MSI GE66 i7-10750H - How to extract all that CPU power juice? (Repaste / LM / etc.)

Hello everyone,

I recently bought this MSI GE66 laptop from MSI. It packs an i7-10750H, RTX 3070 125+5W, 32 GB RAM, 1 TB SSD NVME, it sure is a beast. However, some recent games are beign bottlenecked by my CPU. I know the 10750H is not that strong, but I think the main issue is on the thermal/cooling side. I ran some tests on AIDA64 FPU Stress Test, and while I know it is supposed to really make the CPU to sweat, I saw some things that made me worried. I will describe below what I tested and the questions I have.

Conditions:

- Sunday morning, laptop was turned off all night.
- Ambient temperature was 20C.
- Undervolt was enabled, -60mV Core and -90mV cache.
- Coolerboost enabled (max fan speed).
- Notebook is stock, no mods or repaste.
- Notebook backside was elavated from the table with a book (aprox. 2").
- I can't use warranty, I live in Brazil and the notebook was bought in USA. MSI does not have technical assistance in my country.
- 15 minute duration FPU stress test.

What I expected:

- Lower than 10C difference over all core temperatures.
- Minor thermal throttling.
- CPU power sustained close to 65-70W.

What I got:
- Wild average temperature differences for cores
AIDA64 Temperatures: https://i.imgur.com/glTyL9b.png

Core 1: 90.2 C
Core 2: 68.6 C < Coldest core
Core 3: 94.5 C < Hottest core, I think thermal throttling is happening because of this.
Core 4: 78.7 C
Core 5: 91.2 C
Core 6: 77.7 C

The temperature difference from Core 3 to Core 2 is 25.9 C!

First set of questions: How are the core`s located on the 10750H die? Could this be related to thermal paste aplication and/or mounting pressure? Would just opening the notebook and retightening the screws, without disassembling, be enough?

- Sustained power was around 54W.

AIDA64 Powers: https://i.imgur.com/fV6dbQK.png

Second set of questions: What should I really be expecting? Is this within normal values for the i7-10750H? How much could a repaste / proper mounting pressure improve this sustained power? How much further would LM improve compared to a good thermal paste? Can I reach 80W+?

Third set of questions: What are the most recommended thermal pastes for laptop CPU`s? What about LM?

Considering all this, what are your recommendations for extracting all the CPU power that the I7-10750H can deliver?


Some more info below.
Summary statistics for the 15 minutes stress test:
https://i.imgur.com/Z46CMFH.png
https://i.imgur.com/9AxpAt1.png

 

I've been looking into this as well on my 9750H and switched yesterday to some graphite pads that seem to have leveled things out even further than the pastes I had tried in the past up until my current one from Antec. You shouldn't be seeing that kind of delta though across cores. With paste I was seeing maybe ~5 degrees difference. The pads though are proving to be ~10 degrees difference when under load. "idle" though tightened up to about 5 degrees.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08BL3SCWH





The lowest temps "idle' w/ fans @ 100%


I haven't OC/UV anything on this machine at this point and can squeeze out 4Ghz out of a possible 4.5Ghz on the CPU




Paste IMO is a big PITA to deal with. I went with these same pads on my server ~2 years ago and it sits @ idle @ ~85F and under load might hit 125F. Laptops are finicky as there's never enough room for proper air flow and will always run hotter than a desktop. I would recommend trying these pads for a more consistent experience. It's a $10 gamble and there's no mess to deal with other than cleaning off your CPU/GPU prior to putting then into place. They have a decent thermal rating too @ 35W/m-k. which is 5X more than a paste and about 1/2 that of LM w/o the risk of shorting out the processors.

 

I will look into these pads, however, I think most of the heat is transferred through direct metal contact between the heatsink and die, paste is added to fill tiny air gaps only. The thermal pad, although having a better thermal conductivity than paste, will force all heat to go through it because direct metal contact will be removed. This might not be a good solution temperature wise, but I can see the durability argument for it.

I really need to improve thermals/cooling to get more performance. All I want is to increase sustained power, if I could reach 80W continously in the CPU that would make me happy. Waiting for some more help from fellow forum members.

