i7 720qm to 940xm

I know some of you on the forums have done this conversion, I'm curious to know when switching the cpu's over, was there a big gap where you have taken off the thermal pad? Did you use thermal paste or a new thermal pad?

 

Thermal paste. Shouldn't be much of a gap if any. The paste is used as a medium to fill any surface imperfections between the heatsink and the CPU die. I tend to use Arctic Silver 5, but I have a tube of IC DIamond on the way to try out which is more expensive, but should be a little better.

While you have the system open,you can change the thermal pads on the GPU memory as well as the thermal paste on the GPUs. Thats my plan once the system arrives.

 

The R2 has both a thermal pad and paste in different places on the cpu heatsink

 

All you need to do is replace the crappy thermal paste.

 

It was a long time ago, however IIRC it was:
1) 4870s: pads
2) PM55: pads
3) I7 720QM Paste

the R1 had a giant HS for the Chipset and the Cpu, is that what you are referring to?



There is absolutely no reason to change pads for pads. If that's all you have then dell has already done that for you. Unless you're going in for paste you're not going to see any noticeable temperature drops, if any at all.

 

No, hard to describe but it's located right next to the socket. If anyone is in it now they can take a pic.

 

maybe where the moffsets are *right* above it?

 

Where do you order thermal pads for GPU?

 

cheers for the info, it's just i heard if the thermal paste is not touching the cpu and heatsink. it can cause damage, wan't to bee 100% before doing this. costing too much to screw it up

 

Yes, the heatsink has to be firmly in place on top of the cpu with the paste sandwiched in the middle. You don't need a lot of paste. Just enough to do a complete paper thin coat on the processor. Arctic Silver's website has some good instructions with pics.

 

I buy Arctic Silver 5 from newegg.com when I'm ordering other stuff, but a few days ago I bought IC Diamond paste and thermal pads from frozencpu.com

 

I've got a tube of shin etsu I plan to use when my replacement unit arrives. But don't use arctic silver 5, it's capacitive.

 

i use liquid metallic pro. it works great.

 

Apply your thermal paste and install the heat sink. Immediately remove the heat sink and see if any thermal past has squeezed out of the sides around the die. If it has, you have contact between the die and the sink. If not, you don't, and that particular combo must need a thermal pad.

 

Would anyone recommend changing the paste once receiving the M17XR2?

 

I would. That is somewhere that Alienware cuts costs.

 

For the CPU definitely. Not the GPU.

 

So every time you get a new PC you change the paste?

I never really thought about doing that. I will start doing it from now on.

 

I would like to change the paste when mine arrives. But after looking at what I would need to do, before I get to the actual CPU to apply new paste. It's kind of intimidating for a novice at this type of stuff. So I'll most likely keep that stock paste. So for me I'll stick to the simpler things for myself. Which I feel comfortable doing, changing the RAM and upgrading to an SSD down the road.

 

I second this. If you don't feel comfortable opening up your $3K investment, then don't do it. The stock thermal paste and pads will surely suffice. Some veterans choose to do this as soon as a new laptop arrives.

 

It looked intimidating to me too but i had to open it up. Once you do it for the first time, you get used to it

 

I put OCZ freeze on my precision m6400, the gpu and cpu. It really is great, lowered the temps so low.

 

Did it really lower the temps or it's just what you think? I wish someone had the temperatures with bench before and after...

 

Why did you return your R2? The R1 has always been a piece of crap. Anyway, the temps of the machine before while idling at 62-66C, overclocking at pretty high it went up to 85C Now barley 80C sometimes only 72C. The cpu also is better at 39-40C.

 

The gpus in the CF5870's run hotter than the cpu. So why don't you change the GPU's paste? Even with my 4870's some AS5 dropped those by 4C instantly, no burn-in.

there are *dozens* of reviews available that have numerical data, However I can attest to it lower temperatures by at least 3-4C. With long burn in time paste like AS5 it's harder to evaluate it again in a user system. However, the reviews I've seen indicated that another 2-3C is to be had after burn in (200hours)

 

The 5870 core doesn't really run hot. It's the memory and it would be foolish to put paste on those.

