Chastity's Thoughts on Repasting (Read Here First)

You may not have a problem. From the feedback I got, the paste goes bad if one of the mount screws is loose, so it gathers to that one side. Air gets in and you have thermal hell. If you can go 3-4 months of constant temps, you're likely golden.

 

Aha! That's good to know. I'll be monitoring temps daily to see if there's any degradation.

I assume you mean the mount screws for the heat sink.

 

I thought the same, but someday the temp went up and it wasnt possible to play a game anymore. after 15 minutes the notebook shuts off cause of the heat... so i decided to do it.
if you have no problems with the temperature, dont do it and keep your warranty. and if you are able to wait, rma it. i didnt wanted to wait^^

Thats possible. My screws were loose a bit. enough to hold the heater, but not as fix as i screwed it now.

 

Also, I re-read some of the suggestions. My TSS0 has been at 79 or so, but TSS1 was 89. Looking back on the advice, I really do think I'm going to hold off on repasting.

 

if anything repasting will make your temps more consistent. The three sensors won't be off my more than a few degrees at most.

 

Are these paste problems restricted to the G73's with the ATI cards? Does this still happen with the i7 / GTX 460m models?

 

Not really restricted to the ATI cards, but the ATI cards (when pasted properly) run slightly hotter than the JW, so a bad paste job on a JW isn't as noticeable.

Of course, notebookcheck.net says the JW runs hotter than the JH ... so maybe it was the production run of the JH units. IIRC, there was a bad production run where almost every unit was improperly pasted, but that was back in last Feb.

Both the JH and JW use the same paste, so you'll get good results repasting either.

 

Here's my temp on load, had my g73jh for like more than 4 months now, should i consider repasting?

 

Blow out your vents first, and if still high, repaste.

 

i've repasted my asus g73jh and i'm satisfied with my temps now.
my gpu idles at 48-50°C and it doesn't get hotter than 83°C under load(before ~100°C).
but my cpu repaste was not that good...
73°C was the highest temp so far(77-80°C before repasting) and i dameged the warranty seal .

but i've one problem after the whole repasting:
when i close my notebook too fast or when i push at the right side near the power and end/- button my notebook turns off.

 

just curious on this one... why is the CPU sealed for warranty but not the GPU.... makes no sense to me. Why is the CPU sealed at all in the first place.

 

Called my reseller, and even though only the CPU is sealed, if you crack it open, do something obvious, and asus doesn't want to repair it - they don't have to honour the warranty.

Simply opening it up voids the warranty. If you can open and close it without wrecking anything, well ... they can't "prove" you've opened it. But if you changed the thermal paste (or something) and it's obvious, they have grounds to disqualify your warranty coverage.

Lame, asus. Really lame.

 

I'm by no means trying to be a warranty gremlin, and most upgrades if performed properly fall within the rights of the end user to perform. I just can't understand why they have tape on the CPU in the first place >_< seems counter productive. If you lock that down why not lock down EVERYTHING else =/

I've done repasting, and even full fan and cooling hardware replacements on all my previous model laptops that had heat issues (Acer 5672 / etc.) and they all helped... granted they were out of warranty but it just seems counter productive to limit the cpu but not GPU (I suppose the GPU is locked so they have no beef people tinkering with it? >_< )

/soapbox

 

These are my temps playing Call of Duty Black Ops for an hour on max resolution of 1920x 1080 and using AIDA64 to read the sensors. What is the PCH?


CPU 69C (156F)
CPU# 1 / Core #1 64C (147F)
CPU# 1 / Core# 2 64C (147F)
CPU# 1 / Core# 3 65C (149F)
CPU# 1 / Core# 4 63C (145F)

PCH 88C (190F)

GPU Diode 72C (162F)
Seagate HDD 45C (113F)


CPU Fan 3300 RPM
GPU all it shows is 100%

 

here is my idle temperatures right now, im afraid i need to repaste
but i really dont want to do it myself.

im idling at 69 degrees on normal clocks
and 62 degrees on 405/1000 at 0.95 V

http://img37.imageshack.us/img37/8540/ss20110106225819.jpg

any suggestions?

 

That's my case too. Almost same temps as yours. I think as what have others have already said, our stock thermal paste is already degrading. Dusts accumulated on the fan blades may have contributed too to the increase in temperature.

After I've done repasting with ICD7, I will consider cleaning the fan blades too.

 

Quick question; I think I might need to do a repaste, as I've been having overheating issues, but how do I measure idle/load temps exactly? I don't want to do a repaste if it's not necessary.

 

Use a hardware monitor that logs to a file. GPU-Z is an easy one that comes to mind, AMD GPU Tool for HD5970, and HWINFO32 as well.

 

Right, but what do Idle and Load refer to?

 

Idle: When it's doing nothing. It's idle.
Load: When it's got some heavy processing, it's loaded, or under load.

