XPS 15 Repaste, step-by-step and temps

dude m thinkin of gettin NC 2000 for ma xps 15.
Is the angle really that uncomfortable! provided i got 9 cell battery wid it!
CHeers!~

 

Cool guide.

I have an XPS15 with identical specs to your listed ones (got given it as a replacement for my M1530, thanks dell).

I got the following 3dmark06 scores:
7412 650/1300/800
8431 750/1500/950

Thought you might be interested, your overclocked figure is lagging behind a little.

I have also recorded the following max temps under heavy gaming, with stock heat transfer compounds and stock build:

- 83* at stock clocks
- 90* at 750/1500/950

In my experience with my previous notebook (M1530) AS5 makes a difference in the short term, however over time (say a couple months) the temperatures go up, in my case they were going up higher than stock. Re-doing it brought the temperatures back down, it is possible this has something to do with dust buildup in the fan/cooling assembly as well as the AS5 itself, but personally I don't see pulling apart the laptop and switching to AS5 making a significant difference in the longer term. YMMV

Udi

 

What resolution did you run it at?
I have the registered version of 3dmark and ran it at 1280x1024, the freeware version doesn't run this high of resolution, hence higher scores.
3dmark scores are worthless without provided resolutions as that dramatically affects the score.

My temps after Liquid Ultra have remained idle in low 50s to high 40s and never go over 83 when gaming, which is drastic from 96 C when gaming, so in my case it was worth it.

 

Why would you run it in any resolution other than default (for posting scores)?

The whole point is so that you can compare scores with other people/systems/configs.

But FYI, 1280x1024 is in fact the default resolution and if you bothered to click the links to my results you would have seen that along with the rest of the settings.

My stock result is actually only a couple marks higher than yours, which is why I thought it was interesting that the overclocked figure was drastically different.

 

Nope, didn't bother to click your links.
Some people run it at less than that res by the way, and are shocked when they get something of like 300 points higher than other people with similar hardware.

3dmark06 varies run-by-run for everyone it seems. I've had scores vary by by 40-50 points on same system with no changes between runs.

 

Very much considering doing a repaste on my XPS15 as well. Thanks for the guide, seems useful!

Few niggles though:

- What I have lying around is MX-2 and some AS5 (somewhere, but I'll be damned if I can find it) I seem to recall that their performance is about equal, but is there any reason I should use one over the other, i.e. viscosity or such?

- How hard are philips screwdrivers to find? I've only built desktops and they don't require them. Can I just walk into any old hardware store and ask for one?

- Any differences in microfiber cloth quality? Last time I fiddled around with thermal paste I still lived at home so I took what I could get but I'd have to go out and buy one anyways.

- Don't have any ArtiClean on hand - I've always made do with isopropyl. Will that be good enough (has to be 100% pure, right? No 99%, no 98%, etc.)

- This is the big one: warranty. I have 4 years' worth of accidental damage support (I'm accident-prone - but have managed to avoid them while building PCs so far - and have to lug my lappie around everywhere so it made sense) so I'm essentially in the clear if my XPS fries itself over its lifespan (which is unlikely to be more than 4 years) but I do like maintaining my hardware and this seems like a fun exercise. Still, is it worth the risk of potentially compromising my warranty? Also, is there anything else that can go wrong during the procedure that makes it not worth the risk? I took off the palm rest yesterday to switch HDDs, which was hell, and everything else seems easy in comparison.

 

See the responses in blue

 

Update:

Following the replacement of the XPS15 for an identical one as in my previous post in this thread I am happy to report that the original was a lemon.

The "new" keyboard is much less mushy, no more rattling of the speakers, and most importantly the temperature of stock CPU and GPU under stock conditions at an ambient temperature of 22C are:

(CPU/GPU)

While typing this with Firefox open: 42C/47C
Furmark 5 minutes at 1280x1024 no AA: 67C/83C
Gaming (Civilization 5): 70C/79C

Previous temps would be CPU max: 68C GPU max: 97C with both Civ5 and Furmark5

 

Thanks! Think I'll go with the MX-2 as it's non-conductive and thus less likely to fry or short-circuit anything. Always a plus, that. Plus, the temps should be a degree or two lower than the AS5. Definitely using one of the two though, as I have them lying around and dropping 20 euros on cooling paste seems a bit silly when I already have some good stuff.

