Dell XPS M1330 - nVidia GeForce 8400M GS - Copper Mod

So after the copper mod and thinking everything was okay, I started noticing artifacts on the screen again, and eventually, the dreaded white lines at boot up.

The copper mod seems to have helped and I didn't see temps increase more than 70c MAX. Of course, I have no idea what the temps were before without the copper mod, but it seems like anything under 70c is a good start.

Looks like I'm gonna have to try baking again.

I think I'll bake once more. If it fails again, I may just resort to Ebay and swap the motherboard for the one with the Intel chipset (and respective heatsink).

I really like this laptop and would prefer not to spend hundreds of dollars on another one at this point in time.

 

Hello to everyone in this thread..

I'm just about to buy this laptop second-hand with very interesting terms (around 150euro=210$ and with the possibility to return it with full refund if I'm not satisfied), I've come up with this overheating issue early on my google search on the model. I intend to sit and read through this whole thread at some point, but any quick tips would save me a whole lot of time.

What is the first test I should do as soon as I get my hands on it? The truth is I never owned a laptop before and I believe the temperature expectancies and limits are a bit different than in the case of my desktop PC. Which values are considered acceptable and "safe" in both idle mode and 100% CPU load? Should I do a Prime95 test? Or is it too dangerous?

Also, I run into a post (don't remember if it was on this forum or another to be honest, but it was quite out-dated), that said that if the temperature is low, this might mean that some throttling was involved, and the CPU was is working on its full power. How can I test if something like this is happening?

 

just did mine with just regular thermal paste from a semicondutor store ($1). i got the copper from a metal dealer who sells at any size you want - 50x50x1.5 for $3.40. i could have asked for a lesser dimension, but i needed area for clamping when doing the cuts. back at home, measure, clamp in vise, hacksaw, 1/2" flat glass, lap 'till 2000 grit both copper shim and aluminum surface. i changed the chipset pad to a new 1.5 thermal adhesive pad. cpu heatsink surface was just cleaned. 3 chips were cleaned with normal cotton swabs and alcohol found at home.

living in a tropical country and my ambient temp does not go below 32-34 ºC

before gpu temps at idle can rise up to 75-79ºC. now gpu temps at idle is just 60-65ºC. 3dmark2001se (13570 score) and 3dmark06 (1350 score) didn't make the temp go beyond 70ºC. no 3dmark11 (still running old 32-bit vista).

HOWEVER, prime95 made cpu temp rise 80ºC+ in less than a minute! - so i stopped it immediately. i guess there is a limit to it...

haven't tried with oracle vm's, though i don't think it will contribute much to higher temps unlike prime95 that opens pandora's box and all hell breaks loose!

 

Just did a bit of an adhoc job with the copper mod. Didn't apply it as well as I could have done, but it's working... so far.

CPU temps have dropped by about 17ºC from an average of 65ºC to 48ºC or so.

GPU temps have dropped from 75-78ºC idle to 55ºC idle.

I think it's safe to say that it was long overdue though. The original TIM was pretty much solid and the thermal pad had to be scraped off.

 

Hi, I recently did this Mod with two M1330 laptop computers. I used the kit by Chips2481 on eBay. I had success with one computer but the other computer is having problems booting up. Before the modification, there were no issues with this laptop except for complaints from users that the laptop was getting hot.

When I press the start button, the laptop attempts to boot into Windows Vista Business. When it gets to the login screen, it immediately shutdowns and turns off. Sometimes an error is seen (which I can't read) but most of the time the laptop just shutdowns quickly. Sometimes I can get into the desktop but eventually it will turn off again. I really don't know what is causing this. The laptop still feels a bit warm.

I tried checkdisk, antivirus check, and dell diagnostics. Dell diagnostics gave me 2 errors: something about cpu thermistor (the temperature sensor is out of range at 103C) and another error about the MSG disk_nosuitable disk media is present. Sometimes checkdisk hangs or safe mode hangs too.

I no longer have the thermal pad. It was destroyed during the modification.
System restore did not help.

I would appreciate some advice.

 

Sounds like something went wrong with your copper mod. I would open the computer back up, remove the heat sink, remove all thermal paste, and then reapply everything again. Be sure you replace the thermal paste on the CPU as well (clean all thermal paste off first of course).

 

I did try this several times. I'm not sure if there is any improvement. I cleaned with isopropyl alcohol and followed the directions here to prep the surfaces:

http://www.tinyurl.com/m1330inst

I also don't know if my kit came with Artic Silver. The thermal paste was white in color. I remember in the past arctic silver was more metallic in color.