 

I just noticed the TS1 shooting up to 95-96C when I ran Furmark today. Lord, I might have to whip up my box of pastes (yes, a toolbox of pastes, from NH-1 to MX-2/3/4 to AS5 and ICD 7 and a ton more OEM ones I got for free from people who I helped build their builds). Opening this thing is gonna be painful, hopefully less painful than the HP Pavillion I opened in the past (the Mic connector in that one is practically half-broken before it could even be pulled out so the operation had to be stopped or I faced a dead mic).

I just noticed I have an ASUS ASP near me (10min drive), I wonder what ASUS's policy is about getting repasted at ASPs? There would be no charge if my laptop started to overheat and shutdown right? (otherwise, there would be a charge since its just "too hot" (90C+) but still running?)

 

I actually got told by an ASP that they can't repaste and keep my warranty - that asus has to do it at their repair facility... *shrugs*

I'm sure they're wrong, considering BTO and Xotic can do it, and they're ASPs ...

 

Did they try to charge you for it?

I might head down to Compu2000 sometime next week if my Load temp reaches 100C+. No reason to take my laptop apart when you can get people to do it for you for free.

 

to get it done for free at the ASP, you call Asus Customer Service, get an RMA#, then inform Asus that you'd prefer to have it done at the ASP of choice. This way Asus will pay the ASP, as they need the RMA Case #.

 

Cool, will call them up sometime this week.

 

When I use Everest, I check the CPU temp or the module temp?

 

Are these the only ASUS ASPs? ASUS Notebook Authorized Service Provider

 

Yes

I'm luck enough to be with in driving distance to my closest repair shop. I also happen to know the owner which helps (sad part is that often times they ship OUT for repairs instead of ordering parts IN! =(

 

Repasted, I max at 97 in furmark, with 25 ambient and 92 with 23 ambient. That's memIO, which is generally on the periphery of the die. Core temp (the one that shows in furmark) is a nice 87-89.

Gaming ... Max temps in SC2 on extreme, FHD is 77,79,77 and Dead Space 2 is 78,81,78, averages are sc2 72,74,71 and DS2 give 75,77,75.

Good enough? Yup. I've got one of the c02 revision chips (no GSOD, even without the vbios update), but it appears the newer revisions run 5-10 degrees cooler.

 

Nice. did you do it yourself? I've not played SC2 in 2 months because I need to repaste (or RMA). I keep procrastinating. The keyboard tape is really my main concern with doing it myself. I think I'm going to send it in, but I need to clear off personal info (email etc) before I do. Maybe they can fix my keyboard lag while it's in there..

 

If you want to play SC2 *now*, just use the AMD GPU clock tool for 5870m and set the clocks to 400/1000. You shouldn't hit your thermal shutdown, and you can play SC2 on med/high like that no problem.

Also, the repaste procedure isn't hard, just go slow. The big issue is getting the paste on properly.

 

It's 42 degrees here in australia, and my G73 is idling at 65C. It will go over 100C when i game. Hot weather really roast this laptop.

 

Yup, it does. Think of it this way - if you've got a cold bath and a tiny little heat source, that heat source will be cooled quickly. If you raise the temperature of the bath even one degree, the cooling capacity of the bath is drastically reduced.

Now imagine you're talking about ambient temperatures. A 2-3 degree ambient jump generally makes more than a 2-3 degree increase for your GPU. When I've got ambient 25 and idling at 55-60, imagine you've got 15 degrees warmer ...

Anyways, you could always try a repaste, it's not terribly difficult and so long as you're careful, not dangerous.

 

I get what you mean, but on that hot day, i usually just watch Family Guy or some series than playing a game.

I think 6 months down the line, i do need a repaste soon. Or at least open it up to clean the vents.

The temps are slightly higher now. Still on acceptable range.

 

Hm... im in the same boat. I have a 1 year Best Buy warranty as well.

I've seen youtube vids on the keyboard dis-assembly and its enough to discourage me from attempting it.

My problem is im recently unemployed and I haven't the cash to send it to a tech. How much does the ASP avenue cost?

I would think that Bestbuy would just ship it off to be repaired. Am i Wrong in that assessment? Worst case an ASUS repair/repaste would give me a few months till i get on my feet to get it to an ASP and have a higher quality paste applied.

 

The keyboard is just stuck on with double sided tape. Go slow, and you'll have no problems. It's ONLY tape (and the 5 clip things, but NO screws).

Also, a good paste job will only need to be done once. You won't get better paste at an asus repair facility either. And the difference between the best paste and the regular stuff is only about 5 degrees max. Which is to say, if you *want* to use ICD or MX-4 or something that is non-conductive ... go for it. But don't think the benefit is in lower temps - the benefit is in the fact you can glob a tonne of it on and not worry about shorting out your GPU. Though, I wouldn't recommend ICD for beginners - I'm relatively experienced with repairing small electronics, and the viscosity of ICD makes it a huge PITA to use if you don't do it right the first time.

