The Newb's Guide to Repasting Your G73

Same, i use tweezers to lift the connector though but i still prop it with the smallest flat head i have on hand, which is probably the same size as the one Chastity uses.

 

ICD7, still have enough left for a few more. Will be referring to this disassemble when i try to swap my 5870 for a 6970 ( http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus-gaming-notebook-forum/584295-upgrade-g73-jh-6970-a.html )

 

My G73JH A1 is overheating too all the time, I bought it in the USA and I am in Germany right now. I will probably come back to the US in like less than 2 months. So I don't know if I should do an RMA here, however I really want to play games atm. I mean that's why I bought this kind of laptop. So is there any guide to re-assembly the laptop. Because that worries me. Or like some guide in video format, because this would make things a lot easier.

 

It's not too hard, but it takes some time when you do it for the first time. When you want to repaste the GPU you'll have to remove several screws, there are only 4 different kind of screws, 4 really short ones (2 where the ODD is and 2 below the battery), then 6 screws which are holding the LCD module and another 6 for the fans. The rest of the screws are all the same.

Here's a video.

And here you can find the official disassembly guide as PDF. Go through the steps backwards and you have an assembling guide.

You don't need to follow all the steps to get to the GPU, e.g. there's no need to remove the RAM or WLAN module (only disconnect the antennas), but this should be pretty self-explanatory.

 

The links to all of those things are in the first post of this thread. Plus Lvl7 just posted the official guide.

 

I'm considering repasting cuz my warrantly is already void but I've never really done anything like this before... should i do it myself or pay someone to do it for me?

 

if you feel confident about doing it after watching the video of the dissasemly(and you know what you're getting in to), go ahead and do it, but if you don't, don't try to save a few bucks and risk you Lappy, i will do it myself when i find a vendor that ships IC to my country, none of the 3 Ebay sellers listing this paste ships to mexico.

 

Just finished my repast with ICD, it took more than 3hour to complete, asus really complicated the access to the vga on this one, but it's worth the effort got some amazing results, tested 20min running Prime95 + Furmark.
Before:CPU 83º VGA 95

After:
CPU 66º VGA 78º

 

Congrats on the Repaste that is what ICD can do for you I am just about to repaste mine today as I believe I can get better results, once you have dissassembled once you can do it a hundred times and if you can dissassemble this laptop you wont have a problem with any other

 

Hey Dallers,

Is there much point/benefit in repasting the CPU too whilst I'm at it? Just ordered me a tube of ICD

I'm wondering if there's even me point in repasting... HWiNFO reports my idle temps for thermal diode/DispIO/Mem/IO/Shader as 56/50/55.5/51.5 respectively.

But, in the interest of science, I will see if it'll go any lower

 

Those are good temps and its pretty simple choice really because it is such a straight forward repaste with ICD and you can see lower than that I dropped from 50's to 40's well before I installed the Extreme Beast remove the 4 screws pea method.

If you are under warranty NO If you are not under warranty YES go for it because ICD even if it makes no temperature different at idle should do at full load.

I want to repaste today and have been waiting for alcoholic swabs from Ebay been a week! I looked and haha I forgot to click buy on the item off down the chemist!

 

Any threads on doing the CPU? All I see is GPU, might as well lower everything as much as possible right?

Oh, and I have a confession about my 3DMark11 score...

edit: hopefully I'll be able to pop by my old college and get some isopropyl alcohol...it's only down the road.

 

Thanks!
You're right but i don't plan to disassemble it ever again

You have good temps Jakey, i did my repast because i bought my G73 1 year ago and it have a lot o dust on vents, and my temps are high considered it's winter here I could have problems when the summer arrives.
But if you good at it, and enjoy the process go ahead

 

Well I've completely gutted two laptops before, so I'm not a complete newb but this will be my biggest and most demanding. I need to disassemble to get to the 4th RAM slot anyway, so I figure I'll just do everything together. Dallers convinced me to repaste, actually.

