Reflow, Thermal Paste, Copper shims, Thermal pad Questions for anyone with EXPERIENCE.

Hello,

I've got an HP G60 410US laptop that looked from the exterior like it was brand new. So when it made its way to me with the blank screen when you turn it on also known as the black screen of death problem, I decided to reflow the GPU chip as I have before. The difference with this one is I picked this notebook up for my uncle as a Christmas gift from my mom and I want the reflow to keep it running for a decent amount of time, at least a year. So I've decided rather than to just go through the normal wham bam reflow process repair, I've decided to come here and ask some questions about some things hoping that maybe someone who does this or has done this quite a few times can give me a direct answer. You hear many different answers to the same questions on the net so here goes.

I have the G60 torn completely apart all the way down to the motherboard separated and the cooling system taken off. When it was all together still, I plugged it in and when I turned it on all the blue power lights in the front lit up, the screen was on but blank, and when plugged into another monitor through the external VGA plug I also got nothing. This was after doing a hard start up, reseating the ram, etc. After replacing the inverter, then connecting a brand new LCD screen with an LCD screen upgrade cable kit and the same thing happens when turned on, I decided it has to be the dreaded reflow process time. So now that I've explained its symptoms maybe someone can help me with a few technical questions I have about the reflow.

Usually I use a mini butane torch pen after using the no clean liquid flux around the chip of course. I take a large beer can and make the stencil to protect the rest of the motherboard as instructed and when everything has cooled down to room temperature I apply Artic freeze thermal compound to both chips (a very thin layer as instructed) then put a copper shim to the GPU and then a thermal pad for the CPU. This method has worked quite a few times but this time I want everything to be perfect. So my first question is should I put a copper shim on the CPU also? I have .50 mm thermal pads that are supposed to be the best of the best and I was wondering if I could use both a thermal pad and a copper shim on the CPU? I could file down the copper shim to .50 mm giving me the 1mm shim between both of them? Should the copper shim be the exact same size as the chip it covers? What temperature should I set my heat gun at exactly? I just got a newer heat gun that has a digital setting for the heat and don't want to set it for to cool or too hot.

Some people have told me to go ahead and use a copper shim on both the CPU and GPU but others have said to never use a copper shim on the CPU because the reason it has a pad and not just copper is because of pressure on the keyboard? When I took this G60apart, which was the 1st time it had been disassembled, there was barely any thermal compound on either chip and there was only a thermal pad on the GPU not the CPU. The thermal pad that was on it was hugely oversized.

The cooling system problem is common with these models because of the terrible cooling setup so another question I had was; would it be ok to take my small rotary tool and put more cooling holes directly beneath where the GPU will be seated when it's all put back together? It would be like another cooling system port identical to the one that is already on the bottom and since I have it all tore apart right now I was thinking about adding these cooling system holes to ensure better airflow. Having a laptop cooler for it that has fans that are adjustable to where you can put them, I was going to put a fan below the GPU on the laptop cooler pad blowing up at the GPU. Then the hot air would just vent out along with all the other warm air from the OEM fan wouldn't it?

I just want the notebook to run well when it's all done for my uncle. It has a 320 GB 7200 rpm HDD and 4 GB of DDR2 ram. Along with Windows Professional 64 bit it has potential to be a very nice laptop when finished.

Thanks for any and all input!!


Jason

 

Bold mine.


While the potential was always there for this to be a good system; the fact that even with 'reflowing' it doesn't fix anything - it just postpones the final 'death' for a few more weeks/months or days (depending on too many factors to list right now...), I would say this will never be the setup that will 'run well' for your uncle for any appreciable length of time.

Go ahead and get some experience with this stuff; but if a stable/reliable system is needed; this is not it. (No matter what you do to it - short of using a current MB).


Good luck.

 

This.

Especially true with Nvidia 8x00 series. Generally I've seen 7x00 series reflows to be relatively robust, but I've never had an 8x00 series reflow last for more than a few weeks, if not days.

