Why don't manufacturers paste their laptop properly

Almost everyone on these forums seems to repaste their laptop once obtained if it isnt a custom built one. Why would the major manufacturer do such a poor job that an enthusiast can lower temps by 15% and stop throttling under one hour with a screwdriver and some paste?

 

Their current method doesnt require trained personal. Its just a fast stamp on top of a heatsink that melts when being used for the first time and turns into lower quality paste. Actual thermal paste requires more precision for it to be applied and can be very inconsistent.

The paste now might be less but every unit is exactly the same. But with manual pasting, one might receive not enough paste and the other one too much.

 

Companies sure could add manual(or better at least) thermal paste into the manufacturing method. The problem is it would add cost, significant at first, but eventually could come down a bit.

As said above, that would always enter in additional variation due to human vs machine accuracy. Also in today's competitive world, all manufacturers want to lower costs not raise them.

Also the re-sellers already fill this niche for those that want a proper paste job so there is no need to add those costs for the few (% wise overall) that would be willing to pay extra for the repaste.

 

One other thing is that over time the thermal properties of paste breaks down. So unless you are getting a new laptop every 6 to 24 months (depending on the TIM), it is just part of good maintenance to repaste every so often anyway.

 

because most are lazy and don't want to burn calories on doing it.

What I love about HIDevolution is they use the X Cross method for pasting the CPUs / GPUs so you are sure to get the best cooling out of whatever CPU/heatsink/thermal paste is on that laptop

see:

The X Cross method is the best in my experience as once the heatsink is fitted, it provides the maximum coverage with the least air bubbles

 

Cost is the factor here if you want QC thermal paste and paste job expect to pay for that job.

 

Couldn't agree more the harder you run it the more maintenance you will need to do for it. Thermal heat and dust bunnies are laptops worst enemies. If you don't expect a short lived laptop and burned holes in your wallet not just from buying replacement laptops but costly shop repairs if you have to take it for fix.

 

I'd like to see some before/after results from users here.

I'm kind of skeptical a simple repaste can lower temps by that much. Sometimes new laptops just need a break-in period to reach optimal temps

 

Some of us would probably do it regardless of temps, just so we know it is quality paste, done the best possible. I have on a rare occasion, repasted the best I could and temps did not drop, or even went up. Those usually meant I didn't get good contact or the system cannot cool any better with the paste I am using.

However, if unsure, I would not recommend repasting unless you NEED to, if temps were below 80 at load yes it would still help, but less noticeable in many systems. If 80+ during loads it would be worth looking into how difficult it would be for you to do, and 90+ I say it is required (my opinion). While a part can run 90+ for months possibly years (is within spec) I really believe it shortens the system life and makes throttling more of an issue.

 

A simple repaste might lower temperatures by a few degrees C if the existing paste was el-cheapo or there was an alignment/torque issue on the heat sink.

Going high-end with LM (galistan alloy), high quality pastes, clean flat surfaces and proper installation "can" have a significant improvement. This is especially true if you have a socketed CPU that you can de-lid and LM/paste between the die and the CPU lid.

Nothing will cure a lack of contact or a lack of air/water flow across the heat sink.

I have gone the lapping on an optical flat and liquid metal route. It made a difference but it is not magic.

 

Great video. I do believe that the pasting pattern/ method does depend on the spreadability of the paste. I do agree with the X method for most.

 

Very simple answer to Op's question.. From my experience, at least from Alienware, the past is pre-applied and dried on the heatsink... Its usually some ****ty stuff... If they could pay the little extra to have a person apply the paste when assembling the laptop and using some proper paste like ICD, they would save so much in repair costs due to overheating... Same a few cents and loosing some big dollars elsewhere..

 

There is enough of a difference in build quality to keep the boutique companies in business selling Clevo/Sager boxes that are covered with whatever magic sprinkles they can bring to the system.

You would have a hard time going to Dull or Lenovo and specifying how they should apply heat sink compound or that you want an SLI bridged pair of 1080's that are overclocked, or some special variant of RAM. The little companies will cater to that.

Of course you pay for it in several ways; they are not off-the-shelf computers so they take a few weeks to arrive and there is a price that is associated with manual labor.
If it is good manual labor I am willing to spring for it, if the overclocking/optimization gets you "close" to where you want to be I am happy too.

Nobody is ever completely happy, I of course am twiddling my thumbs while waiting for the 7700K, 64 Gig RAM, dual 960 Pro with SLI 1080's and a 4K display to arrive at my door (three weeks to go).

 

I was going through my collection of thermal compounds of years past and found a bunch of the kits that Dell provided (Dell # UP755, Powerstrate Extreme). It has a Locktite number but also a reference to Henkel.

https://tds.us.henkel.com/NA/UT/HNA...098882571870000DC01/$File/TCF 4000 PXF-EN.pdf

Compared to what even modest OC'ers would use this stuff is pretty weak at 3.4 W/mK and is a phase change material (requires heat to fully activate). It comes as a little postage-stamp sized tab of grey sticky compound on a plastic backing.

You can see how by even taking a mass-assembled factory machine and doing something simple like using Arctic Silver (7.5 W/mK) or GelID GC Extreme (8.5 W/mK) can have a noticeable impact upon CPU temperature.