NP8150 High GPU Temps (w/ heat sink pics)

My GPU idles at ~60C and while gaming immediately shoots up to over 80C. I took my heat sink off to check the thermal paste (IC diamond upgrade from Sager). Seems to be quite a bit there just squished out the side. Could this be a reason for these high temps?

pics attached

Thanks

Sager NP8150-S1 / 15.6" Full HD LED-Backlit Display Matte Finished Surface (1920 x 1080) / AMD Radeon HD 6970 w/2GB GDDR5 / i7-2630QM (2.0 GHz) /

 

tbh, that doesn't seem like too much.

 

The globs pushed out the side just don't seem right to me. Honestly though this is my first laptop, used to desktops and i never remembered putting paste on CPU and having it look like that.

Like i said though, first laptop and encounter with GPU thermal paste applications so would appreciate any opinions on it.

Thanks again.

 

well, you don't really want any pushed out, but from the pics that's not the worst job in the world and it's not the best. i don't think that is your problem. could be the heatsink more than the paste. clean the extra off and put back and see what your temps are.

 

Mine idles on the 40s and stays on the around 75. And that's with the GPU at 640/1280/1640

 

not a good contact between heatsink and gpu core.

clean the paste, remove the black plastic sheet and repaste it.

 

It doesn't look poorly done, but if you're worried you can always clean it off with rubbing alcohol or paste remover and repaste it with your paste of choice. If that doesn't work, it may be that the heat is unrelated to the pasting though. (Could be loose contact with heatsink or something else entirely)

 

Compared to traditional pastes (like Arctic Silver), it is a little too much paste. Too much paste can actually hinder heat transfer and insulate. For traditional pastes, the layer was supposed to be paper thin.

I don't know what the proper application for Diamond is however. The globs pushed out the side does mean that they applied the paste a bit lazily however and might have put too much on in the first place resulting in excess paste squeezing out the edges. Some paste squeezing out is normal but too much is a sign of lazy application.

 

I would certainly re-apply the thermal paste, i had a similar case with a dell technician who put a bit of extra paste and it ended up to the sides and it was actually insulating the CPU core from the heatsink, best result is that only the face of the core that is in contact with the heatsink contains thermal paste. Remember when applying that only a thin coat of evenly spread paste is needed. ( this applies to almost any thermal paste, be it artic silver or IC diamond )

Hope it helps!

 

IC Diamond application, straight from the horse's mouth.

From what I gather, IC Diamond is ok to apply quite a bit thicker than other thermal interface materials. Note the overflow in the "proper application method."

 

Very interesting, any thoughts on how the spring loaded screws on laptop heatsinks might not be able to squish out the themal paste to the optimum thickness like desktop heatsinks can? or is it just me going crazy lol.

i say this because ive tried the compression technique on my sxps and it seems spreading it evenly works a lot better. just my 2 cents though..

 

maybe the heatsink was not screwed tight, or the screws were not tightened in the right zig-zag order?

 

Have you repasted it already?..

 

Haven't had a chance yet, been absolutely swamped.

I'll repost pics when I do and update whether the temps improve or not.

I did check the heat sink screws when i got it and all were tight, although there is obviously no way for me to know whether they tightened it in the proper order or not.

Thanks for all the input so far.

 

um..you took the heatsink apart and without repasting you put it back??

 

It sounds like he may have just checked the screws and not actually removed it. Though you're right, removing the heatsink and replacing it without repasting can be detrimental (though not necessarily damaging).

 

o_o What if he simply left it as is(didn't reassemble) and is using another PC..

 

Yeah, that is the way I am reading it. Not a good thing. From looking at the pix and the response he was swamped, it appears that unless he is using another computer, it was put back together.

 

I did it while talking to the dealer i bought it from. First checked the screws, everything was fine. Then talked to them again and he recommended removing the GPU and re seating it as that may be the problem. They told me that putting the heat sink back down on the old paste was fine....i am taking it from the last couple responses that wasn't such a good thing to do.

These were direct instructions from the dealer.

edit: they also recommended pushing the excess paste back to the middle, which i did not do as it did not seem like something that should be done.

I have tuned the computer back on to test the temperatures but have not been using it as i have still been worried about the temperatures.

 

Thanks for the clarification. The last few posts were right- reusing thermal paste dramatically cuts down on it's effectiveness. After unseating the heatsink and reseating it, you really need to clean the whole assembly and repaste it. If you were to test it now, I'd bet that temperatures will have climbed at least a bit from the last time before you removed the heatsink.

 

not necessarily. i'm sure many of us have reseated our heatsinks without repasting. i did once of out of the few times i've pasted. btw, i'm fixing to try gelid extreme when it gets here. seeing if it can lower my shinetsu 7783d temps any. got about -5c lower overall on idle and can't seem to hit 80c on benchmarks anymore.