 

Well I'm going to have to disagree with both of you on this. I did not include that I also install one 30mm 5 volt fan below the GPU directly onto the bottom plastic base. I'm actually typing on one I reflowed 9 months ago right now so I know that this repair can last longer than a month. This G60 I'm on is like the one I'm repairing with an Intel Chip. Neither has the N Vidia chip. I am very careful and try to be precise when I do these and like I said if this one can last 9 months and never get warmer than 125' F when running at full speed I don't see why it would stop working any sooner. I just added the fan because I was told the cooling system was designed like crap and it needed another cooling fan of some kind with an exaust outlet. Seems like if you do it correctly and take special care instead of tearing it all apart, slapping an older penny on there and putting it back together it will continue to work. One of the guys who I learned to do this from takes in laptops and does reflow jobs off eBay for $69.99. He takes them apart, reflows them and then warranties the laptop repair for 12 months. If this repair didn't hold I don't think he would offer that warranty. I'm not going to put a different chip on the board or waste anymore time with that stuff if this doesn't work. Laptops not worth that much trouble. If anyone else has any ideas on my original questions please let me know what you think.

 

Your call to disagree or not: doesn't change the fact that you're not fixing anything - it will eventually still die (I specifically didn't give it a time limit... I gave a very big range).

Btw, how can the computer be usable with a fan bolted to the outside bottom to cool the gpu?

 

I should have typed "into" not onto. I cut out a space for the fan using my rotary tool and a metal stencil. Then switched to a router bit and router the edge that would be on the inside of the notebooks bottom hole I just cut so the fans small casing could set into the thick plastic casing and only stood a few mm above the original bottom. The other edge of the fan sits 1 mm on the exterior outside of the base casing. I replaced the rubber feet on the bottom of the laptop with ones that would place the notebook 1/4' higher off of its sitting surface. Then using a small amount of mixed JB weld clear epoxy made for plastics, put a small bead around the edge the fan sits on. Once dry it's very strong making screws or bolts not needed to hold it in place. The last few things to do were to put a plastic fan cover with a filter that could be removed by pulling the shroud down for cleaning the dusty filter and not blowing dust into the notebook. The last part of this project was just to tap into the 5 volt power on the USB hub to power the fan.

The first part of the setup that's not user friendly is that the fan runs constantly at one speed, thus I have no experience with installing switches or a speed control for this type of thing. I have the fan blowing directly up at the GPU. Using the rotary tool, a very small jeweler’s drill bit, a paint marker, and a stencil, I drilled lots of ventilation holes around the fan shroud. The idea being the fan blows the hot air up and because the area is so small the force of the fan pushing the air would push the hot air back out the ventilation holes. I know that heat rises but did not know of another place or way to mount any other cooling set up to this model or the other DV's I've done this on.

I'm open to any suggestions on how to make this better and am willing to say that I am not a computer genius and understand that many people out there have much more knowledge and skill at these things. It was the cheapest way I could think of to install a small cooling fan to blow on the GPU as suggested by many other people in other forums. They told me the part of the cooling system flaw in the HP's & DV's with this setup was that the heat sink & cooling setup was much too small, and should have had dual fans blowing out hot air. This along with a bad cooling fin system and cooling fan setup that picks up tons of dust bunnies is what leads to these machines to overheat. I could be wrong about that to. I just tried to fix a problem a way I thought would work and like I said the notebook never runs over 125"F - 130'F at full speed. The fan is not bolted to the bottom with a USB wire running from to the outside into a port. All the wiring is inside the notebook and the extra fan I’ve installed looks OEM I’ve been told. I hope this explains how I am using a laptop with a fan bolted to the bottom of it clearly enough.

Maybe you Tillerofthearth have a better idea on how this could be done?? Open to your suggestions. I came here asking technical questions that I've heard many different answers on hoping maybe a professional might see my question and answer kindly. Like does it matter if the copper shim is a little bigger than the chip or should it be the same exact size etc.? Can I use a .5mm copper shim along with a .5mm thermal pad on the CPU instead of just using the thermal pad? Will that make cooling better? Some swear by using a shim on the CPU’s and others say to never to use a copper shim on a CPU. I still original questions that weren’t answered I am interested in hearing the answers to.

