] know you repasted it as the paste might look different? [ie: cleaner job, different color?]

Thanks

 

Well it depends what kind of GPU problems you are talking about. If you let your GPU melt because you did not repaste well, I would assume they might look deeper into it but if it is an issue not related to heat, they won't even care.

To this date, I have never sent back a GPU that has been re-pasted and most people on this forum are in the same case then me if not all.

The GPU and CPU have so many safeguards these days that it's unlikely a problem is going to happen due to heat.

To give you an example, I had a fan break on my R1 and the GPU was going into the 105 degrees celcius, I ran it like that for about 2 weeks until the fan was changed and almost 2 years later the GPU is still running smooth at low temps...

 

That is pretty good imo. What brand do Dell use btw?

 

what thermal pad did you use in place of the stock stuff?

 

I used the MX-3 Paste which I always use.

 

Didn't see it in the vid Joe, can you add in a reference to the aftermarket thermal pads you used? size is fine. thanks for contributing - nice job.

 

I was sure I had done that. I will edit the video over the weekend.

 

I bought a Dell Latitude E6410 from the outlet at the beginning of the year. They only come with i5's, and I thought, "Lets see what a 720QM will do".

So I bought a 720QM on eBay and installed it, obviously repasting the CPU and GPU. A day or so later I realized that the GPU just wasn't fast enough, so I returned it. Dell had no problem and gave me a full refund.

Maybe its hit or miss, I'm not really sure.

 

I use the following pads bought on Frozen CPU: Fujipoly Premium 0.5mm

I updated the video with annotations from Youtube, it was so much easier than adding new content within the video.

 

thanks for adding that Joe - no real reason to edit the video, just wanted to have a reference here for folks in case it came up (which it did).

thanks!

 

Good vid

I would re-paste mine but I've honestly been SUPER impressed with the GPU temps. I can't seem to break even CLOSE to what I did with my desktop... And that was in a $250 case designed to have a wall of air flowing at all times.

 

Yes I agree with you on that, the cooling design of the R3 is great but perfectible and I with the re-paste I never go into full fans on World of Warcraft.

 

nice guide.. thanks

 

Hmm, after reading this thread and watching the vid straight through, I think I've discovered that I do not have to do a repaste if I swap the gpu from my replacement into my original R3, right?? Someone please confirm this so I don't have to be stuck in traffic going to Frys in City of Industry TYIA!

 

You are exactly correct dookie11. The GPU and the heatsink are connected together and will come out as 1 unit when you want or go to swap them out between your 2 R3's. You don't have to do a re-paste at this stage if you do not want to. So you can save some time and not get stuck in traffic by having to go to Frys in the City.

Cheers.

 

I must say I am extremely dissapointed by this video; it has no super loud club music blaring in the background, its instructions were cleany displayed and very understandable and well done.

That is not a way to make an online video.

I am kidding of course, I continue to be impressed by the posters here and Joe's videos, they are always professional looking and really inspire confidence that a novice could do it. I also appreciate you sped up the screwing/unscrewing parts. Your videos are extremely informative and worth watching even for people who do not plan to do a repaste job just so they understand their machine better. Bravo and Thank you. I look forward to more videos from you.

 

Ditto. Also he has nicest hands I've seen on a youtube tech video. lolz

 

what are your temps while gaming @ stock frequency?

 

hi,

may i ask if replacing the thermal pads for vrams are optional? can i just reuse those pads or do i have to replace them as well?

 

It depends.

You can leave them and they will be fine, obviously you won't get as dramatic a heat loss, but you will still see a change.

Or you can change them get the full effect, but make sure you keep them stored somewhere, if you ever need to send it in for repair, put those back on otherwise they may not even look at what caused the problem but just blame it on you doing a bad repaste.

 

thanks for the info, first time repasting for me, so i want to be as knowledgable as possible.

 

I want to replace all of thermal pads as well of the 6970M. Any ideas about the existing thermal pads thickness? I might also change the one at the back.

