Alienware 18 with Liquid Ultra (Wearing off a little too fast?)

Hi all,

About last year I believe, I have applied Coollaboratory Liquid Ultra Thermal Paste on my Alienware 18's Dual GPUs and the CPU.

For the first 2-3 months, my system has been running cool after one of the famous members here Mr Fox has posted a result on his Alienware 18 that because of the poor latency/reaction time of the fan tables, this thermal paste should be able to fix the issue of the thermal shut down issues.

I am creating this thread to ask the handful who used Coollaboratory's Liquid Ultra Thermal Compound, as after close to a year, my temperature issues are back again.

Other than 24/7 operation of my Alienware 18, I don't do heavy load on it and I seldom play games that are heavy demanding such as Battlefield 4, Crysis 3.

Is anyone facing the same issue? Because, I am starting to lose faith in Alienware. A max speed button or option would be great, especially now I am thinking of switching to MSI because some of their laptops have a special button to turn all fans to max without the need of a software.

(I maintain it regularly, cleaning the vents, heatsink vents and the fans. I also sit my laptop on a very strong custom built cooler that is using 12V Cooler Master Fans on Max RPM. Plus, the bottom panel is off.)

Temperatures before applying the paste last year: (Full 100% Load on Core Damage and Furmark for 5 mins + all system fans boosted to maximum on Hwinfo (3700 RPM, 3500 RPM, 3200 RPM)
CPU: 100 C (Thermal Shutdown)
GPU 1: 89 C
GPU 2: 87C

After applying Liquid Ultra:

CPU: 80 C
GPU 1: 65C
GPU 2: 64 C

Today:
CPU: 95 C (Gradually increases to Max Temp of 100)
GPU 1: 80C
GPU 2: 78C

My ambient Temperature is 25 C

 

It seems more like a thermal paste breakdown issue than an "alienware' issue to me.

If you are letting the machine run 24/7 then that is basically 9000 hours a year of constant heat generation you are dealing with.

Switching to MSI or any other brand of hardware isn't likely to make much of a difference with that usage profile.

 

Hmm interesting.

But isn't Coollaboratory like better than any thermal paste? I have an ASUS Server running 24/7 using MX4 Thermal Compound and its still fine.

Coollaboratory creates thermal paste for overclocking. looks like mine was a bad one? Idk

So I guess, I may have to re order and repaste. Oh no...

 

I understand you point however overclocking a PC is usually all about running the machine at high voltage/speed/heat for a few minutes or hours at a time then having it shut down for hours or even days between gaming/benchmarking sessions (thus giving the CPU/GPU/Paste time to stabilize and cool back to room temperature).

This is a different performance profile than booting up a machine, running it under load and then only letting it go back to idle until it is run back up again. In this circumstance, the paste never completely returns to a "neutral" state which depending on it's formulation may alter its performance.

Or to think of it in a different way...

A motor oil in an automobile engine that is run a high RPM briefly a few times per week but shut down the rest of the time with behave and break down differently than the same oil in an engine left running constantly at idle for a year.

 

Interesting, thanks!

So if I do a re paste and don't shut down my PC, what are chances the thermal paste won't get affected in performance?

Because, I need the Alienware 18 on 24/7 due to some light server work.

Other than a few shut downs for maintenance or break days, it has been on for almost 4 total month hours.

 

Another thing to note, the Coollaboratory Liquid is supposed to actually form a metal bond between the heatsink and CPU however it is possible that the constant usage (and heat) may have caused the slow expansion of what were originally small air pockets in the paste application to gradually grow over time thus reducing the efficiency of the thermalconductive properties of the paste.

If you need it on constantly then you might want to look into a thermal paste which is optimized more for that than for overclocking.

Otherwise you will probably just have to open it up and re-paste it every 6-12 months.

 

Is there any thermal paste as good as Liquid Ultra? I don't think so too.

Because, from Bios A07, when the power/overclocking issue in performance has been fixed finally, the poor latency of the fans however, will still cause thermal shutdown on the Alienware 18.