For some reason, one of my laptops runs faster than the other. I don't know why. They are supposed to be identical. I believe this is the faster one. Should I apply more thermal past than normal? Dell had a large amount on the sink before and I'm making it thin. I'm wondering if the computer is running hotter than normal and causing the shutdown.

 

It does sounds like overheating. You could start laptop with bottom cover removed and check temperature GPU and CPU with your finger, of course you can't touch them directly - the cooling assembly is in the way, but for laptop to turn off due to overheating it should reach more that 80 degrees Celsius and that should be noticeable.

 

I redid everything but this time put some OCZ Ultra Silver paste. I had some left over from a previous build. The laptop worked for about 15 to 30 min but then shutdown after I stressed it. I ran several things and the laptop got hot underneath especially around the harddrive area and touch sensor area. After that I was unable to startup the computer. It just shuts down immediately. On the part where you clean the GPU (see link in my previous post), I used some included sand paper to clean the GPU adhesive and remove the printing. Do you think this made it vulnerable?

The user in the past also complained that the hard drive made a loud noise in the past. I am unable to replicate that issue. I am able to run the computer with no problem in the BIOS and under Dell diagnostics for a long time without the computer shutting down. So is this a possible hard drive issue? Safe mode is mix. Sometimes it works sometimes it hangs.

 

I've never used sandpaper on a computer chip before... that just seems like it would be bad to scrape off the surface of a chip like that. Enough isopropyl alcohol and cotton balls does the job of removing thermal paste just fine.

 

I was able to fix the problem. I ordered some backup fans a couple days ago and one of them came with the blue silicone thermal pad. I reversed the copper mod and things stabilized. I was able to use the computer for over 8+ hours yesterday.

I think there was something wrong with the copper shims I received. I got 2thin copper shims and had to stick them together. See my previous posts for link of ebay seller.

I remember reading something kozzney said on page 141 of this thread:

I think that I had increased resistance to heat flow on the copper shim and GPU interface.

I'm going to order the 1 piece copper shim from metaloffcuts across the pond (U.K.) and see what happens. I'm also going to order some Artic Silver 5.

Make sure to save those silicone blue thermal pads in case something happens. Don't destroy them so you can reverse the process.

I'm running temperatures at:

Idle: 35-45C
Some stress 55-64C
A lot of stress 58-71C

This is for THM, CPU, DIMM, Aux, and Chipset

Core temp low 40C
Assembly low 40C


Fan speeds:

0 rpm at idle
3700-3900 rpm little stress
4500rpm with more stress

All values recorded with CPUID's HWMonitor.

 

Try out Artic MX-3 or -4 instead; those are better than AS5 and they don't need any curing times.

I've been running the copper mod with Artic MX-3 just fine since September 2009.

 

So my mobo died after re-baking it the second time. This is after having applied the copper shim too. At that point, I decided to quit screwing around and bought a replacement mobo (non-Nvidia GPU/Intel chipset) and fan. Got it installed last night and it seems to be running just fine.

I [quickly] got tired of tearing apart the laptop to keep re-baking the mobo. Not worth it in my opinion, not to mention a real pain in the rear... hopefully this Intel-version mobo will last me a long time. I didn't want to go buy a new laptop as this one has served me well over the past few years. Trying to get the most mileage outta this one

 

I finally got the parts. Everything went well. The copper from metaloffcuts with the Artic MX-4 gave me a temperature improvement of about 5-10C with a lot of CPU stress. The laptop still feels warm but it is more stable. I also noticed that the size of the copper shims between metaloffcuts and chips2481 were different. Metaloffcuts was about 14mmx14mmx1.5mm while the chips2481 shim was 22mmx22mmx1.5mm (composed of 2 sheets of separate copper held with thermal compound). Make sure to remove the plastic film covering the metaloffcuts copper shims before installing.

I've also noticed that if I prop up the laptop from the table with an object, I get even more improvements in temperature. I'm going to add the Cooler Master NotePal U2 Notebook Cooler with perforated aluminum to help dissipate the heat. I recommend any future mods use a one piece copper shim that is not too oversized and to use the latest thermal compound like MX-4. Thanks for everything.

 

Hi guys,

I baked my M1330 mobo about a year ago and applied the copper mod. The laptop arose from the dead and continued to work well until a couple of months ago, when the inevitable happened.

