Putting AS5 On the W230SS

Hey guys,

Im just wondering what kind of difference to expect if I put AS5 on my 230SS which currently has stock cooling. My main concern is the CPU since it currently goes to 92C after about 30 min of gaming... Im also wondering if I should be concerned with this kind of temp?

 

What is your stock Thermal paste? AS5 is pretty good, but haswell is hot as hell. If you have IC Diamond on it and it's a proper paste job, it'll get hotter with AS5.

Also, have you been using max fans? FN + 1 should kick it in. That ought to cool down the system a lot.

 

Im not sure.. I got it from reflexnotebook and it says "Stock Standard Thermal Compound". I will call them monday to find out. Its definitely not IC diamond as that's one of the other options.

 

No it would be advertised if it were ic diamond.

 

Well in either case, best to find out which one he has. If he's gonna change it out with AS5, it has to be a worse paste he's currently using. Arctic Silver MX-2 or MX-4 would be worse than 5, but Ceramique would not, for example.

 

MX-4 is WAAAY better than AS5. The latter is so oudated, it's hilarious people still use it. GC-Extreme is what I'd personally go for, since it's equal to IC Diamond and cheaper at the same time.

 

MX4 is much better than AS5. I'm using Prolimatch PK3. It's little bit better than MX4. Specially with rough(non smooth) heatsink surfaces.

 

My statement comes from this monster post Bare-die testing: A delidded 3770k, an H100, and 9 different TIMs - AnandTech Forums

You can check the results for each, and check the summary at the end.

 

Notebooks offer a much lower pressure though. I believe that makes AS5 suffer.

 

That and it suffers from curing time, unlike some of the more efficient competition.

 

True which can make a difference to someone who likes taking the heatsink off a lot *whistles innocently* It really does take a long time to get up to full spec.

 

If you have some AS5 already around might as well do the repaste. You could see 2-5C lower if applied properly. 92C isnt too much to be worried but getting it lower would be nice.

 

If it suffers from curing time (I.E. gets better the longer it's used) then that results page I listed was no-curing-time, meaning it's better than listed there when at end-result. I don't expect it'll surpass IC Diamond, but hey... it should still do well.

Either way, as long as he doesn't have ICD I'm sure he'll be fine using AS5.

 

Been using ICD for a while and haven't found anything that is better at the moment for laptops. Tried MX-4, Gelid, and a couple others with no noticeable improvement or worse. I like ICD because there's no cure or cook time. It just works. Granted it can be a bit rough on the surface it's applied to when cleaning since it can mar the surface a bit, but it's still very effective and easy to use.

 

You can minimise that by cleaning carefully too.

 

Liquid Ultra

 

Here's my personal experience so far, hope it helps.

IC diamond is great. I had it applied via Sager when I ordered the notebook in 2012. My GPU (675mx) Finally hit 89C a week ago. That's almost 2 years of awesome cooling power. Also, the removal of it was a breeze. I truly expected some sort of scratching or difficulty removing, but some soft q-tips, 91% isopropyl alcohol, and some care was all it took.

Ive been using Artic silver on my CPU. It's kept temperatures generally in the 70-75C range and lasts about 6 months before temperatures start creeping up into the 80s. I've been cleaning and repasting the CPU every 6 months, so ive yet to see how hot it will get.

I just repasted both the CPU and GPU this past weekend using prolimatech pk-3. So far, anecdotally, it seems to work just as well as IC diamond. Temps for the GPU are staying in the upper 60s, low 70s and the CPU is staying in the low 70s as well. I have no foil mods or any other modifications and both the CPU and GPU are running at stock. Also, my level of tech acumen is slightly above nooblet level, so i imagine anyone else would be able to achieve similar or better results, depending on their thermal paste application methods.

 

Also if you keep the dust off the heatsinks, that has a large impact on thermals over time.

 

* That won't risk bricking your PC in the process.

 

Technically any re paste has a risk without proper care

 

People who are not used to applying a thermal grease on a cpu, and for example apply too much ICD7 thermal grease risk that the processor can be damaged.

 

I've not heard of damage caused by too much paste before... just poor thermal performance.

 

Yes, and even that doesn't have to matter; enough pressure on the sink flushes any excess away from the die-sink area. Basic rule; everything that has 'blobbed' over the edge was too much paste. When you see something like this upon removal of the heatsink ... * cringe* :



Thing is, AS spreads easily, whereas the more recent stuff has a plasticine-like consistency. My current method; use plastic sandwich wrapper as a glove and gently/rapidly tap a single small drop in the center to even it out until there's just enough to cover the whole die area and no ceramic remains visible. Spreading doesn't yield good results anymore, but tapping quickly (like a Morse telegraph) doesn't give it time to stick to the plastic wrapper.

Not sure about the newer stuff's long-term performance though, would be nice if benchmarks were done for both t=0 and six months after.

 

With semi regular dust removal ic diamond should last the life of the machine.