Heatsink upgrade: "Shimming" my Studio 1737

This thread will document my attempts at improving the cooling of my Dell studio 1737

Heat Sources:
Intel Core 2 Duo T6500 (2.10GHz/800Mhz FSB/2MB L2/45nm/35W TDP)
ATI 2650HD 512MB
Intel GM45 Chipset
2xWD Blue 500GB
2x2GB DDR2
Dell 370 Bluetooth 2.1 card
Dell Wireless g/n card

My plan:
Get baseline idle/max temperatures
Remove the cheap thick thermal pads
Lap all heatsink surfaces (with 1000 grit abrasive paper on a granite table)
Lap some copper shims(To replace the thermal pads)
Install the copper shims with diamond thermal compound between all contact surfaces
Record instant gratuitous idle/max temperatures
Burn-in the thermal compound
Get new idle/max temperatures


I got my ICD7 from FrozenCPU (Rochester represent!)
Member K-TRON sells various [URL="http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=5371854]copper shims and plates[/URL] for heatsink modifications

The ICD7 has arrived, I have freshly reinstalled Windows XPSP3 in AHCI mode, and the copper shims are due in this week.
ATI Tool version 0.26
ORTHOS Stress tester

My idle temps are around 40*C for the CPU, after 5minutes of full load they are up to 60*C

 

Time for an update!
It should be noted that the CPU and GPU came stock with a goopy thermal compound, and do not require shims. The north and south bridges used "tape" style thermal compound, and required shimming.

I opened up my 1737


The CPU and north bridge are easily accessible for this modification.
CPU stock



North bridge stock

North bridge closeup, notice the mirror finish. What type of camera am I using?



To get to the GPU and south bridge I had to disassemble the entire notebook.
GPU



South bridge stock


South bridge shimmed/ ICD applied



Here are my stock cooling system temps:


ICD7 temps

 

what are your temps now??

I am at 36C Core 0 and 34C Core 1, machine has been on all day. Basic email web surfing light gaming Command & Conquer 3. Couple of windows open MS word etc average stuff. Balanced power Mode running Vista 64 Bit A0& BIOS.

 

holy crap.. I am light browsing and my Core temperatures are over 60!!! WHAT'S WRONG WITH MY LAPTOP?!

 

Poor conductivity between your processor and the heatsink.

 

Repair time.

 

but its new and all!

 

Defects just happen; they don't differentiate between new and old products.

 

so here's the thing.. I am a bit worried now and I am still not sure if my PC's messed up or not..

So when I am just browsing around etc. my core temps hit minimum of 48-49C. and maximum of 63-64. At this point the fan kicks in and again gets it close to 50C and so on. When I am gaming, i.e. COD4: the fans remain on for the entire time and the max I hit is around 68C. And as soon as I close the game, the fan again soon brings it to 50C in matter of a minute or two.

Now, should I call up Dell for this? Is this a serious issue? One thing that REALLY bothers me is Vista's always working with something in the background. Even when I keep my laptop idle, I hear the Hard drive doing some work continuously. I turned the auto disk defragmenter off, turned off the antivirus and all and still! Maybe that's one of the reasons the CPU never gets any rest.

 

my biggest concern is the GPU really.. it's usually around 50C but when playing intense games it hits 80 EFFIN DEGREES! Time to call Dell or is that even partially normal?

 

so I have finally decided to call up dell to get this fixed.. but what do I tell them? I mean if I really bother them about the heat issue, i just don't want them to replace the fan and leave. The fan works fine.. what do I need to get done?

 

There are really only 3 parts to your system that deal with heat. The fan\heatsink for the GPU, the heatsink for the CPU\chipset, and the BIOS. 9 times out of 10 its usually not a problem with the BIOS (Which controls when the fan goes on and off.) Its possible there might be a problem with the GPU where its overheating, but you should be having the system pretty much turn off on its own within minutes if that was the case.

What I personally would do is order yourself some high quality thermal paste. The stuff Dell uses isn't exactly top of the line. Its not bad. Its just the more expensive stuff you can buy from places like Microcenter is much more efficient.

Call up Dell and get the heatsink and fan replaced. As for what to tell the person on the phone. Tell them that the system is getting too hot to touch, and you are worried about it failing. Go though the F12 diagnostics before hand and run everything. Otherwise you could be sitting on the phone a while when they ask you to do that.
When the tech comes out to replace the parts hand him the good thermal paste. Unless he's a complete D-bag he shouldn't mind using the good stuff.

