reapplied thermal paste- m1530 hotter than ever

So ive been dabbling with the thermal paste on my m1530 for a few months now but havent really stressed the gpu to know for sure. Today however, while playing l4d, my gpu temp got up to 88 degrees C and my cpu was in the high 70s. I havent seen these kinds of temps since i got my mobo/heatsink replaced a year ago. I have opened up my laptop and my fan looks a little dusty but i am not sure if that would warrant a 88 degree gpu temp. I am wondering if this could be because i applied the paste incorrectly? I am quite sure i did it right and i followed the instructions that were posted on here for m1530s exactly. What do you guys think?

Also, will the dell next business day onsite people care, or even notice, that i have changed the paste? and will this affect my warranty?

thanks.

 

I wouldn't worry about the onsite tech - they don't care nor will they even notice. Just don't volunteer the fact you applied aftermarket thermal goop. If you are still under warranty and want to go another round with them, call them up and have them dispatch a new mobo.

L4D is cpu intensive which will increase temps. If it's the game's fault only you can determine that by comparing your current after-game max temps with your baseline.

 

Yes that is high, when I play l4d my gpu max temp is 78-79. How long ago did you replace your paste with AS5? Maybe it's time to reapply some. If you don't feel comfortable reapplying AS5 and still under warranty, call dell to have your heat sink replaced or both heat sink and motherboard.

 

Well the first time i did it was in april i think. I was pretty tentative that time so i dont think i applied enough, and got pretty high temps with that even on counterstrike 1.6 lol. I took a break from games on my laptop until about a month ago, which is when i reapplied it, this time using more AS5 then last time. So im pretty sure that the AS5 should still be fine now.

Do you think these high temps could be attributed to the dust on the fan?

I probably will call dell again. Its just annoying having to do this every few months.

 

how much did you put? a grain of rice sized should be enough...if you put more it gets worse

 

i tried to put a grain of rice sized amount. Im pretty sure i did.

 

Your temps sound a touch high, although not so high that I would be overly concerned. Definitely the dust could cause it, so that is the first thing I would check before worrying too much about the thermal paste.

First I would clean the dust out of the system. That means clean the dust off the fan blades (often I will wrap a fine lense-cloth over the tip of my small screwdriver and physically wipe the dust off each fan blade), and also try and blow some air (canned air) out through the heatsink fins. Those fins have very fine gaps between them, so if they get clogged with even a tiny layer of dust, it makes a big difference in the cooling.

After that I would re-check everything and report back. I have seen temps drop by as much as 10C just by cleaning dust from a laptop.