Has anyone ever seen something like this?

I am working on a clients Compaq F730 / F700 notebook. It needed a new hard drive. Well after I replaced the hard drive I naturally had to reinstall the OS so instead of Vista I put Windows 7 64 bit in it as the OS. I have my own Compaq F700 and after replacing stuff on it many times I knew it would handle Windows 7 64 bit especially with the SSHD and 4GB ram upgrade. So everything went smooth, took out the weak two 512mb sticks, put in the two 2GB sticks, swapped out the hard drives, installed Windows 7, laptop was running like a new laptop but faster because of the ram and SSHD. So I powered it off a few nights ago and was going to resume the next morning on finishing the updates / tweaks etc.

When I pressed the power button the BIOS didn't post, no screen (not even to an external), the dvd optical drive was running the dvd left it in, HDD and battery lights in the front are on along with the power button light and plug ring light. The fan isn't running at all! It's been my experience many times working on quite a few laptops that when its the dreaded NVIDIA GPU solder crack problem the fan always runs when this happens. Well this laptops had everything on except the fan and the screen.

So I figured I'd tear into it after trying all the internet info I could find with tricks to reset it etc. Tried everything to get it to come back on before opening it up. So I decide to strip it all the way down and when I take off the heat sink arm and fan take a loot at what the CPU looked like in the pictures. There was no thermal paste AT ALL on either the GPU nor the CPU and the metal foil that was on the cooling arms platform PEELED OFF AND STUCK to the CPU!!! I'm assuming this is what the culprit / problem was and why it stopped working? I am open to suggestions from anyone. I took some pics so let me know what you guys think because I've never had a bad CPU before so I don't know how a laptop would act with a bad CPU. The processor in it is I think a TK55. Well I have a TK60 I ordered for another laptop. Will that one work just to test it out or no?

Thanks for any input!!

 

I've seen the foil TIM on a number of Dell laptops back in the P-M days. I don't know how much worse it is than conventional paste style TIM, but in my experience with said old Dells it's never been an issue. I would assume that it's not the issue here either considering that the laptop has been working fine up 'til now.

 

You can remove the stock thermal compound (which was actually pretty good) and replace it with thermal paste. Also, your TL-60 should work in the F730 if you want to test but i doubt the TK-55 is dead.

 

Well, I'll tell you how I fried one of these motherboards. The power connection to the motherboard is a square 4 pin plug. lol

It still seems ridiculous that they'd do that. There's like no indication of which way its supposed to be rotated.

 

I thought the slots were keyed square holes and rounded holes so you could only install it one way (aka "error proof" or "poka-yoke").

 

Those pictures look very similar to the HP DV6000 I messed around with a while back (Same video chip and cooling (?) setup. There are a few ways people have claimed to bring those MB back, involving re-flowing the solder around the video chip. I actually stuck one in the oven for about 20 minutes and got it to work for a couple of days. . . The other problem that can surface is that the WiFi card stops working. When I finally just replaced the MB, I reset the whole thermal setup and added some copper (as described in various other threads) between the video chip and the heatsink. Now I only run that laptop with a cooling pad and a gadget on the desktop showing video temperature.

 

There's a possibility of ESD damage if you weren't grounded; it doesn't always rear it's head right away, which could explain why you didn't experience it previously.

 

I always wear a wrist grounding strap that's grounded to an actual ground wire whenever I touch anything inside a computer so I don't think its ESD but who knows. But I would appreciate some suggestions on what to use in place of the metal thermal foil that was on the cooling arm where there normally is a thermal pad / thermal paste. This is the first time I've had to replace one of these, don't usually see foil thermal pads. The old one ripped right off with the arm when I took them apart from the board. Don't want to put the wrong stuff there and cause problems...

 

I would appreciate some suggestions on what to use in place of the metal thermal foil that was on the cooling arm where there normally is a thermal pad / thermal paste. This is the first time I've had to replace one of these, don't usually see foil thermal pads. The old one ripped right off with the arm when I took them apart from the board. Don't want to put the wrong stuff there and cause problems...