 

thanks for the help man! ERmm.. what's the F12 diagnostic? Plus could you please recommend a good thermal paste brand or something? I have never even heard of them!

 

Time for an update!
It should be noted that the CPU and GPU came stock with a goopy thermal compound, and do not require shims. The north and south bridges used "tape" style thermal compound, and required shimming.

I opened up my 1737


The CPU and north bridge are easily accessible for this modification.
CPU stock



North bridge stock

North bridge closeup, notice the mirror finish. What type of camera am I using?



To get to the GPU and south bridge I had to disassemble the entire notebook.
GPU



South bridge stock


South bridge shimmed/ ICD applied



Here are my stock cooling system temps:


ICD7 temps

 

Nice mods!

Do you have the picture of this northbridge after shimmed?

 

Nice reduction in temps. I'm running Orthos blended on my 1737 right now, all I've done is changed the TIM on the CPU to an OE Intel replacement material (silver/gray from a syringe). I've still got a warranty till April so I'm not messing with the GPU right now.

BTW, my HTPC idles at 61c. I would say the temps don't seem that high to me, except it's a laptop.


Edit: after 26 minutes of Orthos blended, my CPU maxes at 54/57 for Core0/Core1. I only have a 2ghz dual core and it's also a Penryn chip. I'm also running Vista HP SP2.

Edit2: High Performance power setting, not balanced.


Edit3: I don't suppose you tried seeing what your temps were on Vista, did you? Maybe the XP just isn't very good at thermal management?

 

If I can borrow a camera I'll snap a photo of the north bridge. I got brave, the copper is around 1/16" from the capacitors on the chip.

I didn't break any seals or damage anything during disassembly. All the materials I used were cutting edge, I imagine that my warranty still applies (To everything but the now missing thermal pads)

Getting to the GPU is not for the faint of heart-you have to COMPLETELY disassemble the notebook. I've done it before, but I am confident in my notebook-taking-apart skills (this is the 5th notebook I've taken apart for thermal improvements)

For the average technical user I definitely recommend doing the CPU at the very least-it doesn't require shims, and the north bridge thermal pad can be reused.

If I can get my hands on a student copy of Win7 I might check temps again.

Funny thing is, when I undervolt, RMclock says that my CPU is 30-something Celsius while HWMon says that it is 40-something Celsius

Which should I believe?

 

When I was applying IC Diamond on the processor of my Studio 1735, I also wondered whether it is safe to replace the northbridge stock thermal pad with copper shim due to those capacitors on top of the chip.

 

I'm honestly not sure that completely disassembling a notebook voids the warranty. I'd assume so, as that applies to basically any CE device, save a desktop computer as they're meant to be opened to have parts replaced. Laptops, by their very nature aren't really meant to be serviced like a standard desktop machine. However, I don't see any "warranty void if sticker broken" stickers anywhere on my Studio 17. I'm still going to keep it in one piece till April, though

 

Finally, I've managed to install a copper shim for the NB chip and use IC Diamond for both processor and NB inside my Studio 1735. Here are the readings, both after running Orthos for about 26 minutes:

Before applying shim:


After installing shim on the northbridge chip and apply IC Diamond thermal compound on both northbridge chip & processor:


The max temperatures (indicating the temps while running orthos) drop down ± 10 °C!!!

 

Wow, ya those temps are a tad high. I was tooli around the internet trying to see if anyone had done any cooling upgrades. I installed a Q9000 quad core (ya its the Q9000 guy ) in my 1737 ,and my idle temps are like 42C, even running Prime95 It only gets to 72C or so. Is your fan connected? you said it was new or you might have dust in the heatsink. New thermal paste maybe? Ah this is an old thread, you prolly already fixed it by now.

Nice cooling mods by the way!

 

I know this post is old, but i have the same laptop, and I installed a Q9000 in it. Needless to say, it runs hot. I do not currently have the technical knowledge to be comfortable with disassembling the entire laptop. Do you think I could just, try and wedge the copper piece I have in between the little clip, and SB? Is it too tight?

Also, I never saw any pics of the NB after shimming. ( I know you said you didnt have a camera) How did you remove that aluminum piece, and get a Copper one to work..?

Sorry for all the questions for such an old post, you are currently the only resource for such an extensive mode however. And any tips to help with me with my, nearly, identical procedure would help a lot.

Cheers!

