Thermal Compound on my Studio xps 1640

Just wanted to announce that I finally got the balls to do this myself today... very easy and straightforward. Just be careful though because when I turned around mid way through applying the compound, I hit it and got some on the motherboard and some of the resisters on my gpu, I cleaned it off the best I could and haven't had any problems with it so far but I would definitely be careful... If you have any questions about the studio xps 1640 in particular, I can help answer them to the best of my knowledge, seeing as how I couldn't find any videos or anything of anyone doing it to this particular computer before...

 

How much of a difference does it make to the temps?

 

Well, stupid me decided to forget to take baseline tests before I did the compound but afterwards under heavy load it hovers right below but doesn't exceed 70 degrees C

 

Lol why didn't you remove the processor before applying the paste on it?

In my experience, i have a 5-10 degrees decrease after AC5.

 

Did you do it for all three (graphics, CPU and north bridge), to give you a crude comparison the idle temps for my cpu are about 31-33* and for graphics they are about 49-51*, this is on the balenced profile

 

I only did it for CPU, should I do it for the other 2?

 

I did not do it for my north bridge because quite frankly I wasn't sure what it was for because there was not any grease on it, just a foam like pad and some oily substance on the chip... If I were to take it apart, would I have to completely redo everything? because the other two are already done and have been for 24 hours or so

 

The reason I didn't take the processor and gpu out is because I figure the worst that can happen if I leave it in is that I make a mess, where if I take it out and bend a pin... I'm screwed.

 

Are the specs on your computer close to mine? If so, my cpu is running hotter than your's...

 

I have the P8600 which runs quite cool, you have the 35watt T9800 which runs comparitively hot

 

Ok haha just making sure... I just want to get an idea of how hot my exact configuration runs without the thermal compound being replaced

 

I just gamed for about an hour and a half straight playing War Rock. Although this is not all that graphic intensive, afterwards I took a screenshot of the temperature monitoring program I used.

Here is the screenshot, as you can see close to the bottom, the max temperature my cpu hit was 80C which is well within the 105C max temperature of the cpu.

 

That foam like pad is the cheap thermal pad dell uses. If you take it apart you should redo all of it.

Also be careful with getting it on the mb and other areas... some of he thermal paste out there is conductive. check the specs on the paste you are using to be sure.

 

Reading carefully the thread "Cooper mod" for another Dell Studio Laptop, I was quite convinced by one guy there that such an idea (ie replacing a northbidge thermal pad with any better thermal conductor, was not a brillant idea. Why - because the usual working temperature of this chipset should be far lower than GPU and CPU ones, so if you join all of these chips all together with a cooper radiator, it can rise the temperature of the northbridge instead of cooling this chip.

But I will appreciate any other opinions (if justified) cause I have just opened my SXPS 1640 and started to change the thermal grease of the GPU and CPU (AC5).

BTW, far worse in my opinion is the situation of the southbridge chip which is the only chip really getting hot in my case (you can feel the heat touching the touchpad, which is located directly over this chip). The southbridge coming out of Dell's factory has no active cooling nor even the simple radiator (in fact there is a plate making part of the chasis, so there is even no space to put anything there). I have ordered a cooper plate like one used for the DIMM modules (0.3mm thick) so I plan to fix this to the southbridge chip, under the chasis plate, going than further towards the unused place WWAN). Perhaps anyone already has tested such a passive cooling for the southbridge chip?

 

Yeah thats what I was nervous about and it, but I cleaned it very well and then made sure it was, in fact, non conductive. As far as the cheap foam pad dell uses for the northbridge, what it looked like to me was an insulator not a conductor, almost like it was trying to protect the chip. Specifically the reason why I did not apply thermal paste to it, now that someone other than me has stated that they have doubts about putting paste on it, I will probably have to find some definitive statement that nothing bad will happen.

 

Wow! Eye opening.... I am extremely glad you decided to post on here because I was borderline about to do it all but since I am no longer the only one who doubts how safe it would be to do it to the northbridge also I will wait a little bit for more reviews and information.

 

hey quick Q, I have some arctic silver 5 around and want to put it on my CPU and GPU. Looking at the service manual for the 1640 it looks rather easy. Just want to make sure though, is the GPU accessible same time as the CPU? It looks like once you remove the back panel you have access to the whole motherboard. Also, is replacing the paste on the GPU the same process as doing the CPU? I've done CPU paste a few times including another Dell laptop, but not GPU. My specs are in my sig. Thanks!!

 

Also how much to use on the CPU? I have the P8600, not sure how much I should use. Prob not much is necessary eh?

*edit* nm.. I just went ahead and did it. TOok me about an hour b/c I was very careful to clean and everything. I put AS5 on the CPU/GPU and the northbridge thing but left the thermal pad on it.