Re: the philips screwdriver I was somehow stricken with the impression that it was a special kind of screwdriver (with a three-point head) instead of a regular one. My bad on that, though I will peg some of the blame on relative technical inexperience and the language barrier.

At any rate, thanks again. I'll do a pre and post, temp-wise.

 

Its been a while since I dug around in the internals of my XPS, but I don't recall seeing any special screws, I'm pretty sure all of them are regular phillips.

Yeah, Liquid Ultra was a steep bill, one of my buddies got an XPS as well and I just gave him a bit of mine so he didn't have to spend $20 on a tiny tube of metal goo.

 

Hey sprtnbsblplya, i'm junking my Asus C90S for an XPS 15, and i ran across your thread. The Asus C90S was like THE laptop with its awesome specs and upgradibility. But the crappy thing was its insane GPU temps. Ppl were hitting 80 degrees on idle and pushing past 100 on games.

There were all kinds of temp mods. You had your repasting of thermal paste & undervolting. And then there were the hardcore ppl tt had alot of time & some power tools lying around ^^ Followed one of their guides and here are some pics.





Basically took a power saw to the base and cut a hole underneath the heat sink. Ripped out some spare USB fans from a old laptop cooler and placed them directly underneath the GPU. Mounted everything on another laptop cooler.



Yep so i managed to reach 62 degrees on idle. The 82 degrees on idle was without the fans on. Thats 20 degrees of difference! Haha you could totally try this for your XPS 15 if you've got the time and are crazy enough

 

Holy smokes... hardcore man.
The only prob there is I bought the extended complete care warranty, I think that mod would definitely ruin that expensive warranty I bought.
Pretty cool though.

Pretty crazy how hot those 8600's could get.

 

Haha oh yeah the warranty. Forgot that for Asus we could order individual parts. So if you were afraid of voiding the warranty you could jus order a spare casing, then mess around however you like

 

Sprtnbsblplya,

I received my XPS 15 replacement (yet again!) a while back. I guess this one is sans the previous issues. Anyways, as i posted earlier, I have a brand new Tuniq TX-3 lying around.

Should I be OK using this instead of the 'Coollaboratory Liquid Ultra' or should I order this from US or someplace???

I would try need to get the thermal job re-done on this machine in 10 days as summers are fast approaching at this side of the rock.

Need your advice if the TX-3 would stack up to the Coollaboratory Liquid Ultra .

Thanks!

 

finally the "gelid solutions GC-Extreme Thermal Compound" arrived and so i had to try and do the operation on my xps15 / i7. thanks to the manuals from the dell-page and some hints from this thread it wasn't too hard to disassemble. these is what i found to be noted:
- you have to remove the optical drive (as noted in this thread already)
- you must not forget to remove the place-holder of the cardreader the card prevents the top-frame from being lifted from the bottom of the case
- dell put a real lot of original-paste on both the cpu and gpu...
- pasting the gc-extreme was not as easy as i thought it would be. it was not really simple to spread a thin layer of paste on the cpu/gpu even with the help of the included plastic-tool. but then maybe my room-temperature was just a bit too low... (about 20celsius)

well finally i did it and successfully mounted everything back in place.

the goal:
- normal usage of desktop programs with as little noise as possible from the fans. my xps15 was running quite high at about 60/56 degrees (core0/other cores) before re-pasting.

the result:
- i found temperatures being about 5 to 6 degrees lower after re-pasting having 54/51 degrees in comparable situation.
- the fans are being switched off completely more often then before and run at lowest speed at maximum when doing normal non-gpu intense work.
- stresstesting / benchmarking never brought the cpu / gpu higher then to low 70s.

not sure if more would be possible with my xps and a different paste or pasting technique... but hey... in the end i'm quite happy with the results

happy pasting... turas

 

Just wanted to throw in my two cents about this thread:

1 From what I can tell from what I have read and the time-frame of these posts there is no way the AS cured properly to decrease temps the most.