 

Remember my common saying though if its not broke dont fix it. You might see better results you might not the most important thing I found is less is more you only need a very small amount of ICD on the CPU I just repasted and used a minimal amount on my XM and it dropped the temps by 5oC across the board. Make sure there is enough but not to much.



Also what is the confession? I knew there was one because if I cannot reach 2700 with my xm pushing 22FPS in the CPU test I dont understand how your Tesselation graphics tests are getting 3-5 more fps than me with lower clocks

I will be rebenching today though and going to try and hit 3.8ghz during benchmarks

Famous last words, I am on my 13th Repaste still in mint condition but I think that may be my last because I did a total overhaul took everything apart and cleaned it entirely.

 

If you read the guide and feel comfortable go for it. If it seem complicated and challenging then it may be best not to try. Just make sure the person you get to help you knows what they are doing, they could break things just as easily as you could.

 

Can anyone provide some help with removing the keyboard? I think I have just about destroyed the thing trying to remove it with all kinds of different tools with no progress.

 

having fun with the 2-way tape I see

You need to use fingertip strength and creep through the tape, or use a scraper

 

Yep, that was it, thanks!

 

Having read lots of threads about repasting, finally I decided to repaste my G73JH. I didn't want to do it until my temps were still acceptable. Yesterday I played about 2 hours of GTA IV, and the temps I got afterwards were shocking.

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/109/g73jhtemps2011july.jpg/

So I did the repaste with a friend. It took about 3 hours, but we went really slow. I used IC Diamond 7 as suggested. I would like to thank for everyone, for the guides, pictures and videos. Special thanks to Chastity, Dallers, ValkerieFire and Blackluc! I didn't break anything, not even a single scratch! This is due to the very good and detailed material on repasting.

Here are a couple of before and after pics:

5 minutes of GTA IV with an ambient of 24C (before repaste)
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/651/gtaiv5min.jpg/

20 minutes of GTA IV, same ambient (after repaste)
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/405/gtaiv20minafterrp.jpg/

2 pics of GPU and heatsink before repaste (sorry for bad quality)
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/204/img0103am.jpg/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/191/img0105fj.jpg/

 

Good work nice job on the new temps

I love Asus attempt at applying thermal compound - Apply as much as you can to the chip and manage to miss it completely lol classic picture.

 

Furmark running for 30min on Extreme Burning and I have 85C at the moment, it's ok I suppose ?
(AC plugged, High Performance Mode, TwinTurbo enabled, no OC)

 

Perfectly fine temperatures. Clearing out your vents might make a difference but those are nothing to worry about.

Make sure you check across the board though all sections if its a 5870M by using GPU-z or HWINFO sensor.

 

Could anyone who has done this on an SW report on how they cleaned the GPU? I just finished a repaste and I have been getting great temps (82 after 15 minutes of Furmark). My only concern was that the Nvidia GPU isn't completely sealed like on the ATI card. There's a layer wrapping it, and then another layer with a square hole in the middle through which the GPU protrudes. I didn't clean the old paste on the sides of the GPU for fear of getting rubbing alcohol between the two plastic layers. Again, my temps are great, but would I have been better off attempting to clean that paste as well? Also, all of the surrounding memory on the card (at least I assume it's memory) had a more fluid paste already on it, which I simply left in place. Is there any way to be sure that my memory isn't going to overheat due to the removal and replacement of the heatsink and possible bubbles created in the paste?

 

The plastic around the core is just there to try and prevent the compound overflow leaking all over the chipset, I personally found it annoying and pealed it off and then you can clean the sides, I dont think you will see any difference as long as you cleaned the entire surface of the core and reapplied compound it will be fine.

The Vram paste should really have been replaced it is not like the thermal pads in which most people just reuse them compound can ONLY be applied once, however the Vram should not get anywhere near as hot as the core so you might be ok, the only problem you may face is if the reused compound now does not cover the entire surface of the Vram module although rare it could burn out and if it did - game over.

