Z830 - CPU Re-paste

Well as we all know the latest BIOS update for the Portege Z830 was released recently and this meant that the fan was no longer constantly on.

I decided to do some investigating and i have ascertained that the fan kicks back in when the cpu temp gets to around 58 degrees centigrade and cuts back out at around 55 degrees.

as such i decided that to further aid cooling i would dismantle the laptop and check the condition/application of the thermal compound on the die/heatsink.

so off we go in pics

laptop in one piece



screws out



and bottom cover off



heatsink and fan removed to access cpu die



and here we can see the 'wonderful' job that the boys at toshiba have done with the thermal paste, talk about bull in a china shop! it was everwhere!!! check the heat sink itself



and the cpu die





so i set about cleaning up with isopropyl alcohol and some swabs and ended up with this....couldnt get it all off as didnt want to go mad with the rubbing!lol!





and then i repasted with some IC Diamond 7



then reassembled everything, see below for my pikie fan muffling modification attempt....and before anyone says it, no the foam doesnt get sucked into the fan and yes i have tidied up the edges a bit, that was the trial fit ;-)



results are to be investiagted, i havent used the laptop since really having only just completed the repaste, i will report back temps and findings over the coming days/weeks

cheers

Ben

 

Excellent! +1

Alex may want to move this to the sticky, down the road, so it won't get lost..

 

Can an amateur perform this corrective surgery easily?

My experiences with laptop:
- changing HDD
- changing RAM
- destroying laptops, angry dad style

 

Thanks for sharing especially for the nice shots. Look like the CPU is not removable? Is it soldered or can it be swapped?
Thanks

 

This is awesome information!

Good work 1994F7PT!

 

yes the cpu is soldered to the mainboard, same as most if not all of the ultrabooks, so no chance of a swap without changing entire board

and pinoy, its a simple enough job to do, literally remove the bottom cover, couple of screws for the fan and two for the heatsink. then its a simple, if delicate, matter of wiping away the excess paste from the cpu die (can be as brutal as you like with the removed heatsink, well within reason, dont go using a wire brush!lol)

frankly its all down to if your willing enough to technically invalidate the warranty which i'm pretty sure this would do, as in if it went wrong. i have had experience both professionally and in my personal computing of tinkering and repairing laptops so no qualms with doing this kind of open heart surgery. end of the day i'd say try it, but perhaps for the first time use an old laptop, not a 1000's worth of brand new tosh ultrabook ;-)

oh and temps are excellent now, under normal browsing, even with the tosh embedded in my duvet, the fan never kicks in, temps at a stable 45-50 degrees, peaking to around 55 with flash/youtube streaming. so well worth it, seen a drop of approx 5-6 degrees and thats been enough to keep the fan off completely during as i said, normal browsing and document editing useage