2 With the many thermal paste jobs I have done and watched friends do, never have I seen a not significant drop in load temp and idle temp after a paste job with any brand paste. Just simply replacing the OEM paste was enough to cause a decrease in temps. I really don't think that there is an incorrect way to apply paste but maybe you spread too much paste and did not wait for it to cure, or the tolerance on your heat sink is off and causing a slight gap which the other paste filled.

3 Just for clarification you should let AS-5 cure for at least a week before dismissing it as an option. Exotic pastes are great but a fair review should be given.

Also for giggles, my $15 tube of AS-5 has lasted me 2-3 years with 20+ laptop installs, 4-5 desktops, 2 video cards, 1 quad server and it still has plenty left.

 

sprtnbsblplya
If you happen to open up the system again, could you possibly make a video showing it, i know you got he pics and everything which is great and all, but if possible. Or if any one of you other guys is gonna open up their XPS 15, maybe you can make one.

thanks.

 

Hi,

I have core i5 560 and 420GM, I did the repaste job last saturday with AS5, 3-5 degrees down now, so it's not bad. After two hours playing Starcraft 2 on middle settings max temps are this:
- Core 76ºC
- GPU 75ºC
* Note: Akasa aluminium coolpad (with vents off).

it was about 80-82ºC after repaste wich was not bad also. So it's very good now.
Idle temps are about 50ºC, so i'm happy with it.

Sorry for my bad English.

 

This is very interesting thread.
I have read many review on Coollaboratory Liquid Metal.
I found something that scares, look this image:


Liquide Thermique + alu = gros probléme

This is a copper heatsink with aluminum parts like XPS, as you can see liquid metal has corroded aluminum parts.
Another problem of liquid metal is that erase code over CPU in desktop processors and this void processors warranty.
I don't know if these things happen with liquid ultra but surely happen with Liquid Pro (first generation of Coollaboratory liquid metal).
I'm very interesting to repaste with Liquid Metal Ultra,
but i'm scared by this warning.

After a few months what are the conditions of your heatsink?

(sorry for my English)

 

Holy SHi**. This looks dangerous... Having 2nd thoughts now but my order is already in the mail....:-(

 

No reports from Metal Liquid Ultra users?

 

Yes, Liquid Metal corrodes aluminum, but not copper. There is a warning about this somewhere online that I read when doing my application, all I can say is do your research before undertaking mods to your XPS.
The i7 CPU in the XPS doesn't have the printed on CPU code/text like the desktop processors I recall using in the past, if memory serves.
I don't know anything about Liquid Pro, no experience with it.

 

I'm looking at the temps on the first page, and how to take it apart, I'm I don't think I'm going to take it apart if I don't HAVE to. I do play games, Shogun II will be the first one I play on this laptop, getting it tomorrow, they tried to deliver today, but I wasn't there.

So how do the temps run, and how dangerous are they getting? I'm pretty confused about the temps here.

I put the silver 5 on my Studio XPS 1645, but this looks way more complicated to take apart.

 

srry not really related but did u ever find a pll number on the motherboard when u opened it up? i rly wanna try to find a way to overclock.

 

Hey PPl,

Sorry to be bumping an old thread, but guys... I haven't been able to get the Liquid metal Ultra pro... The best I am able to do is this - Tuniq TX-4 Extreme Performance and Easy Apply. Can anyone advise if this is OK?

Thanks!

 

Looks like the pictures in the first few posts have been deleted from the hosting website for some reason.

Also, planning on getting my XPS17 repasted soon, using Artic Silver 5. Is that a good enough thermal grease?

 

Bump.

Anyone?

 

Hi there,

I am a bit curious by your 3DMark06 score. I have completed the test, yet for some reason I have fairly higher results as you may see from my attached jpeg. Why could that be? I have not adjusted any clock speeds. Did Dell make my laptop incorrectly? I'll repeat the test another time incase of an anomaly and I'll post my scores if you want?

I'm a bit worried by the temperature at which my laptop runs at. The image attached also shows some temps, ranging from my lowest to highest temps, the high ones were reached after about 2 hours of playing Just Cause 2 which is fairly demanding. Although the GPU does not stay constantly at the 94C measured, should I be worried? It has reached 96C during a Furmark test once. Are these high temps causing long term damage to my laptop and will they make it more likely to run into component failures in the future? I have a Targus Chillmat which does little but still something.

