Should you do Thermal grease on m11x

deleated post.........

 

sucks for you man ;/ now I'm scared to open mine up D:

 

Shouldnt be much of a problem anyways because the back side of mobile chips dont have anything for the paste of interfere with. Secondly, unless they use a metal based thermal paste (like arctic silver) or another kind of conductive paste then it wont be a problem anyways. Knowing most oem, they probably used the cheapest bulk set they can get their hands on.

 

Will Post Pics of My Hinges when my R1 arrrives

 

am i following right.. you pulled palm rest/ keyboard / screen / and graphics / processor heat sink to see if it had thermal grease applied properly .. ??? or did something lead you down this path? Something i should look for?

 

Instead, you now have an issue with your warranty.

 

Did you check the heatsink for the rest of the thermal paste?

 

if you're refering to the ocing option in the bios, it will most certainly NOT void the warranty

 

... In all fairness, you disassembled a brand-new laptop straight from the factory, that passed all testing before it was packed up and shipped out the door. It is likely that you caused most of the "quality control" issues that you are blaming on the manufacturer.

Just about every OEM-made computer that is shipped has thermal paste applied the way you photographed. There is excess thermal paste that is squeezed out of the side of the heatspreader / heatsink contact point. And in most cases (ignoring the rare exception), this works just fine for the entire life of the laptop, without any problems, without the customer ever knowing or caring that this is the case.

The "gap of air" in the thermal paste that you report was most likely caused by your own hand, when you removed the heatsink. If you look at the bottom of the heatsink, you'll probably find a big glob of thermal paste that perfectly fits the shape of that "gap of air".

As for the power ribbon... You would have had to disassemble the laptop in order to even see the power ribbon. When you disassemble the laptop to that degree, there is a very good chance that you unintentionally tugged on the cable a bit, pulling it out half way. You most likely caused the very problem you blame on poor craftsmanship. The laptop would not have fried / shorted out if you turned it on, because it didn't short out during testing in the build process.

Disassembling a brand-new laptop to the degree that you have done is more likely to cause damage than leaving it alone. That is why customer disassemblies to that degree void the warranty.

If there is a problem with your unit, then call it in and get it repaired under warranty. If you are unlucky enough to have the Dell / Alienware technician cause additional damage (which I have never experienced, across the 4 or 5 Dell service calls that I've made over the past 9 years), then call them again and have them fix the problem. If you are unlucky enough that the problem STILL isn't fixed, they will eventually send you a new unit. And if you're still unlucky enough THAT doesn't work, sell the laptop and never buy from Dell / Alienware again.

 

What he is saying is that the plastic shield which surrounds the core was wedged between the heatsink and core itself. I'm not going to pass judgment as to whether he caused it or if it was the 12 y/o asian who put it together. But it seems likely that it was during manufacture...

 

Hmm Really? .. can you link me to the article post that indcates that dell is now shipping units with "Third Party" "Hinge Reinforcement".. All Ive Seen is the comment on Dells site forums indicating depending on third party vendor they are hoping for a fix around march.. Hasnt seen Dells update that its now active ..

FYI
And will investigate my hinges today once Fedex knocks on my Door.

 

ACK!, there is nothing wrong with how the gpu paste was applied to your laptop. The excess was paste was not touching any parts in a way to harm them. The only way thermal paste can damage components is that if:

1) it is able to conduct electricity (which you should note that most pastes used by oems do not, as well as most pastes in general)
2) it touches components that it would cause them to short should point 1) be true.

Like I said point 1 is most likely false, and its not touching any metal components so there is no problem with how you received your laptop.

What kent was trying to tell you, is that if you should take apart your brand new laptop you risk damage to some components in the process and might therefore void your warranty. If you suspect that something might be wrong just call dell and tell them your problems and they will fix it for you. So why risk damage and voiding your warranty if you could just get it fixed by them without this headache?

 

On my old m5550 I had a 8600M GT that would get up to 120 Celsius

In order to get it down to temp for my laptop to even boot. I smothered it with AS-5, in fact it was more terribly applied than in your photo and still my laptop ran fine for 2 years with no damage to the GPU.

After I bought this new laptop, I took the 8600M card out and cleaned it with iso-alcohol and sold the GPU to a friend who says it works perfectly in his XPS 15

 

No, it is entirely a myth that opening up your Dell/Alienware will void the warranty. Dell actually trusts people to open up their laptops and doesn't seal them off and attempt to prevent customers from performing their own upgrades like Apple does.

I REALLY WISH people would stop spreading this misinformation. There are lots of competent people out there who have no problem and don't flinch at all about opening up the guts of a laptop, and they don't need this bad information floating around.

 

But should you damage the laptop when you do this, it is entirely your fault and your warranty is void, i guess unless you have accidental damage protection?

 

Obviously that is always a risk, if you know what you are doing...not a very high risk.

If you end up breaking something while your inside the laptop, chances are you shouldn't have been in there in the first place. I mean unless you are forcing parts back together, or ripping them out, or being a complete idiot, its pretty hard to do irreversible damage.

