Thermal pads, Screws and X Bracket for 680m?

Hello!

I suppose I will explain the entire situation to ensure I am not already doing something wrong. I decided that it is time to throw more money into my M15x. It currently has a 460m and an i5-540m. After doing plenty of research, I think it would be best to upgrade to a 680m and an i7-920xm. From what I have gathered, the best place to buy both the GPU and CPU is Ebay. I found the following listings for what I am looking for:

Dell Nvidia 680m:
NVIDIA GeForce Dell GTX 680M 2GB DDR5 for MSI Clevo Alienware Upgrademonkey | eBay

Intel i7 920xm:
New Intel i7 920XM 3 2GHz 8MB L3 SLBLW Unlock | eBay

In the 680m page, I see no talk of included X bracket, screws, nor thermal pads. I continued to look on Ebay and found 680m Upgrade Kits that included everything needed for the installation, but they were asking $750 and it seemed like far too much to me. So I am wondering if I am going to need to purchase an X bracket or if the X bracket and screws on my 460m will work. I am also wondering if I can buy thermal pads separately that will fit on the 680m.

Thanks in advance to anyone that leaves me some feedback! I have never upgraded/replaced laptop components before so I am a little nervous. I have plenty of experience upgrading and replacing desktop components, however. And I have watched many youtube tutorials on installing the 680m in the M15x. I spent the better half of last year gathering as much research as possible to make sure this upgrade goes smoothly. Let me know if you feel there is anything wrong with my choices or if you have any tips for a first-timer.

 

Wow, them i7 920XM have dropped hugely in prices. Shame them 680M are still quite high xD. Anyway, I did this exact upgrade as you but i brought all my parts from eBay all brand new a bit cheaper than the parts you linked (considering they are used) as I just kept looking on eBay for the same parts day after day for months until a deal finally popped up good enough for me! The 680m and 920xm are good buys what you linked and all you would need to do with them is just buy thermal pads and thermal paste. I used the x-bracket and screws from my gtx 460m and just whacked it in my 680m and it fits inch perfect and works completely fine! I suggest getting phobya thermal pad ultra 1mm for both 920xm and 680m. I use that thermal pad + ic diamond 7 carat paste and my temps on my cpu is 40-45 degree idle and 53-59 degree max gaming and everything. gpu is 29 degree idle and max load is about 55-60 degree on gaming and that.

And just like you I was very nervous with disassembling my laptop as I never did it before. But go on youtube and watch m15x disassemble video and watch it exactly how they do it, that's how I did it. It took me like hours first try haha! After that though I did it without video and did it in like 10 minutes just to re-apply and clean my laptop and everything. You will love the upgraded m15x, heck since upgrading every game I played has just been killed off completely as max settings pretty much with 60 fps and no stutter at all. Also everything in general is so smooth and cause I have an SSHD it just feels like a super computer haha its unreal. Good luck with your install and if you need any help pm me. I have helped many other people on this forum (you may know) install the new parts for there m15x and provided great assistance if required. Also don't forget the 240W PSU which is highly recommended for OC and better cooling.

 

Thank you so much for your quick reply, Matt!

It's funny that you mentioned helping others! I came across a guide that you had posted in another thread on how to edit the driver .inf and flash the vbios for the 680m and it made me feel SO much more comfortable with upgrading to it. In fact, I probably would have decided to go with a 7970m if I hadn't come across it.

So happy to hear that I won't be needing to purchase another bracket and set of screws! As for the thermal pad you recommended, the only results I am seeing are pads that are a one-piece sheet. Does this mean I am going to have to cut the pad to the correct dimensions for the spots that need cover on the card? And if I do, do I need to be 100% accurate with the dimensions of the sizes that need cut out?

I almost forgot to bring up the PSU! I've been reading on this forum that many have gotten around all throttling by getting another PSU and pulling the middle pin out. If I get the 240W that you mentioned, am I going to have to pull the pin on that one to avoid throttling? I would like to avoid that if at all possible so that I can use the second PSU as another charger in case the one that came with my laptop dies.

 

Haha yeah, I forgot about that thread. Yeah you just get one big square piece and you cut it out to the shape you want so it covers the required parts on the heatsink. And I was 100% accurate when I was doing it with dimensions but it's very easy and straight forward to do.