Like jplee3, I don't want to take it apart and bake it again. A service on eBay claims that they not only reball with lead solder but also replace the GPU with nVidia's replacement for the 8400. Has anyone else done this? I'm in the UK, and they're charging around £140 in total.
cheers
-mandicoot

 

There is no "replacement" for the 8400 chip. They are all defective. You are better off spending your money on an Intel graphics motherboard and new heatsink if you are keen on keeping this computer.

 

Has anyone else had trouble receiving orders from metaloffcuts? They said they would notify me when they shipped it, but I heard nothing after a week, and contacted them. They said it had been mailed a week earlier, and if I didn't get it in 2 days, to email and they would mail it again. It still hasn't arrived, and now they are not responding to my emails. Meanwhile, the laptop is out of commission, and my new fan and arctic silver are taking up space on the desk...

Aside from that - has anyone found another good place to buy a 14mm x 14mm x 1.2mm shim for the Dell XPS m1330 Nvidia mod online? I really need to get my computer up and running asap.

 

jplee3 - which ebay store from china did you use?

 

So I thought; then I saw this:

"Brand New Updated Chipset Repair - (only option we recommend for Dell M1330) This is the same procedure as the above 'Advanced Repair' but in addition we re-fit a Brand New Updated GPU Chipset that has been purposely produced by Nvidia to replace the Faulty GPU Chipset fitted to the M1330."

You imply that somebody is being deceptive on the internet, which is surely impossible.

Seriously, thanks for the info. I will see if they will answer a direct question about what they actually do to the machine. "First we oil it, then we add snakes".

Back to baking for me, it seems.

 

Hahaha, nice way to work in a snake oil comment.

 

I got an email back from the chaps who advertised replacing the 8400:


"The only permanent option is to fit an updated chipset. This is the same spec but produced by nvidia 2009 on which are made from revised materials.

Basically the GPU in your notebook will be 2007/08. These were made with incorrect materials and will all at some point fail.

We fit the same '631' revised chipsets as dell have in their new replacement boards.

So its not the 8400 at fault but rather the materials it was made with in 07/08."

This has me excited all over again; the rollercoaster ride that is owning the M1330 continues. These guys charge around 130 pounds for the service - the GPU itself, though, is available for about 40 bucks. I consider buying one and attempting to bake it, or I might swallow the extra cost to have it done by somebody who has the equipment and some idea about what they are doing.

 

I have Dell laptop M1330 which after four years of service, the fan started to make noise and then it started to heat badly that I could not place my hand on it. I decided to copper mod as here

Got thinner copper shin stated above and changed my fan and applied thermal for first time. I switch on my computer, but I hear my fan on full speed. I leave it on for 2 hours and return to check the heating and place my hand beside the mouse section and it is not heated much. Then after 2 hours as I was going to sleep BHAM! it switches off on its own! I tried to swtich on it loads on BIOS and sticks and at times provides warning like "Your computer switched off because of overheating .... fan section is blocked etc..... at times it switches off on it's own before even loading the OS. BIOS A15

Here are my specs LED with camera / 4 GB DDR2 667 / 320 GB 7200RPM / 128 MB NVIDIA 8400M GS / Black casing / Intel wireless-N / 6+9 cell batteries / Win XP Sp3/ BIOS A15

I then restarted my computer yesterday, it was about to log on to the windows then switched off without warning my fan was on full speed at background. every restart the BIOS checks for heating. Is there any hardware damage?

 

sammy123, fan speed is controlled by bios and increased in case temperature rises. So if your fan is at it's top speed then most probably something is wrong with the cooling assembly.

You should check whether thermal compound applied correctly, you should have it between cpu and cooling assembly, between gpu and shim, and between shim and cooling assembly.

So, if i were you, I'd disassemble laptop, double check everything, and assemble it back. Also you could try turning it on with back cover removed and touching cooling assembly to see whether it is hot. You should be able to see current cpu temperature in bios in health section.

 

I tried switching on and it logged in for 4 hours I monitored the temperature of video card GPU which was very high 86 - 99 C and around 100 it had glitches and started to slow down the system. I switched off and switched on again , It failed to log on and switched off again.

I do not understand on this is previously to mod it used to heat up so much that if i place my hand on laptop it used to be very hot. Now I replaced the fan and it is a great fan and heating problem is gone but GPU heats and shuts down the BIOS which is very strange.

One question I have is if I tighten the screws would it make huge difference in temperature?

