The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.

    Quick question regarding Northbridge Thermal Compound!

    Discussion in 'Toshiba' started by Shroom, Dec 24, 2009.

  1. Shroom

    Shroom Notebook Enthusiast

    Reputations:
    0
    Messages:
    12
    Likes Received:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    5
    Hi guys. I have a Toshiba X205 (SLi-1), it has been running great for a while, but recently got VERY sluggish while gaming, overheating and shut down a few times. I got speedfan and saw the CPU running at temps up to 98c while gaming!@! It will be at ~57C Idle, I will run a game, and within MINUTES.. it's up in the 90s. Turn the game off, back down to ~70c in minutes. Weird..

    Anyway I'm opening it up today and going to clean it out, as I suspect the heat issue is due to clogged heatsinks and probably a bad seal on the CPU.

    However.. reading this disassembly guide here - http://www.irisvista.com/tech/laptops/Toshiba-Satellite-X205/take-apart-laptop-4.htm

    It has me worried because it says you have to use a special Toshiba thermal paste on the Northbridge heatsink?? So I need to use two types of thermal compound??
    I can't/don't have time to order it online.. I went to radio shack and got two kinds.. tell me if this will work..

    1. Polysynthetic Silver High Density (Arctic Silver 5)
    Was going to use that on the CPU

    2. High Density Ceramic (Ceramique) - This for the Northbridge
    (In the picture it shows a white thermal paste on the CPU... I got this because it was the only white stuff..)

    So am I going to be ok with these two or do I really need some special compound?
    Just want to make sure before I spend hours pulling it apart.. and I don't want to risk damaging something if you need some exact compound..
     
    Shroom, Dec 24, 2009
    #1
  2. David

    David NBR Random Reviewer NBR Reviewer

    Reputations:
    7,515
    Messages:
    8,733
    Likes Received:
    7
    Trophy Points:
    206
    The only thing that comes to mind is how some thermal pastes, especially the silver-based pastes are thermally conductive. Though there are generally superior to the ceramic counterparts, if it's not properly applied, it could cause an electrical short in your motherboard. If the mentioned thermal compounds are the only ones you're going to be working with, I'd suggest using the AS5 on the CPU and/or GPU while using the ceramic paste on the northbridge.

    However, I'd strongly recommend using a good thermal paste remover such as "Arcticlean" to clean the old paste off. If you can't find them at your local store, then 90% isopropyl alcohol should also do the trick.
     
    David, Dec 28, 2009
    #2