 

Ugh, don't really want to do this all over again, but I probably should. Any advice for cleaning the VRAM? I used rubbing alcohol on the GPU and heatsink, but I assume I shouldn't use it or water on any truly exposed parts of the chip . . .

Wish there was a way to monitor VRAM temps on this laptop . . .





When I look at these pics I took, I really feel like I should have repasted the memory, not happy.

 

Yes I highly recommend repasting again and reapplying to the memory as well the modules are not entirely covered and one of them in that picture ^^ appears to not have any compound conducting and on others it is dried out and degrading. Better safe than sorry.

 

What would be your recommendation for a cleaning method for the memory modules? And can you speak for how difficult it will be to clean my first application of IC Diamond off of the GPU and heatsink? The stock paste took forever to clean up.

And the paste application on the modules should of course be smaller than that on the GPU, perhaps 2 to 3 mm in diameter as opposed to 5?

 

Should be pretty straight forward if you used ICD it will be set by now so just use leverage to get the heatsink up dont pull it. Wipe off the residue with a dry clean cotton cloth or similiar to not leave any trace or scratch the surface and then wipe with an alcoholic swab.

Apply a blob of ICD to the middle of each module (pea sized) the heatsink will do the rest.

 

Alright, did it all again. Ran out of paste with just enough left for the GPU, thank goodness I didn't have to run to Micro Center in the middle of the whole process. Now I just hope my temps are as good as the first time. 80C after 15 minutes of Furmark, and the temps should come down as the paste cures (as I observed the first time around).

Edit: As of now, temps are as low and stable as the first repaste, woo!

 

ICD does not need long to set, it does not actually cure you did good by redoing it the last thing you want is a white screen and a burnt out module.

Good work

 

Thanks. I'm enjoying my low temps and now I don't have to stress about any part of my GPU burning itself out, so I'd say it was definitely worth the extra effort.

 

Congrats on your repasting, and not voiding your machine. Well, technically you did, but I won't tell.

 

Alright, I know this is a bit basic but cleaning out your machine with canned air helps a LOT with temps too. Bought my G73sw-xt1 from Tigerdirect in March 2011, haven't cleaned until last night. According to MSI Afterburner, my 460m (800/1600) was running 52c idle and 92c when I play ANY games. After I ran some canned air through it, my temps were 40c on idle, and it never went beyond 75c after playing a couple of DX11 games with MSI Afterburner on. Dust really is a large factor (well, in my laptop anyways because I'm too lazy to clean all the time lolol) in temperature. So before you jump to the conclusion that you need to repaste, give your machine a solid cleansing and it will knock a couple degrees off ( almost 15-20 degree difference in mine after cleaning X_X )

 

Thanks for taking the time to post, Vola. I also experienced a dramatic change last night from 1. cleaning the vents, and 2. repasting with ICD7. Who knows where all the performance came from, all I care is that my temps are pretty darn good for a laptop now.

 

Indeed! Cleaning the vents and fans works wonders! Although I'm pretty content with my temps now, I just ordered some ICD7 because everyone's getting really good results . Also bought the ThermalTake
massive 23LX laptop cooler and I plan to remove the bottom panel underneath the G73 and replace it with a thin, honeycomb pattern metal sheet and put the giant cooler underneath for direct airflow to the components.

 

Please stop me if this is a bad idea....don't want to break my laptop :'(

 

You wont break it by doing that I have just removed my maintenance panel full stop and plonked it on top of my Storm SF19. Brings it down a good 5oC.

 

thanks for the quick reply

 

woooohooo
current temps :
37c Idle
68c under load

 

CPU or GPU? Is this with Prime 95?

My idle CPU temp with a 920xm is between 47-51 Celsius. Max is 99 Celsius with Prime95, but the highest I've gotten in a game is mid-upper 70's.