The time I received my Alienware 18, the Bios Version was A04, which was not fixed, meaning the CPU always gets stuck at 3.00Ghz and not the actual overclocked 4.0.

I don't think Dell/Alienware expected this. They should have made new heatsinks to allow the system to be cooler LOL.

When I updated the BIOS to A07 onwards, the Alienware 18 keeps thermal shutting down on high CPU usage for a short while such as loading a map or game.

 

There is nothing better than Liquid Ultra. Nothing else I have used is nearly as effective or durable. With any normal thermal paste, age and fatigue causes hardening and degradation. This hardening does not hurt Liquid Ultra like it does other thermal pastes, and it does not degrade like other pastes do. It's much like a soldered joint. What will mess things up with any thermal paste, and usually in the form of a sudden change, is if there is any kind of event (minor bump, twist, rough handling) that causes the bond to break between the CPU and heat sink, you will begin having thermal issues almost immediately. That's possibly what happened here. You won't gain anything getting a different laptop. Just buy another kit of Liquid Ultra and fix it. MSI only makes garbage BGA laptops, so all you would do is create a much bigger problem with a crappy BGA CPU. If you were considering a new laptop anyway, go with a EUROCOM SKY X9 with a 6700K. Awesome machine. And, with Clevo FN+1 boosts the fans to max speed. You can also use the Control Center utility they provide to create your own fan profile if you want to.

 

Thank you Mr Fox for this detailed explanation.

so the best solution now is to repaste? My Alienware 18 has been sitting on its cooler and I seldom bring the 18 out as I used to before.

If I were to repaste the Liquid Ultra is there any procedure I should do like, allow the paste to like "finish", which means I cannot leave the system on 24/7 for a few days or weeks?

 

No, it starts working as soon as you apply it. It is most effective when it is still in a liquid state. Just be sure to brush it on both surfaces so they come together wet.

 

Thank you!

 

Can you post a picture of the old Clu on heasink/die before you applying new on top of the old one?

 

Sure! But maybe in about 1 month as I am ordering my new liquid ultra next week.

Will probably create a new thread as I don't want this thread to be bumped D:

 

I have actually had this same issue on my M18x R2. I had to open it back up, actually add some more Liquid Ultra, respread, and now no issues. I've never had liquid ultra harden on the actual die/heatsink itself, but I have seen it hardened on the areas around the die contact area.

 

From what I can see, it usually only gets crusty on the areas exposed to air, but stays liquid in the areas where it is sealed off from air exposure.

 

That's the long term problem with all repastings. Hand in hand with the amazingly lower temps possible, is the commitment to continuing maintenance to keep them low.

Once you crack the seal on the original paste - designed to not dry out more than to give the best temps - you are commited to a continuing regimen of repasting on a regular basis to maintain the low temps.

For a desktop, you can often go longer than 6 months, years at times if your case is rigid and inflexible.

Any flexure at the joint between the heat plate and the CPU that can lift enough to let in air, will hasten "drying out" due to air exposure and "pumping out" due to heat exposure in combination.

Laptops tend to get moved around which causes flexure through force against cooling parts transmitted from the chassis.

Picking up the laptop from different points on the laptop, not supporting at least 2 sides to keep the weight from bending / flexing the chassis. The worst is picking it up from a corner.

That's why for most people I don't recommend repasting. It's for us dedicated benchmarkers that don't mind tearing in to our laptops on a regular basis - try and stop us

It's just a good heads up for anyone thinking of doing a re-pasting. It's not a 1 time thing. And, if you haven't done much before, you might need to do it a few times the first time.

If you truely are at the limit of temps while doing "normal work", RMA it and let the vendor fix what you paid for. You will get better temps, and better long term reduced temps as their paste has the goal of keeping your laptop in your hands, and not coming back to theirs

 

Return the laptop to the vendor for repaste of new thermal grease is the same as getting back your expensive laptop with other problems... Missing screws for example, attaching long screws where it should be short screws or some great new scratch here and there. No thanks

 

Wow this was my problem... mu cpu broke... (plastic dry) changed it for one of ebay... after that i was not able to even use stock speed witout getting thermal shutdown in games... downclocked to 3ghz... was in the high 70's in games....

removed hs and re-applied liquid ultra... now back at 4GHZ overclock max cpu temp in my game is 72C ... can't belive it ... i must have touched the heatsink and it ****ed up the contact with the cpu .. here are some pics of the cpu and hs immediately after removal...