 

The best thermal coupling between silicon and heatink is always direct contact.

In theory you should be adding thermal past to a CPU in order to fill gaps, not add a layer of thermal abstraction. This is why some people lap their CPUs and heatsinks; it's to get rid of these gaps and maximize direct contact.

When people add copper shims to GPUs, it is typically because they cannot get direct contact between the GPU and the heatsink, due to a gap typically filled with a thermal pad or whatnot. Copper is a much better thermal coupling than most said pads, but you have to make it perfect or the heatsink won't be level on the dies. Why manufacturers can't consistently make heatsinks that directly contact CPUs and GPUs I do not know. I believe it is a tolerance issue related to the above.

In a laptop, you should not be adding shims to your CPU, unless, for some crazy reason, you have a gap between the CPU and the heatsink (cooling mod I guess?).

At least, this is my understanding of how this goes down. Your mileage may vary.

 

Thank you very much for your reply. That was a great response to my question and makes me feel better about how I've been doing this. I was always taught to use as little thermal paste as possible for the exact reason you gave, it's only there to make direct contact with all the grooves etc. in the GPU / CPU. On the one I'm currently working on I'm trying to make sure that they both make the correct contact, but I'm having a hard time figuring out a way to make sure this is my final outcome. A perfectly level attached cooling rail over the GPU / CPU chips. Before reading your message I actually took a copper shim and filed it down to .05 mm and was going to couple it with a .05 Thermal pad and use MX2 Artic Silver thermal paste I got yesterday on the CPU but after reading your comment I think I'm just going to stick with just the thermal pad alone on the CPU and use the copper shim only on the GPU. Thanks for your informative reply, that was the kind of reply I was looking to hear. I am still open to any other suggestions from anyone on my original question! I'm no pro and always will and wanting to learn more! Thanks & Have a Happy Thanksgiving Commander Wolf!

 

You guys have to take a look at this in Hardware secrets, it's some info about thermal paste that's crazy: Thermal Compound Roundup - February 2012 | Hardware Secrets

 

What? Chocolate is not only bad for my butt; my cpu will get hotter too! :^)

 

That has to be some made up stuff. Mayo pretty much works the same as Artic Silver 5? LMAO!!! I wonder how much of that technical stuff they sell out there is BS. I noticed that when I was using the kit for reflow work it came with a bottle of Artic Silver's thermal compound remover. Well it's kind of funny how it smells and is the same color of super concentrated oranges.. I wonder if that's all it is.. It works awesome to clean just about anything of anything and doesn't smell like gas the way Goop Off does! LOL!

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!!!

 

Thermal transfer compound comparison

^awesome read, even if you couldn't care less about the variants of ground pegasus horn they use in Arctic Silver compounds.

But yeah.. in the short term, vaseline, toothpaste and sticky peanut butter will work fairly well as a heat conductor. It's explained in detail why on the link above there.

 

Jason Can you send me a photo of your Fan attahcment .. jcesp where its hot Out .. Very Good Questions and you are right on with adding a Cooling fan, holes, and any extra Copper Shims to add to dissiapting the heat away from any CHIP... USING the 5 volt USB or any other source of Electricity in the laptop is good ,, you could always add a POT to control the fam speed. if you wanted ,,but your doing Ok,,fans are Cheap laptops are NOt .. WHY do you think there adding these Laptop Fans to be put undr the laptops NOW ,,, YOUR just building yous In your self... WOnder if Icaould see a Picture on your epoxy job....becasue I was thinking of doing the same thing adding a minature fan with some sort of Grill to blow on the CPU and GPU.. but I was sondering how to Seat it in there, safely,, Sounds Like THAT IS THE WAY TO GO my Friend !!!

 

Can you please post the pics here along with the parts/part # and where you got them from.
This will help everyone.
Thanks

btw- I applied better thermal paste Noctua X1 or something like that. I also drilled some holes around the GPU and CPU area as well as wifi card area. My temps have dropped. I stay well below 60c.