 

Well, failing paste / air gaps vs bare metal are about the same... they suck and shoot temps through the roof. Talk about alarm bells going off within seconds of turning these machines on. That was one indicator that the one paste I was sampling had failed. The beeps and such started going off due to temps w/ HWINFO open.

I think these might get you there.



I'm not sure what you're running that needs 80W though but, I will be setting up my Alder Lake this week and that monster is supposed to do 125W baseline and up to 200+ under turbo. Depending on how testing goes with it I might have to change up things a bit from what I have planned so far and go LC vs Air. It will be interesting but the pads / air setup on 8700K @ 85W keeps things under control under load nicely. Then again I'm not gaming on that system for a long duration which might alter the perspective of sustained cooling. The laptop though is handling things nicely under a game load

 

Hello everyone. I think I solved the mystery. I repasted my notebook with Cooler Master Gel Maker, and ran some tests in Cinebench. The core temperature differences were reduced to around 13C, and the maximum CPU power raised to around 71W. However, 20 days later, most of the gains were lost, as shown in the image below shows:
https://i.imgur.com/eFmV9Rv.png
Left graph = after repasting, smaller temperature differences than before with stock paste

Center graph = 20 days after repasting, core temperature difference increases again

Right graph = CPU power output, most gains lost, comparing right after repaste and 20 days later.
What happens is: some cores get too hot too fast, hitting 95C. The CPU thermal throttles to protect itself, even though other cores are colder and at around 70C. CPU power and performance therefore is limited.


After checking the videos below and understanding what this guy tested, I`ve come to the conclusion of the following:

1 - There is uneven contact pressure in my laptop, this explains why cores 0, 2 and 4 are always hotter. Since they are on the same side of the die, the other side has better contact, therefore lower temperatures.

2 - Repasting did diminish this effect, because there was a good material compensating this uneven pressure / contact. HOWEVER, since there is a mechanical, geometrical problem, either in the DIE or in the HEATSINK, this will accelerate the so called PUMP-OUT effect, and the thermal paste will begin to migrate to outside the contact regions between die/heatsink with the heat cycles during laptop operation. This is why after some days the gains were lost.

3 - This is most likely a manufacturing issue, the contact is not flush everywhere between die/heatsink, its uneven, the parts dimensions are not within necessary dimensions/form tolerance to create the ideal contact. This might also be caused by bad heatsink design, where geometry, screws positioning and quantity might not be ideal.

4 - This should be fixed by MSI R&D/Industrial Engineering team, however, the problem must already be known to the manufacturer and either they can`t fix it, or it is too expensive to fix it, considering mass manufacturing. Because the issue is not that apparent to normal customers and only enthusiast will notice, they might have decided to release the product as it is.


In these videos, the guy fixed the uneven contact by taking note of where the contact is bad (using the same idea dentists do when they check teeth contact when you bit, by placing a marker to see where the contact happens and where it is more intense, there are Fujifilms that can to this and are much better). Then he grinded and polished the heatsink to make the contact more flush. This resulted in INCREDIBLE gains in core temperature homogenity and CPU power output.



Pump-out effect in 1 minute:

 

My journey is coming to an end, for now.

My MSI laptop has a manufacturing defect on heatsink/die, causing improper contact and pressure, lowering heat transfer.

I used a black marker on die and did several assemblies to check where the contact was good, then I sanded these places to make the rest come into contact, a flush mate between surfaces.

Before lapping: small contact area, manufacturing defect



Sanding the heatsink:


Improved contact, although not perfect:


Data and graphs:
First: Core temperatures after repasting with Cooler Master Gel Maker (some difference, but not huge)
Second: Core temperatures 20 days later, massive increase in core temperature differences, pumpout effect due to heatsink/die improper contact.
Third: After sanding the heatsink to improve contact with die.
Fourth: Power output during cinebench r23, yellow is after lapping/sanding the heatsink, managed to go from 56W (red) to around 76W, this means 37% increase in power output = more performancee!


There is still some uneveness in contact, next time i will make it a little better.

MSI, PLEASE FIX YOUR MANUFACTURING PROCESS!