SZ and Arctic Silver 5?

Anyone try or think its worth removing the stock thermal compound/pad and using Arctic Silver 5 in its place?

Did try searching and seems no one has tried this, so wondering if anyone has really tried. Wondering if it makes a difference like how it seems to affect the S series.

 

I know people in the Dell forums have done this.

 

A friend of mine ( ) did this on his SZ90, the temperature dropped from 43C to 35C at idle and from 76C to 65C with both cores running at 2.16GHz. Ambient temperature is about 25 degrees Celsius. The machine is also much quieter, the fan noise at high load is now much lower. On that machine the stock thermal compound was poorly applied. It is a very quick and easy operation as the cpu and heatpipe is easily accessible from the underside. Just 6 screws in total, done in 10 minutes.

 

Oh, and subjective battery life improved, probably due to imagination or lower fan speeds. The machine runs for 4hrs-7hrs on the standard battery (5200mAh).

 

Hmm... originally I was not going to do this because it would probably void warranty, but I realised I had stock white thermal goop lying around anyway. Could just change it back if I had to send it in. Anyway I get about 10c difference under load. Max is ~58 compared to high 60s pre AS5. Idle temps are about 3-5c diff.

As he said, its really easy to do, took me 10 mins, the heat pipe assembly lifts out with no effort.

 

Update: Wow holy ****. Hes right, I am seeing a marked improvment in the battery meter readings. ~30mins-60mins more in estimated time.

 

I decided to pop it open and apply the AS5 as well, then a few days later I opted to swap out the CPU for the T2600 instead and applied AS5 again. Got a nice deal since there was a price drop on it.

 

wait, you swapped out the CPU in the sony?

On a side note, how do you remove the heat pipe?

 

Undo the two screws that connect the plate to the CPU core. Those are the only screws holding the whole heatpipe assembly in place. Grab the assembly and gently rotate it in the direction of the battery. Pay particular attention to the heatsink near the rear vent. The whole assembly should just lift out once you rotate it about 90 degrees.

 

Yeah I swapped out the T2400 for a T2600.

Regarding the heatsink assembly, what lithast said is correct for removing the heatsink assembly. But to give a little more clarification,when you do remove the two screws that hold the heatsink assembly to the motherboard (CPU core). When you lift the CPU core/heatsink up towards the battery, think of it as end of a pendulum with the exhaust being the connected part, so you slowly swing the core portion upwards towards the battery and when its far up enough the heatsink/fins portion will lift right out.

Hope that gives a better idea of how to remove it.

 

so this whole removal thing is just by vent cover under the laptop? No need to completly remove the whole assembly? wow, that would be pretty easy to redo the thermal paste or chaning out the cpu.

Speaking of which, I wonder how much of a power drain would it be to go from a 1.8dual to the 2.1ghz... If I'm in stamina and cpu is running at the lower clock rate, it SHOULD be the same right? As both would underclock to 1Ghz? its just when playing games and such is where it would be less battery?

 

Yeah its only the vent underneath, so its easy unlike the S series in that you had to take out the top assembly to get to the CPU.

Power drain wise you are right that it should be identical if ran at the low speed, 1 Ghz speed setting. At max speed, the difference may not be that much but I believe the 2.16 still uses more power at max.

 

man the t2600 2.16Ghz is big difference in price. Newegg is $468.99 amd zipzoomfly is $649

 

Check around some more, you can find it cheaper then Newegg's price. I've seen prices of low $400s.

As for Zipzoomfly, those prices are pre-pricedrop.

 

There are some nice pictures of the CPU assembly posted by PaULsKi on this thread.

 

thanks! I'll go take a looksee

 

If I upgrade, anybody want to pm me for an offer on the 1.86Ghz that's in my system?

 

I suppose I should start waiting on a Merom impatiently

 

I wonder if SZ series will be able to take a Merom without any BIOS update. There was a person that posted he had an SZ and access to a ES Merom on I believe the TR forums, I posted a response that he should try it but haven't heard anything since then.

Would be interesting and cool to know if SZ can take a Merom before it is released.

 

whats the difference between that chip and the one we have now again?

 

Search for "merom vs yonah" on Google for benchmarks. Yonah is the code name for the Core Duo and Solo processors that are currently out and Merom is its upcoming successor, the mobile Core 2 Duo processor.

 

What software are you using to monitor CPU temporature? I tried Montherboard Monitor, but I can;t figure out how to set it up for the Sony - it doesnt seem to have preset mother board configurations for recent models.

 

Notebook Hardware Control

 

I was just gonna ask that! haha, the temperature...

Why i cant check the temperature in the BIOS? why is not there?

 

Oh, i installed NHC and i got cpu clock:1 ghz, why? my duo core es 1.6...

:S

 

EIST (Enhanced Intel Speedstep Technology)

Throttles your speed if your CPU is not used much.

 

is that automatic? can i controll it manually?

 

Hi, I have the same issue. I thought that the CPU throttle down happened only in adaptive mode. Mine is set to performance. Why does it still reduce to 1g?

 

I plan to put AS5 in my SZ... just wondering guys, did you have to clean the original heat paste with some sort of chemical (xylen or something like that)?
How much AS5 you put on then? Thanks

 

hit it with some high % rubbing alcohol to get off the old stuff, there are good guidelines for application on the AS5 website. but basically just get it nice and thin on the core with a razor or stiff card of some sort and rub some on the heat sink with a lint-free cloth or a coffee filter and then wipe it off ( fills in spaces)