 

sammy123, you should tight the screws so they won't be loose, but not too tight as it may damage the chip. Usually it's tight enough for screw not to move by itself. As the guide says in FAQ section: "The Screws are tightened ideally when they cannot be turned any further without applying pressure."

Such high temperature basically means that GPU is not cooled. Are you sure that everything is OK with how GPU, copper shim and their thermal compound are placed? Have you places thermal compound on both GPU chip and cooling assembly?

 

Yes I did place on both though will try to reapply and see if it makes difference

 

My shim is 0.5 mm thickness when th emanual says 1.5 ,, would it make hue difference?

 

Yes, it would. It probably won't transfer the heat and you'll just damage your GPU.

 

Does anybody know if this modification would work on a M1530 with an 8600m GT?

 

I got right one and gpu is back to 60! I used 0.5 shim on cpu. Is it right to use on cpu?

 

I replaced the motherboard, did the copper mod, and it still overheated and failed. Gave up on the NVIDIA board, and replaced it with the intel motherboard and new heatsink. Now when I load the Intel driver, the screen becomes crazed and unreadable. If I uninstall the driver and use generic windows driver, the display is fine although at a much lower resolution. Any suggestions?
Thanks to the forum for all the help thus far..

 

mandicoot, did you get it replaced by professionals at the end or did you buy one and attempt to bake it yourself? My GPU is dying on me and Im considering getting it replaced with the updated one from the same guys you were referring to in UK.

Is it worth the £130 to get it replaced with an updated Nvidia chip (which noone knows how long it will last) or is it better to get a new mobo with the intel chip?

 

By your accounts your installing the wrong drivers (intel) you need nvidia drivers or microsoft drivers.

Ive been away for sometime but my M1330 still going. If you can get an intel mobo your also will need a cooling unit to suit. I think this is a better option myself.

 

Thank you guys! I had already 2 motherboard replacements and now I did this mod!

I have a Intel T8300 (2.4GHz)..
This thing is running smooth since I did this copper mod!

- Ambient temperture: 21.5°C
- Temperatures Nvidia 8400GS:
Stress test: ATI tool test -> 60°C MAX
Normal use: programming, simulating, 3D software -> 54-55°C MAX
Light use: Surfing the web and watching a little movie on youtube now and then -> 50°C
Idle: Pc not used for 30 minutes -> 48°C sometimes 46°C
- CPU temps raised a little bit (before in idle: 28°C now it's more like 30-32°C)

Which tool did I use to measure temperature? Speedfan 4.45
Fan is always running on 3214RPM, even at low temperatures.. I still have some reserve parts so if the fan breaks down I can replace it easily. If I shut down the fan you just have to add 8°C to above temperatures. Even then in max stress temperatures will not get above 80°C (fan completely off that is). Very impressive!

What temps did I get before?
Idle: 60-64°C
Normal use: 68-70°C
Stress 75-80°C
(Remark: Fans were dust free at the moment of this test)

I just did this mod 2 days ago so I expect the temperatures to drop a bit (+/- 2°C) seen the fact that I used AS5.
So far I love this mod.. I'm sure this will keep my laptop running for a year longer.

 

Discouraging news, I'm afraid, Ricky. I bought the 631 GPU - it cost me about 30 quid - and tried baking it on a few times, but although the chip appeared to be affixed quite securely, when I turned the machine on nothing happened. (That's not precisely true, one of the lights at the front of the machine came on for a couple of seconds, but nothing else occurred. It's possible that I messed up something else - for example my anti-static precautions are practically nonexistent).

I'm going to get a new nVidia mobo, I think. The cheapest ones have been running at about £80 on eBay over the last few weeks. Not sure why I'm sticking with nVidia. Some sort of Stockholm syndrome, probably.

cheers
-mandicoot

 

Well, the fan on my M1330 died, after a good 5 years of service.

Luckily, I've been expecting it for a while, so I changed it last night. Obviously, I had to redo the copper mod. Funnily enough though, the first time I changed the fan, I completely forgot the copper mod and wondered why my GPU temps shot up to 100°C almost immediately. So I had to redo it again.

Now it's all sorted, I've noticed quite a big drop in temps (I never really cleaned my fan).

Where I was hitting just under 60°C idle/light use on my CPU before, I'm now getting around 40°C.

Same with GPU temps, they were just around 65°C idle before and now they're around 50°C during light use.

