where do I buy heat pads and are they difficult to install?

Today my computer started getting artifacts and then went to the blue screen telling me that my video card was stuck in an infinite loop. Tried rebooting, splash screen, bios, and windows loading screen all had terrible artifacts and the screen was completely black after getting past the windows load screen. Called my reseller, he told me my card had overheated and was likely fried, but I could try letting it sit and cool down. Let it sit for thirty minutes, turned it on and everything is running fine.

My reseller told me that my computer (the one in my sig) used heat pads instead of thermal paste and that they might need to bee replaced. I don't know where to buy them or how to install them.

Any advice would greatly appreciated.

 

Those things don't go bad. Where you just on the desktop when that started happening? Did it start getting some artifacts and then got worse before it crashed? Is it repeatable?

 

I wouldn't use heat pads.

either replace the heat pad with some thermal paste, or if there is a large gap that the thermal paste can't fill then you can do the copper mod.

In any case, you do want to keep it cool.
Clean out the dust. If you can, speed up the fan.

 

I was on the desktop when it happened. I got done playing fallout 3, went to the bathroom for about 5 or 10 min and the moment I came back and noticed the artifacts, it went to the blue screen of death. After letting it cool for about half an hour, I turned it on and everything was fine.

 

How do I do the copper mod? Is there a tutorial?

 

I'm not entirely convinced that your thermal pad is the culprit in regards to your artficing and BSODs. There's no question that you have a heat issue that needs to be resolved in your laptop, and out of curiosity, I would like to know what kind of temps you're running.

In any event, try cleaning out the laptop with a can of air first before trying to replace the copper shims on your heatsink. As mentioned earlier, thermal pads don't really go bad per se, and for this to be happening I would try some basic troubleshooting methods first before going for the gusto with a copper shim mod.

 

As others have mentioned clean out the dust in your laptop. You can use an air compressor, compressed air cans, or if your nitpicky some rubbing alcohol and q-tips. If you do used either means of compressed air, use a pen cap, toothpick, or a small piece of wire to stick through the fan vent to hold the fan blades stationary. A good thorough cleaning job will keep the temperatures down. If you are convinced you need to replace the thermal pads with copper send me a PM, I have numerous thicknesses of copper plate around. Tell me what thickness you want and dimensions and I can cut them up for you.

K-TRON

 

I cleaned the dust out the night it happened. The computer won't stay on long enough for me to load a program to check the temps, so I can't tell you how hot it's gettting. My reseller was convinced that my thermal pads dried up (I've had the computer for 3 years and I played the hell out of it with oblivion and fallout 3)

Can anyone tell me how likely it is that my gpu is permanently fried? It boots up normally when I do a cold start, it just gets progressively worse over the course of 5 minutes.

 

Thermal pads drying up is a new one, but it does sound like there could be a problem with it.

If it is fine during boot up, it means the gpu is working then, so no, its not fried. Open up the computer and take a look. Maybe there is a big clump of dust. If there is nothing obvious replace all the thermal interfaces.

 

Thermal pads are made out of paraffin wax, so they shouldn't dry up. They just solidify and partially melt based on when the components start heating up.

With that said, thermal pads are undoubtedly inferior to thermal paste. The heat must transfer through a longer distance (unaided) and it must be transferred through a substance with less thermal conductivity. Something like Arctic Silver 5 combined with a copper mod as others have suggested would drop your temperatures by around 10C.

 

What?
where did you read that?

The pads I have always came across look to be made out of some kind of silicon sponge like material. Maybe different types of pads are used in different situations.
Some of the new phase change metal pads are actually quite good.

K-TRON

 

Forum posts, along with this paper by AMD that corroborates the explanation of how the paraffin wax can fill in the microscopic surface gaps.

http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/white_papers_and_tech_docs/26951.pdf

I would imagine that different materials are used for different thermal pad requirements. The Turion X2 HP laptop I once had used thermal pads that consisted of a white, foamy material.

 

Okay, I took my vid card out, and the thermal pads do not look dried out at all. There was some dust buildup around the edge of the gpu circuit board but it wasn't actually on the actual gpu itself. It's very hard to get a look at the actual gpu itself as the heatsink is also a big vent that runs the width of the card. I stuck the nozzel of a compressed air can and saw a big cloud spurt out, not sure if it was dust or liquid discharged from the can.

The vent/heatsink is stuck to the board, is that cause of the thermal compound?

It doesn't look anything is wrong with it, but I've never done anything like this before so I wouldn't know what to look for.

I can't find my camera or else I'd post some pics of the heatsink, but these pics should help illustrate how the integration of the gpu heatsink and vent systems.

http://www.notebookreview.com/assets/7212.jpg

http://www.notebookreview.com/assets/7215.jpg