Hi all! I ordered an S13A last week due in large part to the information in this thread, and since I'm checking out the overclocked BIOS and running stability tests right now, it seemed like a good time to share my own experience.
I originally found out about the S13 from doing a power search on Newegg for any laptop less than 14 inches with a 900p screen or better. I was looking for something to take notes on in class, with a high enough resolution to work on two documents side by side. I wasn't actually looking with the intent to purchase anything, I just wanted to see what was available. Within a couple of hours, due mostly to the information in this thread, I decided to sell my gaming desktop and go all out on the S13A.
I ordered it online at 10 AM on 8/2. At 10 PM on 8/7 it left the factory in Yantai, China.
Google told me it would take a while, but by 11 PM on 8/9, it was in Memphis, TN. Three hours later it left Tennessee, and eight hours after that it was at my door in San Diego (the estimated delivery date had been 8/13). In retrospect, I wish I had ordered by phone since it seems people are able to get better deals that way, but I got a PS3, a $100 mail in gift card, and $19 off a dock with HDD using a coupon from retailmenot, so it's still a pretty good deal and I'm happy with what I paid.
I ordered a 4 GB stick of low-voltage RAM off Newegg, an optical drive replacement caddy off Ebay, and I'm going to add my 120 GB Vertex 3 (taken from my to-be-sold desktop), but before making hardware changes, I wanted to get a baseline so I would know how much of an improvement I was getting. I was excited about my new toy, and by the time I was done checking out all the bundled software to see what I would be keeping after doing a clean install, creating recovery discs, moving all my files over from my old computer to the dock's HDD, and running benchmarks and taking notes on scores and temps, it was 6 AM Sunday. I had a cable guy due to come from 8-10 AM, and was in serious danger of falling asleep if I didn't keep busy, so I turned to the one modification I had seen no mention of in this thread: re-pasting the CPU and GPU.
I was mostly able to follow the S15 video on replacing the optical drive. After that, it was just a matter of removing the last few cables and screws and removing the motherboard. Upon removing the heatsink/fan, this is what I found:
I cleaned the old stuff off with alcohol and then realized I had no idea where my Arctic Silver 5 was (I just moved to a new place last week). All I had lying around was some generic gunk, and I certainly wasn't going to use that! I also wasn't going to be waiting a couple of days to have something shipped. I was going to have to get online with my cell phone, find what was available from retailers in my geographic vicinity, look up reviews, place a will-call order, drive over there in my car, and pick it up by hand like some kind of caveman.
The store wouldn't be open until I had to be at home waiting for the cable guy. I had at least an hour to kill, and probably three. I hadn't intended on lapping, but that HSF looked like it'd seen combat. By 8, I had this:
When I went to Fry's to pick up the thermal compound, I went to look at the S15. Two other guys and I were checking out all the laptops and constantly coming back to the S15 to lift it, check the specs, or just stare at it and sigh. I like my S13's screen, and the narrow vertical viewing range doesn't really bother me, but I was blown away by what's on the S15. I just kept moving the lid back and forth while staring at the screen, entranced by how clearly I could see everything no matter the angle. I would have happily paid $100 more for those angles on my S13, but alas. I just have to remind myself that it's still much better than the glossy 1366 x 768 screens on most laptops.
When I finally got home with my precious Shin-Etsu MicroSi X23, I applied far too much of it and closed the S13A up.
Before I get to the results, I have to confess to a flaw in my methodology: I don't have a thermometer. I don't know what the ambient temperature is in my room. My temps with the original paste were taken between midnight and 6 AM, and the temps with the repaste were taken between noon and 6 PM. The outside air temperature was between 0 to 5 degrees Celcius hotter during the second round of tests, so if anything, the results are probably understated, but I can't know for sure. Maybe there was a breeze coming into my room during the day that wasn't here last night; I don't know.
The max temps below were taken with Open Hardware Monitor and generated with at least 10 minutes of Prime95 Small FFT for the CPU and at least 10 minutes of Furmark's default 720p burn-in test for the GPU. The clocks are stock. I didn't take readings while stressing both at the same time because I didn't think of it, but, since they share a HSF, I should have. It also would have been good if I had made sure to keep the exact same angle on the screen or just output to an external display with the lid closed, since the fan is blocked more the greater the angle. Oh well.
Code:
[u]Stock Compound (idle / load)°C[/u]
CPU1: 49 / 79
CPU2: 51 / 81
GPU: 40 / 68
[u]After Repasting[/u]
CPU1: 45 / 75
CPU2: 45 / 75
GPU: 40 / 65
Stressing Both:
-CPU: 90
-GPU: 76
I'll update with final max temps once I find my highest stable overclock. When I get my optical drive caddy later this week, since I'll be halfway into the system anyway, I'll check how the Shin-Etsu spread and reapply it, probably using a lot less, which may help temps another degree or two.
Thanks for reading, and thanks to all the people who wrote guides or collected information and answered questions! You've been a great help!
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.
I'm afraid I don't know what pad you're talking about...