Go to the HP site and look for this file. sp59606 HP CoolSense.
I have not installed yet but it let's you control the fan speed on HP laptops.

I am running the newest bios (unlocked) and I noticed that if you leave the battery in (mine is bad, just blinks) the laptop will tend to startup with the fun and high speed and it stays on even though my GPU and CPU temps are in the 30-40s C.
If I remove the battery BEFORE startup then it will start the fan normally in quiet mode. Plug the battery in after and all works fine. Reboot and back to full speed fan...lol

BTW- I placed a copper shim under the GPU also. It makes a big difference.
You can buy 3 of them for $3 shipped or so from ebay just look for HP Dv6000 copper shims. The seller was in NJ (USA).
apply thermal paste to both sides and I used a thin thermal pad I had to place between the shim and the heatsink to keep the shim from possibly sliding around and to make a better fit.

***I use core temp and speed fan to monitor GPU and CPU temps. I set them to shut down my pc if temps get to X degrees (I would set it to 80).

If you keep the unit cool and with these mods the reflow should work just fine because you are keeping the solder from melting.

 

I did post the pictures along with a lengthy description of how I accomplished that. For some reason its not on here. Everything you said is perfect. The only thing I do thats a little different and a few things you have to remember are:
When I drill the holes, I use a template of some kind and drill with a dremel and countersink the holes that will be seen so they don't look like crap. I do a lot of those mods on other peoples laptops so they want them to look nice, I actually took the bottom piece off an HP DV5T1200 that I had laying around that already had all the air flow spots (HP caught on they needed more holes) and use that as a template.

You can't just use any old shim either. It has to be .5mm or .6mm. If you put one on there that's to thick youy might crack the GPU when tightning it down and also, NEVER put a shim on the CPU. That will crack for sure if you tighten it down to much. Just use a good thermal pad and good thermal paste and your temps will be the same as if you had a copper shim on the CPU. I've seen a couple CPU's cracked. The whole Idea of that cooling usit besides to cool is for it to be level accross the GPU and CPU. If you put a thick shim on the GPU that's to big, just look at the CPU when you tighten it down, it will be on an angle and not get maximum connection. I've seens some people ruin MOBO's using the shim method putting 1mm shims where a .5 was needed.

 

My copper shim on the DV6000 unit was the thickness of a penny.
My friend crushed a piece of copper pipe to make the shim but I used these specs.
Lot3 New Copper Pad Shim for HP DV2000 DV6000 DV9000 TX1000 | eBay

Again my shim is as thick as a US penny. I also added thermal paste to both sides of it then I added a thinner thermal pad I had on top of the shim because it was sliding around under the heatsink.

***You are correct, do NOT over tighten people***Just do some test fittings first.
Do not use a shim on the CPU.
Everything fit snugly on my unit. My CPU and GPU run below 40c with about 5 windows open in firefox (no laptop cooler used).

These units are easy to open up. My random holes at the bottom are not as nice as yours but then again it's and old laptop or my son and people do not see the bottom...lol

I think we all want to see pics of the fan you mounted to yours. Can you post links. Use tiny url to host the pics and paste that link in here.
My mod above keeps this thing cool. I also place it on a laptop cooler because I want the reflow to last.

 

there is nothing wrong with postponing it specially if it's gonna postpone it for several years. at the shop i work at for a while we did a number of reflows. the thing is it last for years before it came in, add to that shims and as5 to bring down load temps to help normalize the temps, there is no reason it can't last for another 4 years. the problem isn't just the solder but, the expansion and contraction and we noted idle temps remind unaffected after mods but, loads temps dropped notably, further reducing expansion and contraction.

I believe i have had 8k series re flows last WAY longer than few weeks thing we still have a few customers with their lappies still kicking around.

 

Here HP DV5 laptop modding cooling system - YouTube

 

HP DV5 laptop modding cooling system - YouTube << without having to use a fan.