 

I'm aware, I talked about it before they were even released. It's still worth putting paste on there. It runs cool yes, but it's not like we're talking 30-40C cool. Besides the fact that in order to get to the CPU you must remove the CF cable, which, unless you Have a magical hat, requires removing the GPU heat sink on the right side of the laptop(or removing *all* from the left side, which imo is more work). No matter how cool it already runs, replacing it *will* decrease temperatures, which is *always* a good thing in this formfactor. Also, since the core and ram heatsink are unified, if they core runs cooler, so will the ram, since the heat sink has more conductivity to remove heat from the ram.

 

The ultimate guide and comparsion test for thermal paste. It's about 1 year old but still has a wealth of info:
80-way Thermal Interface Material Performance Test | Thermal Interface Material,Thermal Paste,Heatsink Compound,80-Way Thermal Interface Material Best Thermal Paste Heatsink Compound Cooling Performance Comparison Benchmark Tests

 

The GPU heatsink doesn't have to be removed in order to remove the CPU heatsink. Have you even opened an R2 yet?

Replacing the GPU paste won't necessarily drop the temperature. In the past I've replaced it with MX-3 and found negligible gains.

 

MX-3 has proven to be much better than AS5 for me. The aforementioned lack of electrical conductivity also means you can make a mess and it won't matter.

 

Is that rhetorical? you either rip off the right heatsink since it's snaked underneath it, or remove the cable from the left side. . . Since I'm replacing the paste in there anyway.. I remove the heat sink and keep the cable taped to the plate.

AS5 dropped my 4870 temps by at least 3C, and I didn't even have enough time to burn it in. The mear fact that dell uses thermal pads should be enough to replace them.

 

That's just extra work for no reason. It's easier to just remove the cable by disconnecting it from the left GPU.

You mean "mere" and thermal pads are more effective at cooling memory due to the gap present than paste. Nobody uses paste for memory modules. As for the core, like I said, the gains are negligible unless the factory paste was placed poorly to start with.

 

I've never said to replace the pads for the ram with paste, I'm not sure why you keep re-iterating this.. Also, the gains are not negligible, 3-4C is pre-burn in, after burn in, it's closer to 8-10C. Which the last I checked, is a big difference. Until you have some numerical data that suggests *any* pad (oe or after market) comes close to the W/cmK of a top tier paste, there are noticeable gains to be had. 85-89C vs 95+C is a good difference for 10 minutes worth of labor to me. Espically when you're disassembling the laptop that far to get to the CPU and the GPU's are *right* there. I have to applaud you however, you're the first person in any sort of enthusiast forum for the 10 or so years I've played with computers that has suggested to not replace the OE thermal pads because the difference is negligible. If It were on my Celeron Dell I probably wouldn't care.. but it's my 4K laptop with 2 graphics cards that like to run near the boiling point, so I'll take whatever I can get tyvm.

if you're replacing the pad in that gpu.. then it doesn't matter as I said. Otherwise I would probably agree.

 

10C on the GPU? Got any data to back that claim up?

 

on the M17X R2 with 5870s? No.

My 4870's saw 3-4C drops without a burn in.. AS5 requires a burn in period of 200hours of which I did not reach. After burn it it's typical to see another 3-4C drop.. which is where I got the 8-10C figure from. Assuming that there's no decreased temperature drop (which I have *never* seen in dozens of applications of this product) 3-4C is still worth minutes of labor in my opinion. I can assure you however, as soon as I get my hands on my 5870 I *will* post my results(before paste, after paste and after burn in), whether they prove me wrong or correct.



80-way Thermal Interface Material Performance Test | Thermal Interface Material,Thermal Paste,Heatsink Compound,80-Way Thermal Interface Material Best Thermal Paste Heatsink Compound Cooling Performance Comparison Benchmark Tests

the fact that AS5 performed second in a test of 80 compounds isn't enough to persuade you that it *might* offer better performance than some generic thermal pads?