 

I've noticed that alot of you guys on here have different variations of the g73 which tend to have different specs. I'm wondering if they've remedied any of the problems that caused the start of this thread [mainly the thermal paste used on the gpu I suppose] on the newer versions of the g73. I just bought my g73 last weekend and the model number is the G73JH-B1 which comes with a different processor then I see alot of yours have come with which is the i7-740m not sure if anything else is different spec wise, I havent looked closely but I'm curious if the thermal paste problem has been solved as i'm not too keen on ripping my new laptop apart to reseat the gpu

 

the JH-A1 is a 720qm w/ blueray, JH-A2 is a 720qm w/ DVD drive, the JH-B2 has a 740qm.

The paste problem was an early issue, but happened to both -a1 and -a2 models early on, but also got fixed on later models.

There are only a few real variations on the G73, the GPU is either: AMD version 5870m, the Nvidia version 460m, and the CPU is either i5 or i7 or 2nd gen i7.

Everything else is superfluous.

 

So is that to say my B1 [the only variant you didnt mention lol] with the 5870/bluray/740qm shouldnt require a repaste?

 

Newer models have shown to be better, however only time will tell.

 

Thinking about doing this on my near year old G73.

Playing BC2 last night with 11.2 ATI drivers and reached 100C

I can get Arctic Cooling MX-4 Premium at my local computer store.

I was thinking of using a hair drier on a medium heat setting to heat up the keyboard abit to make it easier to remove, anyone have any thoughts on this?

Worse case I screw up the keyboard and have to order one off ebay. I use the laptop with a external keyboard and mouse and monitor most days anyway.

 

I dont understand how people are bending their keyboards because mine had 4 pieces of solid sticky tape on and was tough as nails but its still in perfect condition.

The most important thing after you have unclipped the top (5 pegs) is you take your time and very slowly and gradually place pressure underneith the keyboard holding each side and practically peal it upwards off of the sticky tape, if it doesn't come up pressure one side and then the other so that it releases evenly.

I have removed mine 4 times and it is still in mint condition.

Re: Repasting. I highly recommend doing it especially if you are nearing were I was at 102oC while running furmark.

Here are my results

 

Thats the kinda info I need, I have quite abit of experience dissembling laptops so i think I should be fine. Other than the keyboard and the speaker connector everything looks pretty straight forward.

Going to give it a go tonight.

 

Exactly right the keyboard is probably the toughest part just to make sure it stays perfect and as long as your gentle it will.

Nothing prepares you for how bloody small the speaker connector is tho its just madness why they made it so minute.

If you have the iratic mouse problem same as me take a look at the taping around the touchpad film I removed 2 bits that were not doing anything and were actually sticking to my case and since then I have never had a problem with my mouse since it used to be every few hours. Im wondering it was that tape as I didnt change anything else.

Should be a nice amount of dust and crap in your fans to shift too It was the first laptop that I totally broke down to pieces to get to the CPU/GPU had to take a deep breathe when I pushed the power button but mine turned on thank god good luck!

 

Just finnished my repaste, took about 2 hours, Used the BTO video walk through for dissasembly.

Went off without a hitch, couldnt have done it without all the documentation on this forum.

My thermal paste had VERY large air bubbles in it, I took a few pictures ill try to post up later.

I managed to remove and replace the keyboard twice without damaging it, I had to remove it a second time cause I put the backlight cable in upside down, it was a 50/50 shot when I first put it together since I couldnt make heads or tails which way the conductors faced, (they face UP )

So I am running furmak as type this and I am now only hitting 85-86C with 30% fan speed after 15 minutes, before it would have been 100C+.

I was surprised to find little dust in in the fans, I do spray them out every 2 months or so, so that might have helped.

Thanks again EVERYONE!!!

 

Nice work glad to hear it went ok and your temps sound very similar to my results and I am extremely pleased and one of the biggest points is that while gaming the fan doesn't need to reach full load so its silent.

I had the same issue put it back together thought I had done everything and.....

RAM SLOT 1 haha

 

unscrewing it takes 2 hours the first time because you are delicate and scared that you will damage something. After that, 10-20 minutes tops especially if you use a sheet of notebook paper, make circles per section you you removed screws from, and place them there.

Although it s notoriously easy to screw the pooch and kill a certain wrapped red and black wire if you're not careful...
But all the same, it's worth it to repaste.

 

Yeah the 2 hours was including clearing a nice place to work and getting all my tools together, reassembly only took about 10-20 minutes.

 

I think mine was just over two hours to start with as well and taking those two hours is definetely worth it because it would take a lot more than two hours work to be able to afford a new G73 mobo

What paste did you use in the end?

 

I used Arctic Cooling MX-4 , It was available at my local computer store. I am impatient and didn't really want to order some IC7