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Here's a pic of two different Heatsink/Fans with the same HP part number. One is aluminum and one is copper.




So, first, I'd say the copper one is better. They are for the DV 6000 series but they look quite a bit like yours. The copper one had a thermal pad and the aluminum one had the same foil that you had. All of that said, using either one, I'd just use Arctic Silver or your desired thermal paste on both the cpu and the video chip. Also, as I said earlier, I put a copper shim between the video chip and the HS contact on the one I still have running with the Nvidia 6150 Go chip. I looked for the F700 on the list of affected laptops in the Nvidia Litigation Settlement and I couldn't find it on the list but it looks/sounds like the same problem, IMHO.

 

Thanks! I very much appreciate the feedback. I used to be able to ask a question in this forum and get a lot of feedback but for some reason I don't get very much feedback anymore so again, I appreciate. I noticed in one of your previous comments you said that somewhere in here people beefed up there coolers with copper. Could you point me to where that is at please? I have actually done this on my own on a few different laptops including an HP DV6000, HP DV9308NR and a DV2809. Yes your correct, the F700 does have the dreaded NVidia chip. I reflowed the MOBO earlier (both sides to make sure) and am just waiting for it to cool completely for a while. Before I came on here I decided what I was going to do. Besides adding the copper shim (like you said you did) because I've added the copper shim on all those ones listed before along with adding copper to the whole cooling assembly in a few spots soldering it using a method that is identical to plug welding after drilling small holes and using a small grinding tool to smooth it. Figured I'd do this to make sure it holds because of the heat. Since this method has worked for me on the cooling arm and other parts of a cooler, what I'm going to do I think is put a 1.1mm thick copper square where the CPU foil pad was and the normal 1mm thick but slightly larger in area copper shim where the cooling arm meets the GPU using the plug weld method on the CPU shim on the edges where before there was GLUE holding the foil and maybe run a bead on the backside of the GPU shim holding in permanent place. Doing this to both will make sure both surfaces have the same height, just as they did before when the paper thin aluminum foil pad and the 1mm thick wore out pink thermal pad that was on the GPU mating surface. I was always told when using a shim on the GPU can be a bad idea unless you make sure both surfaces are back to the same height making sure they get the same contact they had when they came from the factory. Because if you only put the shim on the GPU and tighten everything down, wouldn't it make it sit on an angle? Now that both surfaces are going to be the same height I was going to put a 1mm thermal pad on the copper that meets the CPU and MX4 thermal paste on the GPU's copper piece. I've been told by some tech's that repair mobo's to never put a shim on a CPU and others say it's ok. You'd think it would be ok as long as your using thermal paste but I don't like chancing it. I might just go copper shim to CPU and GPU and use Artic Silver 5 because it has a way higher viscosity and is more gooey. Seems like when it cures it would be just like the 1mm thermal padding I use. What do ya think?

 

BTW, after looking closer at that pic, it looks just like when I layer copper sheeting over a cooler arms surface. Is that what that person did? Looks factory and not any bigger at all, just wondering.

 

I have seen this stuff on old Dells and HP/Compaq laptops. I scrape it off and use normal thermal paste or AS5. AS5 makes fora poor thermal pad believe it or not. when i first started messing with the video card in ym laptop and the old thermal pad was cooked/torn, i didn't have a copper shim just yet and temps under load were not good and stress testing was was rather hot. quality thermal pads are cheap at frozen cpu. that said AS4 goes great with copper shims.


EDIT: both those coolers are factory, looks like one of them had issues so they made a second version, hence two different coolers.

As far as the copper version is concerned sand it down with clean fresh printer paper, that printer paper should have black marks on it when your done. just sand it on the part that touches the CPU and thermal pad/copper shim.

