Thermal Paste Question

I was sure where to post this, but I decided to post it here because I have an Alienware m15x.

I don't have warranty anymore and my graphics card has been acting funny, so I took it out to readjust it and now I have to apply thermal paste so I was wondering which would be the best. I found 3 different types.

Polysythetic Silver, High-Density : Thermal Compound

Premium, High Density : Thermal compound

Silicone-Base : Heat Sink Compound

Thanks for the help.

 

i personally like non conductive paste because no risk of accidentally shorting out components. lately i've been using ocz freeze, spreads great and is super cheap.

 

Less theory more specifics:

MX-3, OCZ-Freeze and AS-5 should work well on the GPU core.

For the memory chips - bergquist pads.

 

bergquist pads, i looked them up, looks good. do you recommend a certain type of pad aikimox. also what happened to the bender's quote of the day, i loved those,lol.

 

check out this review

personally i've always used arctic silver 5, its a polysynthetic silver.
while conductive, it's the best i've seen for heat transfer.

just be careful in it's application and don't use too much.

oh it also takes a long time to set, moreso than most pastes (something like 100 - 200 hrs).

oh and yeh pads on the mem are a really good idea, was looking at the hs of the m15x and saw there's quite a gap bw the hs and the chip.

 

AS5 is great, never had an issue with it

 

did you guys know Walmart sells ocz feeze? lol

 

when did walmart start stock that??

 

I don't know but I just bought a few for $5.88/per

http://www.walmart.com/ip/OCZ-Technology-Freeze-Thermal-Compound/13728182

 

well I readjusted the gfx card and it's still broken

I didn't do anything to break it, for some reason it just started glitching out with a bunch of tildas everywhere ~~~~~ and colors when I tried to play games. It would freeze, so I let it rest for a bit to cool off, then try playing again, and then it would glitch again. So I took it out because alienware said maybe it needed to be readjustsed. So of course my model has the heat sink sautered ONTO the pad covering my gfx card. So i take that off then take the gfx card out to look at it. So I buy some thermal paste, I tried what you guys suggessted, put everything back exactly the way I found it, seemed snug enough into the laptop case, but nope - it still glitches.

I don't get how it broke.... I mean it was getting prty hot around 80 C, but it shouldn't burn up because of that. The fans wouldn't even turn on till 85C to cool it down to 75 or 80.

 

whenever i think of walmart, i imagine randy from south park singing kumbaya with a burning walmart store in the background.

damn i wish our supermarket chains in aus sold stuff like this.

 

I ordered GAP Pad VO Soft and Hi-Flow 225U. Will provide some feedback when they arrive. I know, Soviet was deeply into those, so you can ask him for details.
If anyone has experience with those - please share.

Could you explain the "broken"? Does the system boot?

 

I just replaced my thermal paste with IC7 and it's phenomenal! 11C temperature drop! More than I have ever had before. I highly recommend it! As far as thermal pads go, do they really help all that much? If I were to put them on my two memory modules, would I notice any real difference in temperatures or no?

 

I heard IC7 can be difficult to remove and also that it can scratch the HS and core crystal surfaces. But yeah, many report a nice temp drop.

 

Well I'm sure both of those are true in some cases but;
1. Hopefully I won't need to re-apply the paste any time soon
and
2. You can scratch either surface doing the job in general, just be careful and you won't have problems, generally speaking.

 

But does it beat IC7? What were your temp drops?

 

AS5 has worked great for me, I replaced it on the CPU and my temps dropped a good 10C under load. My GPU temps dropped an average of 5C or so. Furmark is the only thing that can get them over 70C now.

 

I forgot to specify that the temperature drop was 10~11 on both my gpu and cpu. and it idles under 45C and that's with the gpu overclocked.

 

What is the benefit of replacing the stock thermal pad on those memory chips? It helps in OCing the GPU or what?

 

where are the memory chips on the m17x? Im interested in putting the suggested thermal pads on it

 

Some better quality pads do a better job with heat transfer.