As with the PSU, I haven't touched my PSU middle pin or anything at all. I just brought the 240W PSU and boom I was playing every game on high-max settings @ 60 FPS with no issues what so ever and also no throttling. That may be the fact because I haven't overclocked my CPU (haven't seen the need to at all yet) at all. I think the reason why people are taking out the middle pin is because people are wanting to play around with there CPU by overclocking it to crazy speeds or whatever. But personally I don't feel the need to overclock my CPU or take out any middle pin as since installing all my new parts my system has ran absolutely 100% smooth with out crashes or nothing at all.

To be honest, I think since upgrading my laptop from the gtx 460m, i7 740qm, 4gb ram, intel 5300 wifi card, 500gb hdd and the old PSU. My laptop runs better and has less issues than when I first brought my m15x brand new haha. Literally the best upgrade I ever did, I was going to build my own gaming rig but I'm glad I chose to stay with my M15x. It has done absolute wonders for me and is just ridiculously fast for a 15 inch notebook. I can guarantee that once you upgrade as well you will be destroying most peoples gaming desktops with this machine! Also the cooling on this model is very good in my opinion too! Happy upgrading!

 

Would this PSU work?

Amazon.com : Original Dell 240W AC Power Adapter Charger P13F Laptop Notebook Computers -Flextronics Flat Version : Laptop Computer Chargers And Adapters : Computers & Accessories


Also, is there a list of the dimensions I need to cut the thermal pad into? I wanna make sure I dont cut too much or two little.

Thank you so much for your help by the way. I should be ordering the i7 this coming Monday, but I may hold off on the 680m and wait for a price drop since the 800m series has just been released.

EDIT: Just wanted to say I bought the i7 today! Hopefully it'll get here soon and in 100% working condition. Still think I'm going to hold off a little longer on buying the 680m in case the price drops soon.

 

Sorry to double post.

I just had a couple more quick questions. I've no experience with thermal pads and was just wondering if they are adhesive? If so, do I apply them to the card's capacitors or to the heatsink? Also, do I only need to put thermal pads on the GPU or does the CPU need one as well?

EDIT: Just installed my 920xm! Was extremely nervous but I did everything properly. The laptop powered on and the first thing I did was check the BIOS to make sure it found the i7. Then I booted into Windows and immediately noticed the resolution was 800x600. The first thing I did was check CPU-Z and everything seemed normal. Then, I attempted to switch it back to 1080p, and realized I was only able to increase it to 1280x1024. This indicated to me that I had lost my video card driver, which I was able to confirm on Device Manager. Then, I checked HWMonitor and this is what I saw after the PC had been on for about 5 minutes more:


http://i.gyazo.com/a91fa0300d655ac19d34974bab494846.png

The temperatures seem WAY too high to me, and I'm not exactly sure why this is the case. I do notice that the core speed jumps up to about 3GHz a lot of the time, although I'm not sure that would be the problem. I removed all of the old thermal paste off of the heatsink, I pulled the heat film from the old processor and put it on new processor, and I put an adequate amount of paste on the dye without overdoing it. So the first thing I did after this was restart my PC and turn off turbo mode. When my laptop came up, my video card driver was properly functioning again and when I checked HWMonitor, temps were down to the high 50's from where they were before. I let the laptop run for about another 5 minutes before restarting again. This time, I re-enabled turbo mode and I've now had the laptop on for about 15-20 minutes with little to no activity. These are the temp results:

http://i.gyazo.com/c393c2629371f4ee514385685d839037.png

Are these temperatures normal??

 

Sorry. Just ONE more consecutive post. I had to make one more update.

Just repasted and temps are down drastically. 51C on average.

 

Sorry I haven't been replying, completely forgot about this thread! Those temps are crazy high! Mine are 40-50 degree idle (windows media player, multiple tabs on firefox, itunes ect) and mine never go above 60 degrees whilst gaming. What thermal pad did you use and also what thermal paste? Make sure there was no air bubbles when applying your paste on the CPU and I took my film protector off completely as I didn't feel it was necessary. Did you put the 1 piece of thermal pad across the length of the CPU heatsink where the old pad was?

Edit: Just played TF2 and NS2 for a while and quickly got back to desktop and my CPU temps are 46 degrees :S I don't know why yours is like that.