 

That's one toasty cpu.

And this is why I use Gelid GC Extreme. Still on my paste job from Mar 2014 on my Red M18x R2. Funny enough I have been debating on repasting lately because I know the CPU is due but the GPU's still have been running the same temps.

Mind you the CPU only started this winter being noticeably less effective.

Also for reference as to what I get for this old girl on the paste.

Spoiler

http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/10831012

To bring this to a head, if someone can bring that kind of result with ultra after almost 2 years I would be amazed. Also if you go back to my thread, I pasted my GPU's in like Jan 2014 I believe and they haven't seen a pasting since. And they have been swapped out and swapped back in without the removal of the heatsinks several times for fixing bricked vbios cards so I guess that is all perspective. Anyways just thought I would throw it out there.

Origin PC uses Gelid... interesting...

Well I'll leave you gentlemen to it.

 

Looks like not enough TIM was used.

Not bad for using Gelid Extreme after 2 years.
Although, I'm pretty sure your CPU is throttling once it's hits the 90's . For just under 4.6ghz your CPU score should be around 12,000 without much trouble - you've got about a 20% deficit waiting to be claimed
Liquid Ultra would likely curb your temps before it got to 90 degree's. Forget Gelid - it can't compare.

 

this what im wonering i mean it worked really well for a year ... if i had not put enouph problem would have manifested itself much sooner? and you don't want to apply too much liquid ultra because when you put back heatsink... its squeeze it out like an ice cream sandwitch ... you don't want liquid ultra touching caps or other parts on cpu...

 

Forget at least to use Gelid Extreme on an Oc'd Hotwell Extreme. 3Dmark11/Fire Strike is not enough to push the processor to the limit. I have now in March/April used the same Clu since the same month in 2014 without temp change(nearly 2 years now). But I use my laptop for the most part at the same place. It's a desktop replacement as you know it's important to handle your heavy laptop with care. A big 4.5-5.5 kg laptop should not be thrown around like an nice small 11/14 inches baby girl laptop. Rather say a tablet

 

I don't have time to go though the whole thread atm, but I have also used Coollaboratory's Liquid Ultra. It dried out completely in less than a year on my M18X R2's 3920XM CPU, as well as my old desktop 3930K.

I highly, HIGHLY, recommend staying away from Coollaboratory's Liquid Ultra. It does drop the temps a couple of degrees C when you use it at first, but it is not worth having it dry out and potentially damage your components.

 

Well sadly, until Dell fixes the fan tables (which I doubt its going to happen), let alone have better heat sinks for a 100% loaded CPU/GPU, Liquid Ultra is my only choice.

Already retiring my 18 from 24/7 operation. Without Liquid Ultra, when I do video rendering, I will get a thermal shutdown on Arctic Silver Mx4 , even if I somehow manage to spin the fans on max speed.

The problem was, during the time I got the 18, the bios was A04, when the overclocking profiles were messy (my i7-4900MQ keeps dropping to 3.0Ghz instead of the set 4.0Ghz). So I didn't know about it and I assumed my 18 could handle the heat.

Until the day, when A07 came out and all the thermal shutdown started

 

JasperLee93, are you using the last Nvidia drivers? As I know, 361.43 and 361.60 hotfix cause high temps on GPU.

 

Yes I am, but even before, the fan tables need to be fixed

I tried running on "auto mode"/normal. When my GPU is at 100% usage, its 82 degrees.

When I ran all fans to max, temps dropped to 72--75

 

Well I had 2 exact same laptops, a Clevo P870DM-G and a Eurocom Sky X9, the Clevo had LCU and the Sky X9 has IC Diamond. I don't overclock for now but the temps are the same with both so I am staying away from LCU as I don't want to repaste . When I do have to re-paste, I might use GELID Extreme Thermal Compound as I have a spare one in my drawer.