Should I consider repasting my GPU and CPU now, or maybe wait for my Warranty to end?

I would really appreciate an answer,

Thanks,

XMaggotHeadX

EDIT: This is my setup for my Dell XPS 15
- Intel Core i7 740QM
- 2GB Nvidia GT435m
- 640GB HDD
- 720p display

 

All the photos are gone in the first page. Anyway to get them back? I know Dell has lots of info online, but this was helpful as well before.

Here is a link to Dell's info on how to take the laptop apart. In case someone needs that in the mean time.
Documentation

 

I just did a repaste with AS5. At first the CPU refused to go into TurboBoost, however after 3 rounds of alternating Prime95 and hibernation it's behaving normally.

However, my NVIDIA GPU isn't faring so well. If it try to stress it even a little it reaches 100 degrees and the computer shuts off. I won't try another repaste right away to give the AS5 a bit of time to cure, as it doesn't seem I can help speed it along. But I was wondering if anyone else experienced this in doing their repaste?

----------

EDIT: Nevermind re: the GPU. I disassembled it again and it turned out that the heat sink for some reason wasn't contacting the GPU. Repasting a bit thicker (just a bit) and reassembling has seemed to fix it.

Also, observed that the CPU temps aren't even all that high (75 C) despite no initial TurboBoost. I wonder if the CPU can detect heat dispersion rate?

 

I think i'm having the same issue. my cpu temps are fine but the GPU temps rae shooting up mega fast. is there a trick to getting the GPU heatsink to make good contact?

 

The pictures seem to be unavailable. Any mirrors to this guide?

 

It's possible to upload again new pictures please ?

 

my guess is that people are removing the pads on the GPU memory and they are thicker than the paste. I'm just going to leave mine on, I don't think its as critical as repasting the GPU and CPU.

also, if you haven't seen this thread yet, you can get a free tube of IC Diamond 24 for doing 3 month temp updates. He thinks other pastes are losing their efficiency over time and has developed a solution. You have to have more than 50 post count to qualify and a member for a 6 months. I think he has a few tubes left still.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...c-diamond-24-giveaway-reliability-survey.html

also, since you are repasting help him out with a pressure test, he is trying to determine if manufactures are using spec psi on the heatsinks. PM him if you can help

http://forum.notebookreview.com/7614247-post98.html

 

Can you reupload the images possibly?

 

having problems with this screw. its stuck like super glue...

 

I had the same problem. I almost stripped the screwhead. It's worth going to Sears and getting a brand new #1 Phillips head screwdriver. Phillips head drivers don't last long in general, and as they get older they increase the chance of rounding out the slots in the screw.

And yes, it would have been nice for Dell to tell us about removing the optical drive in the documentation. Rat s.

 

Had the same problem, try tightening it first and then backing it out. The Optical drive screw is not overly tight it seems, just stuck lol.

 

its hopeless i kept trying and now the screw is done for.

 

I've been seeing this issue with my laptop (the high temperatures) and a co-worker actually had his basically fry on him. The dell tech came out and it was indicated that thermal paste was non-existant. In addition it caused major heat damage to the motherboard and heatsinks. They both had to be replaced.

With that in mind I actually asked for a dell tech to do that to my laptop before it hits the dust. I specifically asked that the thermal paste to be redone and that system temps peak at 96C. If it's the same local company that serviced my last Dell then I know with confidence they will do a good job.

Another co-worker redid his himself as well as another co-workers' and indicated that it was basically just globbed on. On his it was half-on/half-off and the other laptop barely had it on at all. Definitely machined on with no regard to where the thermal paste ended up at. Might as well used pads but they didn't it seems.

 

Any chance the images can be reuploaded?

 

up!

We need the images back, please

 

Dell has documentation on their site. I put a link, but it doesn't seem to work correctly unless you have previously chosen l501x as your computer.
Go to Welcome to Dell Technical Support
Select your product.
Once you have the l510x selected choose 'Manuals and Documentation'
View or download the Service Manual.
This link may take you directly there.
Documentation


You should also be able to download the html through this link. http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/xpsL501X/en/sm/sm_en.zip