My idle GPU temp is in the low to mid 50's. It's at 800/1100 right now. Max is about 80 Celsius with Furmark.

 

I finally took a stab at repasting the CPU and GPU because I was fed up with my G73 overheating problems. I also took the opportunity to try fixing this horrible touchpad by removing the metallic shield under it, and so far using it all day, it's been amazing - perfect response and no sticking, jumping, terribleness. Hopefully that continues.

I used ICD thermal compound for the heatsinks and I redid the GPU RAM thermal pads. I managed to cut down the temperatures quite significantly:

Ambient Temperature: 18C

Idle before: CPU - 65C; GPU - 74C
Idle after: CPU - 47C; GPU - 44C

CPU Prime95 before: 100C and throttling
CPU Prime95 after: 70C

GPU Furmark before: 100C+ and crashes
GPU Furmark after: 75C

Thanks for all the help!

Here are some pics of the pasting/cleaning:

Before: CPU	After: CPU	Before: CPU Heatsink	After: CPU Heatsink
Before: GPU	After: GPU	Before: GPU Heatsink	After: GPU Heatsink

And here are the temperature differences:

Before: 1 hour sitting idle	After: 1 hour sitting idle	Before: 15 mins Furmark	After: 15 mins Furmark
Before: 10 mins Prime95 Torture Test	After: 10 mins Prime95 Torture Test	Before: 30 mins Gaming	After: 1 hour Gaming

 

I'm going to be throwing a 2820QM into my G73 as soon as the CPU ships and I'll be using IC Diamond right off the bat. Considering that the CPU die is rectangular in shape, should my pasting method differ at all from a GPU repaste? Also, does anyone know of a good photographic guide for replacing a mobile CPU? I'd like to have a good reference so I can avoid any expensive mistakes, but so far this is all I could find (and thus guide isn't actually for current Core i processors, although I'd imagine the procedure is the same): Processors — Installation Guide for Mobile Intel® Processors

 

Personally, i used a line on my 920xm, but a dot would work just as well. The installation should be like the one in the link you described. I don't think Intel has made zero insertion force CPUs for notebooks yet.

 

I went with a line, think I might have used too much paste, but idle temps are fine, we'll see once I've run some stress tests. And I followed that Intel guide without any problems. As for insertion force, the CPU dropped right into the socket, only "force" was when I turned the socket actuator into the locked position.

 

I had a pretty successful repaste some time ago (I think it was close to a year ago, can't really remember) and recently noticed that my fans were getting loud again and temps while playing SWTOR got up to as high as 105. I opened it up again hoping that I would just have to do a little fan maintenance. Fans were pretty clean so i figured it must have been a poor repaste job the last time. Repasted again and this time I'm noticing a couple less than ideal situations.

1 - Running Furmark max temps got up to around 93. Not terrible but still higher than that 86 max I got last time.

2 - Now I've noticed that as temperatures rise I start getting red dots that appear in the dark areas of my screen. If I gently pull or push on my screen the dots will disappear, only to reappear when I let go. If this happened all of the time I would assume it's just a cable connected to the LCD that is having issues. Because it only happens when temps get up to around 77 i'm thinking that there might be something more.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

 

The CPU doesn't require a lot of force to seat it. Zero insertion force sockets as far as Intel are concerned are sockets where there are no pins on the CPU like those of the desktop Sandy Bridge CPUs, no chance of bending a pin by mistake...

 

Gotcha, sorry, guess I'm not down with the lingo.
Anywho, new CPU is still running like a champ!

 

Hey so i repasted my GPU about a year ago using IC Diamond. At first, the temps were held steady at like 60 and it was phenomenal. Now, however, the temps can get back up to 100 during 100% load and the GPU temp averages 80 just idling. Does this mean that the paste is somehow degrading/ i botched the repaste job? Does this mean that i will have to open the whole thing up again?

 

Take an air compressor and blow out the vents. By a year, you've got to have some serious dust build up. That's the #1 cause of overheating.