Replacing thermal paste on M1530

I bought some Arctic Silver 5 a few months ago in order to replace the thermal compound on my M1530, I havn't actually gotten around to it yet but i thought i would make a post to check a few things first.

I found this guide: How to clean or replace cooling fan in Dell XPS M1530 laptop >> Inside my laptop

I have looked up before about replacing thermal compound so most of the procedure of it i am reasonably familiar with, however I noticed that in this guide it states that a thermal pad is used in 1 case. Which I am assuming is the Northbridge. Now am I supposed to remove this pad and replace it with thermal paste or should I leave it?

I should add that I have removed the heatsink before now in order to clean the fan out, so i am guessing that some of the thermal compound will have dried up and because less effective. However is the same true for a thermal pad?

Also will my notebook definitely used paste and pads in the same fashion as in this guide or is it possible that my notebook will use thermal pads in all cases, if this is true, how can i tell the difference between a thermal pad and paste?

 

Do not remove the thermal pad from the Northbridge! It has a gap of about 2-3mm. Only clean and paste the gpu and CPU. (sadly my friend recently did this without realising and tried to apply as5 to the northbridge! it overheated and shut down and made a nice mess. He then brought it over to his IT friend, me, who fixed it and has ribbed him about it ever since).

Make sure you use some isopropyl or similar cleaning agent to remove all the old paste from the cpu and gpu die and the heatsink

 

That you for that advice, so i pretty much just follow a guide when it comes to the CPU and GPU and leave the Northbridge alone. Is this going to be the same case with all M1530s due to the heatsink design then?

I know i need an alcohol which is about 90+% volume, the only thing i am struggling with is where to actually buy it from.


Edit: I think i will actually buy some of the ArctiClean liquid online.

 

Its the case with all 8600m m1530's, I havent opened up a 8400m version, they may have a thermal pad due to the lower heat output.

I bought my last bottle of isopropyl off of ebay, cost about £2 delivered.

 

Thanks for the information. Would isopropyl work just as well as the ArctiClean fluid then?

 

lacquer thinner will also work the same fyi...

 

You can actually buy a bottle of alcohol 98º basically in every pharmacy/chemist.

At least in Spain we can, cost is like 1€ a 300 ml bottle.