If I buy a car that is still under warranty for say 3 years, and in that 3 years I decide to take apart something in the engine and break something else, of course it won't be covered under warranty. That should always be assumed and anybody using common sense would already realize that.

But to tell people they will void their warranty when they open it up is 100% not true. I've seen it said many many times on this forum without any correction/clarification.

 

Chapter 4 in the manual:

 

It's a recommendation.

Show me where it says it will void your warranty.

You are just repeating what I said above, if you open it up and break something else, it will not be covered under warranty.

If you know what you are doing, then there's no reason why you shoulnd't be able to open it up, and upgrade/clean out whatever you want inside it. I've had TONS of Dell laptops, I've always opened them up, I've never broken anything that wasn't already there, and I've never had a problem getting warranty service if needed after.

 

Is there something notably different in the hinge? I'd love to know what the difference in design is. Not sure anyone has seen updated hinges yet.

 

Seems like a "gray" area to me, but it shouldn't matter. When filing the warranty claim all you have to do is play dumb. Even if they were able to determine that you had removed the casing, they still can't prove that you damaged anything. Also, chances are, by then all of the paper work has gone through, and it is more of a pain to not replace the part.

I'm pretty sure they put that in there so that when some one calls and says the following they can just deny the claim. "Yo Dell, so I was upgrading my video card on my laBtop and when I soldered it to the circuits all da stuff stopped workin"

*****I'm sure the warranty crew is trained to deny claims when the customer ADMITS to doing something stupid, everything else the customer wins.

 

The reason that it can and most likely WILL void your warranty is because if you admit fault to breaking a certain part, even though it might be irrelevant to other parts, they will say that because you damaged a part of the computer, it can have negative consequences on the other parts and therefore they cannot fix the laptop anymore...because your damage might have caused damage to other parts.

 

Once again, obviously. I believe this scenario has been covered by the posts above.

Also, thats only if you tell them you broke something else. And 2, only if you did break something else, which in my opinion is difficult to do unless you have no idea what you are doing, and hence, shouldn't be opening it up in the first place.

Regardless, my point is that opening it up and fixing/upgrading/replacing a part, will not void your warranty. Nowhere in Dell/Alienware's manuals, or warranty description does it say that.

To say that is most likely can and WILL void your warranty is a 100% false statement. Maybe you feel YOU will break something if you open your laptop, and that's fine, then maybe your somebody that shouldn't be opening it in the first place. But IMO it is very hard to just 'break' something, and to assume that as soon as you open the bottom cover of the laptop, something will break, is a terrible and incorrect assumption.

 

Ehh i think were getting off topic here lol

 

Back on topic: If you want to put better thermal grease on your laptop, go ahead. It won't void your warranty by just doing that.

The way posts above were worded, it would make some people think that they cannot apply new thermal paste without voiding their warranty and that is just simply untrue.

 

But theres still absolutely nothing wrong with the way it came. I do find it odd though that the first thing he did when he got the laptop was open it rather than turn it on.

 

Not that odd, I've done it many times, either to upgrade the RAM, or hdd as soon as I get it. Usually I will boot it up first to make sure its all working the way it should from the factory, but that's usually just a 1min test before it gets opened up.

The last M11x r1 I ordered from the outlet had no screws in any of the 'P' locations under the back cover, basically the chassis wasn't securely attached to the case. I would've never known that if I didn't open it up.

 

I can't believe I forgot to add that as well. I always ask if they can send me the part to replace myself instead of waiting around for a tech. I just hate the hassle of trying to meetup with them and the time it takes to do a simple R&R of a part. Dell's let me do the repair/replacement on HDDs, RAM, heatsinks, LCD screen, DVDRW drive, palmrests, to even a motherboard.

I'm sure you'll have no trouble fixing it yourself ACK!

 

To be fair, I never disagreed with this.

 

I replaced the TIM on mine because I was not happy with my temps... I was getting over 80c in both CPU and GPU..
I used Diamond IC 24Kt and now I never get over 70c with more over clocking.. I think the stuff that was on there was seemed worn out and dryed.. very weird as the laptop is not very old only a couple months.. anyway good Idea for my R2

 

Um dunno .. if i had a company replacing hinges id do it right. and the metal bracket filler plate is in all the pics i find.. search m11x hinge at google and then hit images

 

The picture you've taken of the interior of your LCD assembly shows exactly what others who have opened their own over the past 9 months. The two-sided tape has always been there. None of the metal plate components in your photo are new. They've always been there. There are plenty of photos posted here and detailed posts that describe exactly what your photo reveals.

 

Original Poster just proved he isnt "more" qualified than the techs and has jumped the gun with big assumptions about his system. You have the old assembly... there is NO retrofit plan announcement and is in my opinion VERY unlikely as you will not see changes in the hinge itself at all but more likely a new rear bezel. But thanks for adding a ton of confusion in the forum

If anything was amiss it would be pry marks on the casing... but now that you are on the record for happily taking apart your system it may be doubly difficult to get a new panel (based on the marks).

With photos, you couldn't argue in "court" or anywhere else... once proven wrong on a major claim the others just kinda fall apart.

Sympathies for your issues if any but damned if I can tell if Dell caused any.