[GUIDE] Dell XPS L502X Tear Down, Optical HDD Caddy Installation, and CPU/GPU Repasting [56k warning]

I just read the whole procedure and i only have one question.

The original thermal paste seems properly installed covering the whole cpu and gpu area.The (stock) higher temps are due to the lower quality paste dell is using?

 

Yeah they do a REALLY POOR job with the paste. I have two laptops, a L501X with an i5, and an HP with an i7 2720qm. Both companies put way too much paste on. I changed it out to mx4 and it barely helped temps. They seem to turbo boost slightly higher though to a higher frequency. I just keep my CPU to a max of 99% in the power settings to disable the turbo boost, and I still don't have a problem playing games. In the 80's for the GPU seems excessive though. Mine will top out around 65. The i7 runs up to 90-95 while using it full load such as converting video files. Using a cooling mat helps a slight bit also.

Here's a pic from the L501X i5 CPU slathered in thermal paste.. take it easy dell.. This hurts performance

 

@ Villosa, hey thanks for the guide! I just did a repaste last night using this guide, made it super easy. The only place I had any trouble was seperating the two halves of the chassis, a tab got stuck beside the fan out vent!
I went for Tuniq-TX4 because of its high performance even with a poor application job, so I'd be safe even if I messed it up!
Temps are down over 10 degrees, used to have a high of 96degC while gaming and now Max is 85degC, can't believe I waited so long to do this!

 

Which steps can I skip if I just want to replace the thermal paste?

 

@gameaholic

lol, replace the thermal paste is the final step

you will need to follow the entire guide ^^

 

This is a great tutorial and it gave me the confidence to finally re-paste my CPU/GPU on my two year old XPS L501x. My computer runs almost silently now after re-pasting and the temps have dropped by over 25 degrees! Browsing the internet and playing the odd youtube video would previously have my laptop at 77C with the fan making a lot of noise but it's now come down to 45-50C. I use Speedfan for my temps. High load before was 100C but I can't get it higher than 80C now.

For those that are sitting on the fence about whether to re-paste or not, a great app to have is Nvidia Inspector as it allows you to downclock your GPU all the way to 50MHz (down from around 650MHz). This comes in handy when you're just surfing the net and don't need the extra power. Now that I have re-pasted (using Arctic MX4), I can even overclock the GPU when I need to (be careful though, keep an eye on the temps!) I even increased my Windows Index score using Nvidia Inspector to overclock the GPU.

I also replaced the original 500GB hard drive with an OCZ Agility one (placing the 500GB HD in a DVD caddy) and I could not be happier with the performance.

 

anibody knows that?

 

After taking my laptop apart and repasting, I must have reconnected the wifi card back in wrong. I can only get max speeds of 54mbps on a wireless n network now. Does anyone know why? I have the centrino wireless n 1000 card without WIDI or TV tuner, so theres just a black cable and white cable connected to the card.

 

Thank you for the guide!
But the images seem to be deleted. Is it possible to get them back in the guide, or get the guide from somewhere else?

Thanks!

 

Hi guys,

I've just repasted my L502x , i7 2720q, with 540m GPU, and now something does not seem right.
Before the repaste, I had a maximum 96C on my CPU and 86C on my GPU. Now, after the repaste, I have a maximum of 86C on my CPU and 96C on GPU.
I did the stress tests with furmark and prime. The funny thing is that furmark keeps showing a temperature of 70C max, while the hwmonitor, nvidiainspector and other monitor software show me 96C on my GPU. So what would be the real temperature?
Another weird thing is that the air flowing out of my laptop when the GPU is supposed to be at 96C is not hot at all...but rather cool... So, I'm a bit confused about this ...

I did the repaste twice as I thought I didn't do it right the first time. Same thing second time, the GPU shows to be much hoter than before.

I forgot to tell you, I used the MX-4 thermal paste.

Thanks!

 

Another interesting thing... idle temp for GPU ~45-50C ... The second I'm starting furmark stress test, the temperature jumps to 91-95C.

Anyone? Any idea?

Thanks!

 

Me again, talking all by myself...
I've just installed furmark 1.12 that shows me that the GPU is throttling down 335MHz or something like that. I suppose that's why the furmark shows me a constant temperature of 62C ... while other monitor software shows me a constant temperature of 96C. I really don't understand why is this happening after the repaste.

If someone has any idea, please, let me know.

Thanks!

 

I'm actually in the same position as you are now. I replaced my thermal paste and cleaned out all the fans and I'm getting about the same temperatures as you are. Furmark and gpu-z are both showing my temperatures at a range of 95-98C for my gpu temps. I feel like this shouldnt be happening and that this isnt normal temps so maybe I replaced the thermal paste wrong? I didnt check out this guide because all of the pictures seem deleted. I was wondering if there was a different guide or newer version guide I could check?

Edit: I just checked the guide and it said not to use AS5 although I used it on mine. Will this be the reason for the temperature being so high??

 

Is there any other guide for a L502x teardown? The pictures on this one seem to be gone.
Even internet archive doesn't seem to have a copy of the images.

 

I used this on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goVrdbWoOnA
It does a good job, just make sure you remember which screws go where

 

I've managed to get back to the old temperature by using a copper pad on my GPU. It seems the heatsink didn't touch the GPU all the way down. Using a 0.5 mm copper pad seems to fix the issue. So, now I'm back to max 86C on my GPU. It's not what I've expected... but, it's better than 96C

Anyway... I've made the decision to get rid of this crappy laptop. I've had enough with this s***. I can't even play warcraft without the video card to crash... It started to crash even when opening pictures... This is garbage.

Good job DELL!!!! Keep up the crappy work and maybe you'll dissapear.

 

Hey, where did all the pictures go? I already used this guide to repaste ages ago and it was really helpful!

Any chance you can put the pictures back, I'm planning on installing an SSD and was going to repaste again!

Cheers!