XPS 9560 worse situation after repasting

Hi everyone,
few days ago I decided to repaste my XPS 9560 and I did it just for the sake of it, because I wanted a better quality thermal paste on it and the best possible cooling on my laptop.
I followed one the popular guides with pictures on this website, I am not an expert in this topic but I easily opened my laptop, removed the screws and the heat pipe, cleaned the old thermal paste with the proper products and the purifier and applied (I think from the pictures) the proper amount of Thermal Grizzly Kyronaut thermal paste. I applied a "half rice grain" for the GPU and a thin line for the CPU. Putted the heat pipe back, pressed and tight the screws until I could, but not excessively tight. Then I putted three slices of low conduction thermal pads on the VRM mosfets in order to make a contact with the aluminum case like in the pictures of the popular guide.
The problem is that I get really low temps as soon as I turn my machine on, then after a while the bottom (where the thermal pads slices connect with the case) start to heat and the machine starts to report higher temperatures than before.. and at some point while on battery the fans starts to spin even at idle.
The strange thing is that when I monitor the temperatures it seems that they start at around 40 C and then the move to 55 C instantly and then back to 40 C after half second and this loop repeats all the time until the fans need to start spinning.

 

GPUs actually need to be fully covered since there is no IHS and everything you see is the die and needs cooling. Half a grain of rice is not enough for a GPU. Also, the thermal pads are offloading VRM heat to the case which in turn heats up the air that passes the vents on it and this is why it is recommended to use less conductive pads - to avoid such situations.

 

Thank you for the fast reply!
I used the recommended 6W/mK low conductive thermal pads and I applied them exactly like its recommended in the guide.
For the GPU actually I am getting surprisingly low temperatures 36 C on idle and while gaming on GTA 5 I get around 70 C at maximum.
The problem is the CPU in my case. Actually this is the second time I repaste, I did the job twice because of the exact same problem and I dont think I made a bad job while repasting the CPU.
I am quite suspicious on what you said about the thermal pads pile blocking the air flow and heating the air, should I try to remove them?

 

What loads temps does the CPU get? If you're under 90*C in high load scenarios - it's fine.

 

After Intel XTU stress test of 15 minutes I get 80 C at the worst case.
I am not concerned about the maximum temperatures, I am just worried about the fact that before my laptop was more silent on light tasks and now it heats quickly. Now when I just browse the internet on battery I always have the fans on and the temperatures are higher and the battery life is worse.

 

Well, the VRMs are now relaying heat to the overall cooling - you will see a difference somewhat. As for the CPU - you could try just undervolting it a bit?

 

This is likely what made your CPU temps worse. Better cooling for the VRMs but it also means a hotter case and, therefore, hotter CPU.

Why don't you try removing the pads to see what happens? Currently you changed two things at once:
1) you put on thermal pads
2) your did a re-paste

As in any experiment, you need to control for a single factor at a time. Remove the pads, then you'll see what the effect of just the re-paste was.

 

put it back how it was and just repaste using a bit more than it suggests.

 

Guys thank you for the support! I just removed the thermald pads and I will test it a little bit. Then If its not enough I will repaste again.
I will report back as soon as I have some results. Thank you

 

I always use more than I need, using a little too much has no ill effect if it's non conductive and thermal paste isn't that expensive for what you gain. I've found time and time again the rice grain method only is sufficient for the non IHS processors that have a single rectangle silicon substrate. I always use an 'X' on my square dies (GPU).

 

Thank you,
So I will also repaste again for the third time. Its actually difficult to understand how to decide the amount of paste to use on this laptop especially because nobody specifies the third dimension, the height. And I know from my little experience that this dimension really matters when you apply the thermal paste since even if you apply just only a little half grain of rice you can make it very "tall".
In my case I made a the rice grain for the square (GPU) and a line for the rectangle (CPU)

What do you personally advise me for my specific laptop with a square and a rectangle for the GPU and CPU?
Are guys sure that I will not harm my laptop by using a slightly excessive amount?
Thank you.

EDIT: One last question for XPS 9560 owners that have repasted: How strongly do you tight the screws that keep the heat pipe pushed onto the CPU, GPU ?

 

When I still had the XPS and repasted I initially used thermal pads on the VRM's too. But removed them after a few days because the temp on the bottom became too hot for my taste. Besides that I didn't see any difference with thermal throttling. The only way to fix that is to remove the Intel Thermal & Dynamic driver.

About the screws: Just tight them down until you need just a tiny bit more force to unscrew them. It's hard to explain how much force you have to use exactly...

 

Doing some of my own research... I've applied arctic silver 5 and it seems to creep up slower, but when I was rendering a short dummy video, it was getting up to 93c... (which is about where it was with the existing paste job, but it did get there faster...)

How come I can't get it to be below 90c?

 

This was observed by many, maybe you are still taking to much heat to the bottom plate - obviously it cannot dissipate enough to help. Maybe try raising the rear of the laptop with a bar, this is known to help get more fresh air?

Removing them or making the contact worse is likely a good idea. I'm afraid there's no airflow there to block by default, which is part of the problem.