 

I've been building PC's for over 15 years and have dealt with extreme air cooling, custom water cooling and phase change coolers. I'm not new to this thus I want you to show me quantitatively with a heat gun/temp gun that AS 5 can cool the 5870m GPU up to 8-10 C. If you do, I'll buy your claim. Good luck.

 

well i didnt want to start an argument, but the knowladge you guys have shared is very valuable. i have a infer-red heat gun. and will be posting up results when I do it to see whether or not it makes a difference.

cheers

 

I apologize if I appeared to have come off rude or even...annoying. I will post numerical data on the subject, however with a EDD date of late this month it will be a while before that happens. If I eat my own words I will, however my past experience suggests otherwise. AS5 works better in hotter environments as you may or may not be aware, so if the 5870core runs cooler than the 4870 core then it may not be as effective, I may decide to also test some ASC which is designed for cooler environments to see if it works any better.

I'm not familiar with the accuracy of heat gun technology, however as I have explained before, AS5 doesn't reach full potential until it has been burned in for approximately 200hours.

 

It will make difference, nobody is going to argue with that, but as Joker mentioned - the problem is not in the Core, it's the memory! You can't use paste there, can only try some high quality thermal pads (bergquist for ex.) but those will most likely provide a couple of degrees difference.
Sometimes miracles happen, however For example, applying MX-3 on MCP (M17X-R1) removing the stock pad that was there, - lowered the load temps by a whopping 23C (from 80C to 57C) in my case

 

I don't realistically expect 8-10C. I was tired last night and a little bit caught up in the moment. I *do* realistically expect 3-6C. Thanks for the input on the pads, I might order me up a sheet.


if anyone else is interested, this seems to be the stuff to go with
http://www.bergquistcompany.com/thermal_materials/gap_pad/gap-pad-5000S35.htm
5.0 W/m-K

 

Actually, with both my R1 and R2, replacing the paste on the CPU's with AS-5 lowered the load temps by more than 10C.
It's probably due to the fact that the stock one was really poorly applied in both cases.

I'm getting another R2 in a few and will do the same. Will post some numbers before and after as well.

 

all the components in my R1 and R2 were pads, I'm not sure how a pad can be incorrectly applied(and it seemed as though mine were making full contact) however in all cases I saw the drops before mentioned. The biggest difference I see happening is W/m-K . AS5 is much higher than any pad material I've seen. >350,000W/m2 °C (0.001 inch layer)

 

Pads? On the CPU? I'm not totally awake but -
I'm talking about replacing the stock paste on the CPU.
The only time I dared replacing a pad with paste was on the MCP/9400 chip in my R1 and even though the stock pad was making a full contact and wasn't too bad to begin with - MX-3 made a huge difference.

 

My R2's cpu had a Pad. As you can see, the pads were making full contact. I still saw the drop as mentioned.
http://i813.photobucket.com/albums/zz56/blmlozz/100_1255.jpg
http://i813.photobucket.com/albums/zz56/blmlozz/100_1252.jpg

there are thermal material pads and fiber 'foamy' pads. The gpu's and cpu had the before, moffsets and ram have the latter.

 

those are not pads for heat.the cpu and gpu had thermal paste by the look of it and way to much at that.

 

That is incorrect. Those are pads. I have some that are similar right next to me. They're sometimes called thermal grease pads, however they're still pads.
http://i813.photobucket.com/albums/zz56/blmlozz/100_1285.jpg
http://i813.photobucket.com/albums/zz56/blmlozz/100_1284.jpg

 

the core of the cpu and gpu have thermal paste on it there are no heat pads on the cpu heat sink.those "pads" on the gpu heat sink might be for the memory of the card?but the core of the gpu is covered in thermal paste.

 

The GPU and CPU are covered by thermal pads. That is not liquid paste that is on there. It's a square pad of TIM that you can peal off onto the heat sink and apply quickly. It is better than the RAM pads but it's still a pad.

this is basically the stuff they're using.

 

wrong wrong wrong.I just removed the old thermal paste that came with my r2 (did the same on my r1)it is a thermal paste not a pad.If it was a pad why would you have to have a solvent to remove it?