replacing thermal pads with thermal paste?

hello, so im looking to change the thermal paste and clean out my Asus G73JH-B1, i ordered myself some icdiamond 7. and im wondering if the gpu(5870m) has a thermal pad should i rip it off and apply some ic diamond on it? or should i apply ic diamond on top of the thermal pad?
i didnt order any thermal pads or anything and I dont even know if my 5870m in my laptop even has thermal pads lol. im just getting prepard. thanks

 

Not a good idea, the gap between the vram and the heatsink is too big for paste, repaste the die only.

 

so what should i do? just leave it alone?, or should i apply some icd7 ontop of the pad....?, and if it doesnt have a thermal pad already, is it ok for me to change the thermal paste to icd7?

 

The pads are there trust me, just be mindful when you remove the heatsink and make sure not to touch or drop the pads. The pads will stick to either the vram or heatsink anyways. There are plenty of repaste guides for the G73 in Asus.

Never put paste on top of thermal pads, you're just adding extra resistance to heat transfer that way.

 

Yes, put some fresh paste where there is paste, use fresh pads if you like where there are pads (or leave them alone) but dont switch between the two.

 

kk, thanks tijo and meaker. i liked your answer meaker.

 

Metal expands as it heats up and contracts as it cools. During use the gap between the heatsink and the components is increasing and decreasing constantly as the temp changes, so you need that spongy thermal pad to stay in shape and conform with the expansion/contraction for maximum surface contact and heat transference. If you just used thermal paste in its place, it would just get squeezed out like toothpaste out of a tube.

So yea, leave paste where there is paste, leave pads where there is pads. and if you don't have replacement pads don't remove the stock ones because the adhesive will come off and you won't be able to put it back on.

 

There are plenty of repaste guides for the G73 in Asus

 

There are plenty of repaste guides for the G73 in Asus.

 

Not quite. Expansion of the metal is negligible, and it has pressure holding it down.

 

I've seen some people using paste instead of pads in GTX 580 vRAM chips, I don't see why it wouldn't work in a laptop

 

It's negligible in the grand scheme of things, but it's relevant when you're specifically asking why there are thermal pads in some places and thermal paste in others. The expansion may only be 1mm, but it's expanding with enough torque to split a boulder. It's a technique still used today in stone-masonry. The pressure is not holding the heatsink down to the board, it is holding the board onto the heatsink. When the heat makes the metal expand the PCB board isn't keeping it straight, the heatsink is bending and warping the PCB board as it expands. Which is why most heatsinks come with spring-loaded mounts or a cross-member or something which provides a level of movement, because if they were completely 100% rigid the expanding metal would snap the boards in half the first time it went above 50 degrees.

 

When it goes from 0C to 100C, copper has a linear expansion of only .166%. Any expansion between room temperature and full load is going to be negligible and definitely less than any manufacturing tolerances.

Heatsinks are spring loaded to protect the CPU and the motherboard from too much force during installation. If there were no springs, everything would have to be machined perfectly within extremely tight tolerances otherwise the CPU or motherboard are at risk of serious damage if you fully tighten it.

 

Where could I buy good quality thermal pads? Are there any specific differences between the thermal pads or are they generally all the same?

 

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