 

Yeah, as I said, both of those coolers are marked with the same HP part number - It's a pretty hefty coat of copper at least. I can't say for sure that it's solid, but I've assumed that it is. As far as the shims: what I saw was that the square that is supposed to make contact with the GPU did not have any thermal pad and made no contact with the heatsink at all! There isn't any way to tighten down that side of the HS/Fan assembly so the shim just helped to make solid, heat-dispersing contact with the gpu. It didn't seem necessary to shim the cpu.

There's some discussion here.

 

Here's what the modification turned out looking like. I'll let you guys know if it makes a difference. All I pretty much did was add a larger 1mm thick copper square to the GPU base / shim which had a 1mm originally thick thermal pad on it. Then I added a 1.15mm thick copper square to the entire surface of where the CPU made contact. On the two outside edges where there were two steps down where the glue originally was that held the foil TIM I just put two small pieces of copper in both slots to make the top outer edges level with the middle and then using a file lapped the copper to make sure it was one level surface. I then added my small but larger then original GPU copper shim and full size cooling CPU surface copper plate. Then I cut and fit a small piece of copper to fit in between the two thinking it possibly might transfer heat a little better. Might as well give it a try while I had everything out, it took me an extra 3 minutes. I took a long metal file and lapped both of the critical surfaces until they were 100% level. Thank god I did that because both were CONCAVE originally! What quality huh?

Now that they both were level I took a piece of 1500 grit wet sand paper, placed it around the flat file, and sanded both surfaces to a mirror shine. I put MX4 thermal paste on the CPU / GPU, eased down the cooling assembly in one motion, and cross bolted the cooling arm back on without moving it around at all. After it was all secured I looked through the sides to see how it was sitting and it looked like both surfaces were sitting absolutely perfect! The copper I added wasn't touching anything except the CPU and GPU surfaces leaving a nice gap from the rest of the CPU's chip surface and the thermal paste was also a perfect bubble less pancake so hopefully it works when I get it all back together.

The last thing I have to do is take my air hole template and a paint marker to make the design. Then drill some extra air circulation holes directly under where the GPU is connected to the motherboard in the plastic bottom so you are able to see the GPU after enough of the 1/32 holes drilled. I've added these cooling holes in the same spot on other laptops including a Compaq F700, HPG60, DV2890, and a Pavilion DV9308NR and as long as I use my template and take my time they look factory and don't ruin the look of the notebook. I've even added a small 40mm 5 volt cooling fan right here in this spot directly blowing on the GPU wiring the fan to the positive and negative on the USB hub keeping it running all the time on an Alien ware M15X with dual 1GB video cards running in SLI mode. The fan made such a huge impact but that mod I charged $130 to add and aren’t time / cost worthy on something liking the NVidia heat problem. I think these few small changes I've made will work like they normally do except this time I changed the cooling arm a little,

With the stupid NVIDIA heat problem after switching to good thermal paste, adding the air holes, and plus 80% of three fan laptop coolers middle cooling fan usually sits almost perfect below the GPU and blows right up at it keeping the laptop running very cool when being very stressed is usually good enough. I'll let you guys know if the added copper this time makes any more of a difference once it's all back together. So what do you guys think of my idea and design?

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Wow! That looks pretty good - seems like it will have to make a difference in temperatures. I'll be curious to hear what temp the CPU runs at. The TL-64 in my system runs between 45 & 65 c, which seems a bit high, but the GBU usually stays below 50 c so it seems to be pretty comfortable. Did you decide to upgrade the CPU while it was open? Once these older systems get the heat issues resolved, they can be decent systems for basic use.

 

That's the next thing I was going to ask you. Do you think that TL-60 I have is ok to put on the mobo before I button it up for good? I still haven't put the board in, I thermal pasted it but if it would make a dramatic difference I will take the cooling system back off and put the T60 in. T60 I bought a long time ago for my own F700 but forgot to put it in because I worked on it a month later. I just got done drilling all the cooling holes on the bottom and countersinking / deburring them a little bit so they look stock. They turned out perfect like they came like that and it should look pretty cool because I ended up wrapping the whole heat sink arm in copper that's been freshly sanded and shined with some 1500. So should I put the TL-60 in?