 

Hate to aid in ressurecting an old post, but don't do it! There's a crucial step that's missing in that proposal: lapping the contact surfaces to make them smooth. If the mating surface isn't smoother your temps will only go up since there's a second layer of TIM insulating the area between the proc and the hs. If the shim you put in isn't of uniform thickness, you'll end up with uneven pressure and could possibly crack the chip. Futzing around with shims is veeerrry different from a simple reapplication of TIM. And I -really- hope that by "wedge the copper piece I have in" you didn't mean just pushing it in fromthe side without disassembly.

 

Well yes, I did. But first, take note that I am not referring to the processor, as mentioned. The proc doesnt require shimming, its very shiny, and just required silver paste. I am referring to the southbridge. On the southbridge is a small piece of plastic 1/4 the size of the actual SB, that holds this sponge on top of the SB. The only reason I ask about this half assed method, is because, the ENTIRE laptop has to come apart for me to remove this clip. IE screen, mobo, keyboard, palmrest. I assure you that the piece of copper is very smooth, and lapped. It is of the same thickness as the sponge thats already there. And the clip does not exert enough pressure on the SB to crack anything. I am just worried about breaking the clip off.

Here is the part I am referring to:
As you can see the lil clip (right pic) looks like it could be gently lifted, the "sponge" removed, and a nice piece of copper with silver on it inserted. no problem. I just dont wanna break the clip.



The other part, which I believe is the part you said something about, is the Northbridge. That has a removable heatsink, very easy to take off. But it does have a very annoying rough aluminum material, instead of copper, like the proc. (the NB heatsink and proc heatsink is one piece) This part I just want to modify the heatsink/pipe itself. Said heatsinks/pipes are plentiful on ebay for $13 a pop. So im not too worried about screwing up a heatsink/pipe.
I do apologize for the miscommunication. I was lacking information in my question, because I assumed the guy that had already done the mod would just understand. If you're not familiar with the insides of this particular laptop, my question would seem rather reckless in nature.

Here is the heatsink in question:
The NB part is where i want to mod to remove the aluminum contact.


Thank you for your concerns though, and any tips/suggestions/warnings are appreciated.

Cheers

 

I would really appreciate if someone could post the required dimensions for the northbridge shim on the 1737 Not just thickness but also width & height as I don't want to short the lil capacitors at the top of the chip.

 

Sorry about the late reply, you're looking at around 1mm thickness for your shim height; maybe 1.5mm.

As for dimensions, I don't remember offhand, but you should be able to cut copper easily with shears aka tin snips

 

my gpu reaches 100 degrees easily!

Could some1 post a video of how to go about changing the thermal paste on the cpu?? i tried dismantling the laptop but got confused halfway! lol!

 

Thanks, that helps me too! You wouldn't have a rough estimate for the south bridge too, would you? I want to buy some shims but i dont want to get ones too thin so there isn't enough pressure on the chip, or too thick so there is too much pressure.

Cheers, Paul.

 

Great guide and pics, but with no ambient room temps posted along with it, it's not as valuable for others reading it. Just my 2 cents.

 

Just done this mod on my studio 1735

Laptop overheating repair | Facebook

GPU and CPU don't need shims - I just stuck some new thermal paste in there. I used a 1mm shim for the northbridge and two 0.55mm shims stacked for the south bridge.

Before the mod my CPU temps were 60 degrees idle, 100 degrees stressed. It quite often shut itself down under strain. After the mod, i get around 30 degrees idle and 70 under heavy strain.

All in all, the laptop is much cooler and much quieter now that the fan isn't screaming all the time

 

Nice onde dude! Two questions:

* What are the height & width dimensions (thanks for the thickness) for the copper shims?
* How much work is involved in getting to the graphics card and the southbridge?

 

Hey,

I used 15mm square shims for all chips, if i was doing it again I'd probably use a 10mm square shim for the northbridge and a 20mm shim for the southbridge since it doesn't have a die to directly place a shim on so a slightly bigger one may be better. To be honest though, I'm happy with my setup with 15mm shims all round, i doubt the temps would alter at all if I changed the sizes to those above.

In terms of work - you have to dismantle pretty much the entire laptop, the gpu, northbridge and southbridge are all on the underside of the motherboard so that needs to come out.

You can get away without removing the display, but it makes life easier if you undo the display hinges anyway.

Another little tip - when you remove the motherboard, you are left with just the main exhaust fan still attached to the laptop chassis - although you dont need to remove it for the mod, whilst you've got the motherboard out, make sure you take the time to undo the 2 screws to take that fan out and clean it - I had quite a build up of dust in there which I'm sure now it's removed has helped to increase the air flow.

 

Quality response, thanks very much. Gonna get those shims now, good timing as I'm getting the screwdriver out soon as I've also ordered more memory. Will report back

Thanks!