 

Well, @Papusan and I both have had Liquid Ultra last more than a year. As long as it is deliberately applied and proper care is utilized, there is no reason to be afraid of it any more than a clutz wielding a screwdriver or a sharp object. I suppose that people who are accident prone or do not follow instructions maybe should steer clear of it.

Applied properly, there is a massive difference in cooling between CLU and IC Diamond. My preference is to never use any thermal paste on my CPUs except for Liquid Ultra (or Phobya Liquid Metal, which is more or less the same thing). On my Alienware 18 with 4930MX it means the difference between reasonable temps with a 24/7 4.3GHz overclock versus overheating and thermal shutdown running at exactly the same clock speed. I am able to run the M18xR2 at 4.5GHz at the same temps as 4.3GHz and it shaved almost 20° C off of the normal operating temps on the 4930K in my Panther. I run it at 4.5GHz for normal everyday use and it was overheating and shutting off at 4.1GHz in 3DMark 11 and Fire Strike without AC cooling before. I had to replace the heat sink on the Panther before I could use it. It was deformed and temps were higher with CLU than IC Diamond trying to use the defective heat sink. If not applied correctly, or if the heat sink does not fit well, CLU does not work well. It is not forgiving with sloppy fitting heat sinks.

 

You can just simply forget to run a fiery Hotwell Extreme with a descent OC 24/7 without Liciud ultra. Forget it.. This would become an ancestor major failure and serious a disaster. You might be able to have a nice OC on i7-6700K without Liquid Ultra and with usable temperature but Hotwell is a much much worse processor in terms of temperatures. I lack only two months now and then I have used the same application of Clu throughout 2 years. And this with the same temperature as when I started with this wonderful paste early April 2014. Without Clu had my Alienware 17 which has only 2.pipe cpu heatsink become a sad chapter in my life. If I had to apply new Clu every 5 months so would this extra work be worth it. Something is done incorrectly if you do not experience much lower temperature under max load with Clu. User error guaranteed or warped heatsink. You aren't guaranteed a perfect heatsink in any machine. So maybe this is the problem for some that said they applied Clu correctly and still have to high temp. Maybe prep your heatsink properly before you use it. Or buy and try a new one.

 

I don't overclock my 18 (if you don't count factory overclocking).

Its probably the time I applied it, I applied either too little or didn't spread properly.

Next week, I would be ordering the Liquid Ultra for reapplication.

 

Huh? I used mine CLU twice (for CPU and GPUs) and still have enough for 2 or 3 reapplications. Are you used an entire syringe for one application???

 

Drip, drip, drip, go the conductive globs of metallic doom

 

This will be the result in the end ↓↓↓

 

No haha, it just happened I lost the syringe.

 

i've been using CLU for about a year now on both CPU and GPU

haven't noticed any signs of degradation

are you painting it on both of the mating surfaces?

 

Hi guys, I know I posted this on the other thread. But I won't be repasting my Liquid Ultra. Because, it SOLIDIFIED.

Now the stains are permanent.. Sobs.

 

i had to take apart a cpu after 6mo with CLU it wiped off pretty easy with paper towel, im curious what would make it solidify like that in your case

would using a hairdryer or heat gun work in this case to liquefy it enough for cleaning? id consider just pasting more CLU right on top of the existing hardened ones...i don't see what that would harm, also i wonder if once it is assembled and heated perhaps it would all melt together and form a decent 'solder'

 

Liquid Ultra seems to only get rock hard when exposed to air over time. If all of it was hardened that would seem to indicate the heat sink does not fit correctly, was not properly tightened, or some kind of jar or maybe rough handling of the laptop allowed it to work loose over time. I have found all thermal pastes have a shorter lifespan if used for frequent travel. With constant banging around in a backpack on business trips, I seldom got more than a couple of months on a paste job that would last most people at least six months.