 

The TL-60 will probably be noticeably faster but use more power = shorter battery life. My preference would be the speed, esp for a system of that age.

 

Well after putting it all back together with the T55 (didn't get your response and didn't want to have to tear this damn thing apart again LOL) the Compaq F730 will not get warmer than 120'F running at FULL SPEED running it as hard as I can possible make it!! It's totally crazy dude! I've never seen one come to life that was so toast! So with that laptop cooler arm MOD, the MX4 thermal paste, the cooling holes I put in the base, three fan laptop cooler ($6.00 love eBay! LOL!), 60GB SSHD boot drive in OEM HDD slot (eBay $32.00), OEM 250GB 7200rpn HDD in optical drive HDD caddy for saving (HDD caddy $7.00), 4GB DDR2 6400 ram (probably times down, that was all I had and I haven't checked what it actually runs), Windows 7 Pro 64 Bit and a new grade A palm rest / track pad piece to replace the worn down jacked up looking one (eBay $7.00), new battery (eBay $8.45)

I have what looks to be a brand spanking new laptop that runs faster than a new one bought from the store! I could have put Win 8 on it but nobody seems to care for that too much. I would have to say this one turned out pretty good and since I also put Office 2010 Professional, Photoshop CS6 2013, Adobe DreamWorks 2013, Adobe Fireworks 2013, Vipre Security, and 20 other of the small have to have programs like bit torrent, browsers etc. I should be able to get a decent dollar for this one having $100 including the RAM which I already had but I'll figure in $40. I'm sure someone would probably buy it for $300.

I took the Windows 7 product key off another laptop and replaced the nasty Vista one, has all its rubber feet, the top lid I clear coated so it looks like glass and has not one scratch, and all new AMD, Win 7, Athlon 64 badges / stickers, When I showed it to my mom and sister this morning they both thought it was a brand new laptop. Sort use them as my guinea pigs. Told my sister to boot it up and immediately she said it was much faster than her 2012 Pavilion G7 which is a quad core 8GB notebook so I think I won't have a problem selling it with all that software on it. Lot of students like getting a laptop with all those programs pre-loaded & with permanent legit product keys!! Unless some tech head comes and looks at it I shouldn’t have a problem selling it and whoever buys it should get a great running laptop lasting 5 years in my opinion. Especially since the cooling fan rarely turns on! Hahaha Thanks for your input!! Much appreciated.

 

Check out this picture of a "Brand new in the packaging Compaq F700 cooling assembly. It has the thermal pad on the GPU but this one has another thermal pad on the CPU on top of the foil which none of the F700's I've ever taken apart have had. Out of all the one's I've taken apart, the GPU has always had a pink thermal pad on both CPU and GPU but never that foil until this one. Just find it interesting that they would sell new ones with that weak as s foil.

 

I don't think that's another thermal pad. I think that's conventional TIM applied as a sheet for easy application, which is fairly typical these days. I doubt there is another layer of foil TIM under that.

 

The reason I shimmed the CPU was because you can't add 1mm to one and not the other and think the cooling arm is going to sit the way it was built to. If you add equal thickness to both then it still sits the way it was made to minus three screw threads. I'm just glad I filed / lapped down both the GPU block and CPU block after I added that copper shim because just for the hell of it I put the edge of a razor blade on it to see if it was flat and it was CONCAVE! LOL!! Wow they really make some junk.. But when I looked at the heat sink on my 2012 probook, completely level, 100% copper, dual cooling pipes, seems HP has figured out how to cool em!

@cdouble: There is a way to tighten that down if you want to add more pressure for any reason, just bend those metal arms with the four screws down a little and it will pull it tighter.