I am thinking of using Fujipoly 17w/mkfor the 0.5 mm, the ones you replaced Joebarchuck.
For the rest if I know the thickness, I might go for phobya 7w/mk. For the GPU I will use Coollaboratory's Liquid Metal Ultra which is 83 w/mk.

 

how does the Coollaboratory Liquid Metal Ultra compared with ic diamond 7 in terms of performance???

 

Coolaboratory stuff is the best but the liquid stuff (not the metal pad) reacts badly with aluminium. aside from the middle copper bit on the die, the rest of laptop heatsinks are usually aluminium. People have done experiments with Liquid Ultra on foil, cans etc and in some worst cases, the aluminium literally corroded in from of their eyes. If you get that on heatsinks, it can cause irrevocable damage. ICD24 is still best. People say there isn't a difference between 7 and 24, I could be wrong, but according to my sources, 24 has a higher concentration thus better performance.

 

i read that the difference between 7 and 24 is the size of syrigne..is that true??

 

Well I was wrong. According to the IC website, the only difference between 7 and 24 is the amount you get.

 

Thanks so much for this video guide,
i just re-pasted my m17x-R3, and it run smiling like a baby
I used Artic Cooling MX-4. Amazing product
The temperature dropped about ~8*C at full load, and a few *C at idle ..

CPU :
I tried dolphin emulator > Game used : Xenoblade chronicle.
Load the save files in some heavy complex area... which made my CPU crying at 8x to 9x*C.
Now ...OMG only 6x at idle and to max 7x*C!

GPU :
Flashed my 6970m bios to Firepro m8900 bios , Huge openCL and openGL boost even without the CPCC)
and use catalyst 11.10
Flash/OC the card up to Core 800 Mem 1080 and undervolt it to 1,05V

in Dirt 3 - running 1920x1080 semi-Ultra Setting (Everything max, only shadow = high) > Benchmark
(tested again) I got about 54.58fps average and lowest fps was about 45,67fps
After the benchMark and playing about 30min .. quit the game!

Check Throttlestop Temp :
CPU > min core 68*C to max core 80*C
GPU > Max temp 75*C

I Still got alot left in the tube, only used 2 drops for CPU and GPU.
Wonder how long till it last ... it says 8 YEAR durability on the box,
but i don't think my laptop can live that long ^^

 

Check Throttlestop Temp :
CPU > min core 68*C to max core 80*C
GPU > Max temp 75*C


CoolLbaoratory is a winner then. I am unable to get CPU past 70 C (max)no matter what I do (running dual monitors and monitoring temp while playing games on Alineare and monitoring temp via everest on the other). After stressing, idling for a while, the temp touches 44C (min).

I replaced GPU thermal paste as well. I get 54C idle and can't go beyond 70C.

I am wating for thermal pads for 6970, Fujiploy 1mm, Phobya 0.5 and 1.5mm. I hope they are a fit.

 

Ok got the 0.5 and 1.5mm phobya. Stil waiting for Fujipoly 1mm.

Since I did not got answers to my question here, I opened up the laptop and checked the size of all the thermal pads. First thing, a shocker; the thermal pad replaced in the video, is said to be of 0.5mm. Noop!!! It's 1mm, I measured it and also compared it with the 0.5mm phobya I have.

I have rough dimensions of all the thermal pads now, with good pictures which I am going to post soon. Probably post them after I do the replacing of all the pads just to double check everything.

 

Bad decision about chaging the thermal pads. Temps went up.

GPU Diode (Shader) touches 85 with just few minutes of game play. What part should I look into? Is this VRM?

 

hi, i'm planning to change my gpu to gtx 580m from 6970m,(im sorry if this is a wrong place to ask), but anybody has an advice of what i should prepare and maybe step by step of doing it? I read lots of threads but none of them specifically mention gtx 580m, please enlighten this grasshopper master, thank you