My Complete Teardown of My G1S - Pictures included!

Here's some pictures of my recent teardown of my G1S for re-pasting purposes. Hope this will help some people out there. I plan on arranging some of these pictures in smaller series for specific mods/upgrades. Feel free to use the photos for whatever you wish.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/26731967@N07/sets/72157605149783571/

There's even some tips on how to do some things in each photo's description. Game on!

 

Nice +Rep

Was putting it all together hard?
With these pictures, I'll be more confident in opening up my G1s when I finally get some paste to replace that metal foil on the GPU.

EDIT: Is it possible for you to list or take a picture of which screws are needed to be undo to get to the GPU? Thanks

 

Thanks!

If you've worked on computers before don't be worried too much about opening it up, it's not all that hard (even if you haven't - you've gotta start somewhere). Neither is putting it all back together. Taking pictures actually helped me remember the reverse order. It just can be a little time consuming. It took me over 2 hours from start to finish.

You pretty much need to take the entire laptop apart to get to the GPU. It's just how the laptop was designed. I didn't really want to take the whole thing apart, just found it out as I went along. All in all, I think there were only 4 different screw sizes used in the whole laptop (at least to the point where I dimantled it). It wasn't that hard to remember. I was literally able to do this all with a swiss army knife (couldn't find my normal tools).

Make sure you get a good solvent for thermal paste. I had to remove quite a bit from my CPU and GPU. I used Arctic MX-2 for a replacement (supposed to be the best). I got it because it's non-conductive - just incase I got a little crazy with the paste, and made a mess.

What might help in remembering where screws go is by drawing a simple diagram on a sheet of paper, or even printing one out (use my photos!) - then tape the screws on the paper in the corresponding spots.

I will say this as a little encouragement: My average temps are lower - which makes it runs a little quieter. Also, it seems like it takes longer for things to heat up. Plus, I kinda had fun doing it.

 

Great stuff, man! As KiwiBoy said: Taking your lappy apart loses some of its intimidation (dunno whether that is the right word) after you've seen the entire thing in pieces.
My fingers start to get really itchy but I'll try and have the techies fix it. At least they're supposed to give me a new one if they screw up. Also if they did, I could say with a clear conscience that I will never EVER buy anything from Asus again for they screwed up somtehing I could've probably done myself

 

I saw those photos and shat bricks. You literally had to take the whole thing apart to take off the HSF. I feel the need to do the same but at the same time don't want to void my warranty. Hopefully something will come of the other thread.

Great Pictures.

 

Yeah, definitely don't do it if it's under warranty. Only reason I did: I bought it off of ebay and had no warranty. I don't think I'd buy another laptop by ASUS without giving it a good go-over - I'm with ya on that one. I'm just glad I didn't pay retail(got mine for $675). I feel bad for the people who did and ASUS is leaving them on the back burner. Speaking of... thermally the G1S, is a poor design. Also they've got bad driver support. I mean, when was the last driver update for the 8600? Gotta love some of their motherboards though. Oh well... I've got some more mods coming up for this thing... I'd really like to get this thing down more in temp.

 

Can you post any numbers - before/after temps?

 

No external cooling solutions were used during testing. Notebook was placed on a common angled binder. No panels were removed during testing. Notebook plugged in. TM1&2 off (via RMClock)

GPU/CPU idle measurements were taken after 10 minutes sitting from fresh boot, with RivaTuner/Everest - Battery Saving mode(1%MAX proc-rate/screensaver/sleep mode off)

GPU/CPU full load measurements were taken with RivaTuner/Everest - Performance mode.

CPU @ full load stressed with Everest[Trial] after 5 mins of system stability test of CPU.

GPU(stock clocked) @ full load stressed by ATItool after 5 minutes of running "3D View". (even though I could have used the temperatures from ATItool, I like RT better because you can set it to update the output quicker)
================================
Before: (*Note: ambient temp ~70°F*)

GPU 61°C @ idle - 91-94°C @ full load
CPU 59°C @ idle - 87-88°C @ full load

After: (*Note: ambient temp ~72°F*)

GPU 58°C @ idle - 86-88°C @ full load
CPU 55°C @ idle - 79-83°C @ full load
================================
Gears of War after 20mins from start of 5th chapter (I didn't get a CPU reading for this test)

GPU
Before = 91-94°C
After=86-91°C
================================


I was very pleased with the results I got. I didn't think doing this was going to get me this much lower, but alot of people swore by it - so I gave it a shot (damned peer pressure). I'm happy I did(props to xt9600, Predator_MF, and Irathi). Given that the fan speed is controlled by the CPU temp and ramped up @ roughly every 5°C, even knocking off 1°C from your idle/light use you can get a quieter laptop.

@nattfoedd: Sorry if that was too much

P.S. I've been thinking of bridging the heatpipes from the GPU pipe to the CPU die/pipe somehow. I think this would result in the fan kicking on quicker by transferring some of the heat from the GPU to CPU(given that the fan speed is triggered by CPU temps), hopefully resulting in lowering the GPU temps by ramping up the fan faster. It would probably mean a louder laptop while gaming, but maybe a cooler one. I'll keep everyone posted.

Me=

 

Added disassembly pics to the info booth, thanks.

 

In the pictures, it doesnt seem like the 8600m GT is removable. Is it built into the mainboard?

 

Nice work!

I've done a couple of teardowns myself. An old Compaq Presario 722CA kept having trouble booting so I tore it apart and found the idiots who put it together used some semi translucent square piece of something between the CPU and heatsink. I replaced it with Arctic Silver and it worked flawlessly. I think that thing was shorting out the CPU.

I also took apart another laptop, a Toshiba, to do some cleaning. Took everything apart, cleaned it and put it all back together again. Somehow, I ended up with 2 or 3 extra screws...