cooling my Mobility x700

Hi all,

I'm new here, but after a thorough search on the web, I think you guys are the best option to help me out.

I have an Acer Aspire 5014 with Radeon Mobility x700 128MB DDR. Lately it has been getting rather hot, especially (but not only) when playing games.

Now, I've bought a cooling pad, but still I want to get the temperature down by better cooling the chip itself.
So yesterday I opened up my laptop. The first thing I did when I opened it up was cleaning out all the dust.
So far so good.

Then I wanted to apply some cooling paste on my graphical chip. When I removed the heatsink of of it, there was a little, brownish 'pillow' (don't know any better word to describe it) attached to the graphical chip.
The thing about this is, that this little 'pillow' is more then 2mm thick (or high, depends on how you look at it ).
From my experience with desktop pc's, I know that cooling paste has to be applied in a very thin layer, otherwise it starts working as an isolator instead of as a conductor.

Now for my question;
Could it be that this conducting 'pillow' the manufacturer placed, isn't conducting the heat properly from the chip to the heatsink, because it's too thick?
Or is it that thick to bridge the gap between the heatsink and the chip, in which case replacing it by cooling paste would mean that there's no longer contact between the heatsink and the chip (and this off course would be even worse).

So to clarify; should it be safe to apply cooling paste to the graphical chip and remove the conductor placed in the factory?

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated

regards,

Steven

 

I think what you're seeing is the standard cooling "thermal pad". Most people like to replace this with thermal paste but I can't tell you if it'll touch, you brought up a good point...I think it will.

 

Thx for the fast reply.

And yes, 'thermal pad' is the word I was looking for

Anyways, how could I tell whether the heatsink will still touch the chip after removing the thermal pad? I should see a huge increase in temperature, even when I'm not running graphics intensive apps, right? 'Cause I don't want to fry my chip.
And does cooling paste work better than the thermal pad, or is there no real difference?

 

People prefer the cooling paste. Most people apply AS5 and say they get temperature drops. You could easily check if it touches by removing the thermal pad, putting on the paste, place the heatsink on, take it off, see if it left a mark on the paste. If it didn't though...lol then you're gonna have to get a new thermal pad. I really doubt it won't touch though. I have yet to do this mod to my beast

 

OK, thx. I'm gonna try it now.

Might be tomorrow before you hear the results, I have a party to go to

 

Taking out the battery in my laptop cooled my temps down a bit. You really don't want it near 70C processors anyway.

Other than that, I would say play in a cool room? Another important thing is that ambient room temp DOES make a difference in heat production on your laptop. That's all I can say really.

 

OK, so I tried to replace the thermal pad with cooling paste yesterday, but the chip and the heatsink do NOT touch

So now my thermal pad is [edited by moderator], and I can't use the cooling paste because there's no contact between the heatsink and the chip. *sigh*

So I've ordered a thermal 'gap filler' from Chomerics, it should do the job better than the original pad placed bij Acer.

Thx for the tips anyways guys

 

OK, yesterday I received a thermal gap filler from Chomerics ( click here), which I installed on my x700.

Now I ran into a new problem. With this new thermal pad my laptop shuts down very easy when playing heavy games.

I opened up my laptop immediately after it shut down because of overheating. The heatsink for the gpu was very, very hot. The gpu itself felt rather cool. So I think that, because this new thermal pad conducts the heat a lot better than the original, my heatsink gets a lot hotter than before, while the gpu runs a lot cooler. Since the temperature sensor for the graphics chip is installed on the heatsink, this makes the computer think the gpu gets even hotter.
Could somebody confirm this, or do gpu (and for that matter cpu) chips cool down really quickly? Like, from 80° C to about 30 ° in a about 30 seconds when the computer's powered off.
Should it be safe to disconnect the gpu's heatsensor from the motherboard, so it stops shutting down? Or could the extra heat emitted from the heatsink raise the temperature in my laptop case so that eventually components might get damaged?

I really need some advice here, I'm getting a little frustated with having a powerful gpu and not being able to use it to its full potential without having my laptop overheating.

thx

 

On this subject, is there any way of figuring out exactly what the manufacturer originally used to transfer heat between the GPU and HS? I've got an Asus Z70V, and would like to improve the GPU cooling (and I don't even game).

 

I was just about to bump this one

Jasman, I think the best way to find out is to call/mail Customer Service and ask very politely. But if Asus' support is as lame as Acer's, don' expect any answers.

On my own topic; I need help! Please?

I've been testing with disconnecting the heat sensor, but then my graphics card shuts itself down instead of the whole laptop, and my laptop's BIOS gets reset.
Very strange situation, I would think.

Using ATITool to underclock isn't the solution either, it makes my card crash when in games or watching videos. I'm going to try NHC, but any tips or ideas (or even wild guesses) would be much appreciated.

 

Guess I figured it out.

The thermal pad I ordered from Chomerics does its job so good, that the GPU's heatsink gets incredibly hot. Since there's not enough ventilation for all that hot air to get out, this heats up my laptop's case, so that all of the other components start running hotter then normal. So eventually, by using a very effective thermal pad to cool down my GPU, it gets hotter than before, when using a cheaper thermal conductive

 

That can be true. I have been thinking of it for a long time, and you seem proving my thoughts now. I have had the same problem before and the problem was a teared thermal pad that would make my GPU much hotter, but my laptop much cooler. Strange. I fixed the pad and now Gpu is ok, but laptop is hotter in total. I compensate the heat by undervolting CPU - making my gaming temp around 10 degrees lower. That is a very good way of keeping heatsink cooling GPU and CPU in games at a normal rate. Check my sig, and my pictures of the interior. I don't have any issues with resets or anything if I don't undervolt. It is just hotter.
Cheers,

 

thx for the input Ivan

As a matter of fact, I already undervolt my CPU using RMClock, and I had already checked your links on underclocking.
My problem is not that my laptop gets a little hotter, 'cause I would be OK with that. It's just that my laptop still shuts down because of overheating. So because I cool my GPU a lot better than before, the laptop overall gets so hot that my GPU gets too hot again. A vicious cirkle, you could say.

Anyway, I now ordered a less effective thermal pad, maybe this time it'll be ok.

Grtz

 

Grtz,

It sounds crazy - but I really think you might be right.

Cheers,

Ivan

 

Yeah, I know it's crazy. But I'm almost certain that's what happening. A real pity, 'cause my x700 is clocked at 358/330 stock, which made it rather fast.

ATITool makes my card crash, so that's not an option. And I don't like ATI Tray Tools at all, especially for underclocking it doesn't do the job for me (actually never got to figuring out how to underclock with it). So now I'm stuck with ATI CCC, and Powerplay always set on 'Balanced'.

Well, all I can say is "Thank you Acer for not sufficiently cooling my laptop"

I'll let you know if the new thermal pad I ordered solves my problem.

Grtz,

Steven

 

I say you should just put it back the way it was before.

 

I opened it up because it was overheating, not the other way round. So the way Acer gave it to me it wasn't cooled properly in the first place. It ran cool enough for about 3 to 4 months, then the GPU started getting hotter and hotter. I tried cleaning out the dust without having to open it, but that didn't help much (as you would expect).
Also, I tore the thermal pad the first time I took the heatsink from the GPU. This wouldn't have happened if Acer had given me a service manual which I have been asking for since september 2005!

Grtz