The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    ASUS laptop/ thermal paste vs thermal pads

    Discussion in 'Asus' started by Charlius, Aug 6, 2010.

  1. Charlius

    Charlius Newbie

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    5
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    Hi all, I have an ASUS, n80vb. It came stock with a T5800 Core 2 Duo (2 Ghz) and an Nvidia GeForce 9300m gs. Me getting more into gaming in recent times explored upgrading options and just a few days ago, finished putting in a new 9650m gt and a T9600 (2.8 ghz). I had installed the CPU using some Dynex thermal compound, but had installed the graphics card with the thermal pads/heatsink stickers that came with it and followed the instructions.

    I run my laptop with a cooling pad underneath with 2 fans in it with the panel covering the cpu and vid card off. Idle temp was at 52C for the vid card. Just doing normal, non-intensive tasks like a webbrowser with only 1, 2 tabs open made it go up to 60, 62C.

    I installed PCSX2 (Playstation 2 emulator) on my comp and decided to use that to test even more. Just watching narrational in game scenes playing Final Fantasy X, my temps were in the low 80's. When I entered into a battle, temps would easily be in the high 90's. If the enemies did a spell or heavy battle animation, frame rates would suffer and the temps spiked even more to 108, 110!

    Needlessly to say, I was alarmed. I didn't know why it was running so hot when PCSX2 is purportedly more CPU intensive than GPU intensive and my CPU was only running in the low 60's. I theorized that maybe the heat transfer from the GPU was not doing as well as it could so I took out my vid card (yet again), cleaned the heat sink and GPU contact areas with rubbing alcohol and applied thermal compound to the 5 contact areas. I did this with a small application spreader spatula that came with the paste that worked extremely well. I managed to get an extremely uniform and thin layer. I then put it back and screwed all the screws.

    Now..restarting my computer, I was skeptical that there'd be any appreciable difference. If any, I was thinking there'd be only a 2, 3C difference. I was wrong!!

    Idle, my temp went from 52C to 44C.

    I then ran PCSX2 again and loaded Final Fantasy X again. I walked around the normal town areas and got only high 50's. In battles, with all animations going on (magic, special abilities, summons) the temps still only got to 65C. Man, can you believe that??!! Battle scenes that got to 110 dropping to 65!!

    There you have it folks. Concrete, definitive proof. Thermal pads SUCK compared to thermal paste/compound. Throw those suckers out that come with the vid card and buy some real thermal protection (it doesn't even have to be Arctic Silver, this Dynex stuff is a dream).

    Comments, shared experiences welcomed.

    -Charlius-
     
    Charlius, Aug 6, 2010
    #1
  2. Chastity

    Chastity Company Representative

    Reputations:
    1,295
    Messages:
    6,545
    Likes Received:
    336
    Trophy Points:
    251
    Assuming you can get the heatsink close enough to use paste. If the gap is too big, the paste layer will be too think and will not work as it should.
     
    Chastity, Aug 6, 2010
    #2