 

No problem!

That must be the problem. Did not replace the thermal pad that was already on the CPU heatsink. I wasn't even aware that there was one until I had pulled the heatsink from my laptop and saw it on the other side. The tutorial video for CPU replacement made no mention of a thermal pad so I assumed that there was no immediate need for me to replace it. Guess I'd better order one tonight to take care of it asap and for my GPU when I order it.

 

Haha yeah we all make minor problems sometimes and what thermal pad are you getting? I suggest getting phobya ultra or phobya xt and it should be 1mm for both CPU and GPU thats what mine is. Glad you got the new CPU though

 

I ordered Phobya ultra 1mm and a PA-7E 210w PSU while I was at it. They should both be here on Wednesday. If all goes well, I should be purchasing my 680m tomorrow too. Last Friday, I ordered a Western Digital Black Dual Drive so that I can have both a SSD and HDD without having to remove the slot-loading Blu Ray drive. So excited for all these new upgrades.

EDIT: 680m is on it's way. Should be here this week.

 

I CANNOT figure out what I'm doing wrong.

I received my 210w PSU and thermal pads today so I replaced the thermal pad on my CPU heatsink and repasted. Temps went back up to around low 60's on idle. (Getting 75C just when browsing!) Very frustrated at this point, I opened my laptop again, cleaned the die and the heatsink spotless, repasted very carefully for the fourth time now, made sure the thermal pad was in the correct location, and pieced it all back together to find no change in the temps. Could someone give me advice? what could I possibly be doing wrong? The fan does have a little amount of dust caked on its blades, and I've tried cleaning them off with compressed air but it seems it'll only come off if I were to remove the fan from the heatsink and wipe it down with a paper towel. Would that amount of dust make that big of a difference? I wouldn't think it would so much because I haven't bothered touching the fans in months and my i5 had no problems with temperature.


EDIT: I just checked HWMonitor right after posting this and temps on all cores have dropped to around 49-50 as I type this.

 

Congrats in the first place. Did you overclock your CPU? If yes, how much?

 

Nice! Wish I had a 680m !


Sent from my iPod touch using Tapatalk

 

Thank you!

I have not overclocked my CPU at all. It's got Turbo Boost enabled but that's it. These temps seem way to high for a processor on stock clocks.

 

They seem too high indeed. Get throttlestop and hwinfo and do a simple TS bench, check how high the temp goes on full load and the fan speed. Maybe the cpu was not idle, maybe it did "something" in the background. Thats about the temp I get on my 920xm while gaming with 26/26/25/24 multiplier. Weird...

 

Alright, Chopsy, I did what you asked and these are the results:

http://i.gyazo.com/9cb6470d84c7c6c7eab0152b50c2601a.png

I did this remotely so I was unable to listen to the fan ramp up, but one thing I did notice was that the RPM stuck around 3200 until one of the cores hit 79C. Then it jumped up to around 4200 and the cores started to cool down to around 68-70C until the test was over.

I forgot to mention it before, but I am using Arctic Silver thermal paste and a Phobya Ultra 1mm thermal pad. In terms of installing the heatsink, I don't think I made any mistakes. When you screw it down to the board, are you supposed to tighten each screw until they wont turn anymore? All of mine are that tight. I also tightened each screw about 8 turns at a time rather than tightening each one all the way down until they were all tight.

 

Well, considering that your cpu was on full load for more then 11 minutes, those temps seem fine. Ambient temperature is a big factor, but I would say your cpu acts and is being cooled normaly . My 920xm, same test you did but with an OC temp jumps well over 80C. The 3200 to 4200 rpm jump on 80C is normal.
So in the end I don't think you have a cooling issue, something in the background must have been stressing your CPU and maybe you didn't notice.

 

Well if it seems normal to you then I think I'm going to roll with it. I'm tired of fighting this beast. Might consider getting a cooling pad just to see if that makes a difference. Thank you for checking that out for me!

Now I just need to be patient and wait for my 680m to get here.

 

Well, apparently my 680m got delivered to some lucky fella in China.

Gyazo - e0387b36711dcdf571e1417ff101cca3.png

Just sent a concerned letter to the Ebay seller.

Edit: Just got a response from the seller. Apparently the package failed security checks and was sent back to him. He said he's going to try to send it again today.