On the GPU itself. You'll see two rows of 4 memory chips along the side of the die.

 

Do you recommend some pads in particular? What about Aikimox's choice on previous page?

Will the temperature drop have a noticeable effect for the average guy? Like helping the gpu to run cooler and the fans to kick in less.

I just have some Mx-3 for the chipset and gc extreme for cpu and gpus, so i may wait a little bit longer to apply all this stuff if thermal pad change is worth it

 

Oredered Bergquist Gap Pad VO Soft and Hi-Flow 225U, will let you know how it goes.

 

The answer is maybe. The condition of your heatsink and how you apply the paste/pads will have a bigger affect than the brand or type you buy.

 

I have some Hi-Flow 300G but haven't tried it yet. You can definitely feel the difference.

 

How did u apply your MX-3? I mean spread method or pea method?

 

Why is it a bad idea to put it on your GPU and CPU?

 

my method of choise is to spread the paste evenly on the surface. But it's tricky with the chipset because of the 1mm gap, it requires quite an amount of paste and it takes more time to achieve a good application. Just don't throw the pad away and try to keep it as clean as possible.

So far after 30 minutes temps are not going above 60c for the chipset which is an improvement (cpu is stressed with boinc at 100% usage at 2.93ghz). Mx-3 is almost non-curing so i'll have to wait for the gelid gc extreme on the cpu to cure to really know the final results.

 

higher c/m-k is better correct? Just curious why you went with the hi-flow when the 5000S35 is available. It should also be noted, that the mofsetts on the 5870's could be cooled by the heatsink as well, I was checking my fan today and noticed that the gap between the two is small enough for a pad to be slipped under there to cool them. There's a lot of unused real estate past the longitudinal bank of ram chips.

 

Still no news Aikimox?

 

where did you guys get these thermal pads i need some for my m17 and i can't find them anywhere

 

I heard someone mention the spread method..... I don't recommend this. The spread method creates many MANY air "bubbles" and thus causes higher temperatures.

Hotpockets = hot CPU

The pea method is recommended for dual cores, however for mine I used the rice grain method for maximum distribution (as its quad core processor). For the GPU I also used the rice grain method and let the heatsink spread it for both

My temperatures are ALWAYS cool. I stressed my M15x for a day in Prime95 and slightly warm air was being expelled from the vents.... Crazy temperature drops as well.

I used Arctic MX-2 (spreads better (from pressure) than MX-3 and virtually same performance).

 

This will be a very helpful video: YouTube - ‪How Thermal Compound Spreads‬‎

Best paste that I've ever used is Shin Etsu X-23

 

i'm suprised the cross method worked so well on cpu's which have the heat spreader.

 

I've never applied thermal paste before but i am oc'ing my gpu atm and it was recommended that I replace the original paste. how difficult is it to do this? also does doing this void the aw warranty my M15x is only a month old.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware/375100-official-what-will-not-void-your-warranty.html

it's not difficult to do, but make sure you have a clean environment to work with and good lighting. make sure you have the proper tools as well.

if the paste is difficult to remove, use isopropyl alcohol and a Q-tip to apply. I recommend you cover the head of the Q-tip in coffee filter material. I think i read that somewhere on arctic silvers site some time ago... it's to avoid cotton/residue transferring to the chip.

 

I get all my pads and paste from frozencpu.com I generally buy a half a sheet for pads, and that lasts quite a while. You don't really need much. You will still have qite a bit left over f you ever want to replace the pads or use them on another computer.

 

thanks i'll look if i need the 1mm or the .5 and my m17 should run cool again

 

I just used thermal paste on my memory. Apparently, it ran significantly cooler at first, but now I dunno. MemIO got to 90C when playing BFBC2 with a 750/1000 oc. :S

MW2 usually only brings it to the mid 80s though. No OC.

 

Got the pads...wrong thickness. Silly me.
Will have to re-order, they fit neither M17X nor 8740w