 

Has anyone replaced their mobo with one of the ones advertised on ebay as having a 'revised' NVIDIA chip?

I had the computer for a year before it started having problems. I had the mobo replaced 4 times, then about one year later (after warranty) it was getting really hot, and the fan died.

So I replaced the fan, undervolted it, followed the excellent instructions on this guide to do the copper mod. It worked beautifully at super low temps for about two months, and then one day the battery would not charge, and it won't work on A/C. THis is apparently a sign of near-death because the charger is attached to the mobo.

I'm still not ready to let go of it (partly because I'm waiting for the new Asus Zenbook UX31A release), and am thinking about buying a new mobo.

Is this REALLY a revised chip that won't fail? Has anyone tried? I'm gunshy after all the hell, of course...

 

Well after 3 years of using the M1330 it failed the first time last month. I did the copper mod right after the 2 days of purchase (even had the copper piece before the laptop arrived eheh). Also I used Ubuntu Linux on this machine the whole time, I am not sure but maybe it could helped in lasting so long until failure.

Just wanted to say that I did the heat gun procedure to revive it and 1 month passed and it works great.

One thing I noticed is that after taking the cooling pipe off I cleared it really good (taking the fan off) and I notice that the CPU and GPU is ~10C lower just by cleaning and applying new thermal paste. It might be a good idea to clean the fan from time to time....

God I love this laptop, what a fantastic machine. Too bad they don't make machines like this today (but with proper nvidia chip this time )

P.S: great thread!! I keep reading it years after was started!

 

we have new chip g86-631-a2 on sale

 

what advantages do these yield vs the old chipset?

 

I now have a new mobo, with the 631 chipset - 70 quid off eBay. It works fine, and I bunged the copper mod in (of course).

Sadly it reveals that my screen is broken. I'm getting there, though. If I buy a new screen there's nothing else left to break. Cheapest I can find is about 40 quid, for the CCFl version.

Does anybody want the 631 nVidia chip I bought? It's been baked a couple of times, but I presume it works.

 

blackrussian,

I've tried to increase fan speed on my mine but i have failed miserably following the threads. I forget the reason but neither speedfan nor i8kfan nor rivatuner worked for me. Could you or someone who's done this successfully post a dumbed down instruction with step by step and screen shots of config for software? I need instructions specific for m1330 running windows 7 64bit to increase fan speed manually.

 

Ok so it seems that 2 months after the heat gun procedure the laptop died again and this time a second heat gun attempt failed. So right now I just disassembled the whole notebook and sold the parts on eBay. Time for a new system, but this time I am looking more on lenovos, seem to be better built, I am still deciding.

 

So is anybody still rocking these laptops nowadays? I bought mine back in 2008, and when it got the GPU replaced I did the mod, upgraded some parts (CPU, HDD, and Battery) and my M1330 is still looking pretty good: GPU at 50C when surfing the net.

With the upgraded parts the laptop does (still) feel like a completely new one.

• CPU T7250 --> T8300
• HDD 200GB 7200rpm --> 120GB SSD
• BAT: 4 cell - 6 cell

-The CPU upgrade helped a lot with the temperatures together with the copper mod; from 45C to 35C surfing the net, down from 65C without the mod with the T7250. The extra cache and few mhz come handy when opening porgrams and playing games. Although, speedfan claims the 35C, CPUID mon. and Speccy say 30C...

-The SSD makes a humongous difference in boot time and openning programs too (boot from 2.5 mins down to 45 secs). It also helps with the temps on the left side of the comp, since it is a SSD. Did a clean install on the HDD, bought Paragon Migrate OS to SSD™ (back then still was selling) and migrated Vista 32. Left all my music on the HDD and now I can "backup" from my HDD image whenever i need.

-Old battery still gives me 1hr of use but the new battery gives around 3-4 hrs and I only plug it in when really need it.

So i still dont have a reason to move on.

 

hi guys,

thank you for this excellent tutorial.

I've followed all the steps, and I (thought) I fixed the problem. So after completing the mod, I turned the laptop on and run for about 40 min, and run some programs like photoshop actions to load the system, and the fan was running at 100% speed with no issues. So closed all the programs, left it in idle for 5-10 min and then turned it off. During this 40 mins or so right after the mod, I had absolutely no issues.

This morning, woke up, first thing I tried, of course, is turning it back on, and the lines were there immediately. Laptop wasn't even on sleep or hibernate, it was totally turned off. So why would this happen? Like I said, I didn't even see the Dell logo on startup, if started with lines straight away.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

 

I have been through the wringer with this XPS M1330... A bad screen then A bad motherboard then over heating!!!
It has been a long road and now I finally have this thing working! I have been working on the heat mod now for
about 30 days - doing some custom stuff - added dual copper SHIM mods - adding a custom made 1/8 rear aluminum back plate cover.
and finally adding a custom heat sink to the GPU ......here are the idle temps below using fan speed.

What a great thread BTW!!

LAPTOP ON FOR 1 HOUR
AMBIENT ROOM TEMP 24 C
GPU IDLE = 53C ......BEFORE MODS WAS 69 C
CORE = 39C ...........BEFORE MODS WAS 45 C

CHEAP HEAT SINK GREASE WAS USED - I WILL USE ARTIC SILVER 5 AFTER I GET THE TEMPS EVEN LOWER.
NO FAN SPEEDS WERE CHANGED. I WILL POST BACK FROM TIME TO TIME on my progress.

MY XPS SPECS:
CPU = T9300 2.5 GHz
RAM= 4GB
HD= CRUCIAL AGILITY 3 SSD 120GB
OS = WIN 7 ULTIMATE 64BIT

Also is here any Fan Speed Mod for the XPS ?

 

Great thread, wish i'd seen it a year back. I inherited a M1330 with a 8400GS a couple of years back, it's now 4 years old. (Born March 2008) I managed a small fleet of them for my ex company, and this one was granted to me. (I don't think this one ever needed a motherboard swap, the rest of the fleet had a big period 2.5 years ago where they constantly needed Dell engineers around). It's dented, grubby and scratched but still working, quick enough and frankly a good laptop. Over the last year it started getting noisy, fan speed always at 5000rpm and finally got round to doing something about it, Starting with ripping it apart and giving it a damn good clean.

Ordered a shiv of copper off the Internet, and as an interim replaced the cracked old blue thermal pads with some Phobya stuff I had kicking about and put some MX4 on it. Still noisy so undervolted the CPU a bit (lot) and hunted around for different Nvidia drivers which seems to have tamed it some.

The battery is still good, gets a discharge cycle once a month but mostly stays on the mains and the HD is now an old Crucial M225 128GB I had kicking about, If the Shiv helps, i'll bung in a £20 T8300 to drop the temps some more and then maybe even upgrade to 8GB of RAM with it, bit expensive for the DDR2 tho.

 

Hey, that little piece of Cu has kept mine going just over five years now! My HDD died three months back but aside from that, it still works fine and with the 5530 WWAN I can surf in places where WLAN is locked down...

 

Registered just to say thank you for the guide. I am a complete moe-ron when it comes to tech but you all made it pretty straightforward. The hardest part was getting a thin coat of paste on the sinks.

Results are as follows using TechPowerU GPU-Z and three runs of 3DMark 06 before and after the mod.

Before: Idle 59, Max 104
After: Idle 49, Max 74 (sounds crazy but I went through the entire GPU-Z log)

3DMark 06 scores went from 1583 to 1701.
3DMark 03 scores went from 5007 to 6159 (!!!)

Environmental variables were identical on all runs.

Pretty frikken awesome. I got my 1330 for 170 bucks on Ebay and I travel to 3rd world countries and don't want a newer computer.

So again, THANKS!!!

 

I have implemented this mod for over a year, but the last months I had some weird problems.

The laptop wouldn't shut down (restarted itself showing the Media Direct screen), started itself at random occasions and the standby feature was not working (had to remove power to boot it after standby)
I had to give it some heat, and FINALLY I got it to work normally again. This lasted only about a month, and I HAD to think of something better to cool it down.

This is what I came up with:

mark at the back the position of the Nvidia chip


open a hole and place the blue "chewing gum" directly on the motherboard. Then cover it with some copper tape


applied as much copper tape I could, so it can act as a cooler itself. I watched not to short circuit anything on the motherboard


Exactly above the blue "gum" I had to apply 3 extra square crops of copper tape, in order to have a direct contact with the top cover. This cover + the keyboard will further dissipate the heat


Finally I applied some masking tape to protect the screen cable from the heat (just in case)


I didn't plan this, so I haven't done any temperature measurements before and after. But it is SOMEthing instead of nothing.... and this should also help in heat dissipation. Only time will tell...
Now it has an idle temperature of 48 C (with an Intel T8100 cpu)

Please tell me if you try it