Video Guide: Changing thermal paste(AS5) on Studio XPS 1645

[KSMB]

never tried it...only use AS 5.

by the way........a friend of my he also put on AS 5 on the CHIP as well. (with other words 3 points: GPU, CPU and Chip). i only replaced GPU & CPU (became great anyway)

as you see on the heatsink (HPT6P (SXPS 16)) you are able to change the middle paste as well......it have another type of (cheap dog) paste.

[andrew9]

And does it change anything? (are the temps lower?)

[KSMB]

of course................under heavy load (games, etc) the temp was reduced from 70C to 55C......

made a short image of it:

[jnkw]

of course................under heavy load (games, etc) the temp was reduced from 70C to 55C......

Whoa... what is your ambient (room) temperature? I'm idling at around 60 and hitting 80 under load (about 23 room temperature) so I'm considering changing my thermal paste as per the guide.

[andrew9]

of course................under heavy load (games, etc) the temp was reduced from 70C to 55C......

made a short image of it:

As I understand - these are the temps that you have in your laptop (specification in signature)? They are very low but I suppose it's because of the slower CPU.

By the way - what program are you using to show temperatures in tray?

[RacingGun]

I changed my paste this weekend (have done it previously on desktops, but this is the biggest thing I've done to my S-XPS). Made a HUGE difference (~10C) for the video card temps, though CPU temps are about the same. Still, pretty awesome and I've thrilled about this. Time to play with overclocking!

1st edit: Used Arctic Silver 5 with the cleaning kit before application. Since the die is rectangular on the i7 CPUs, I used the spread method (as recommended by the manufacturer). Also, since there isn't much wiggle room once the heatpipe/heatsink is pressed against the CPU/GPU to heat spread the paste, it makes sense to me to use the spread method.

I tinted the heatpipe with the compound (again part of the instructions) as it didn't look very polished/shiny/smooth, as this is supposed to help fill in microscopic gaps.

All in all, a very fun, easy, and actually useful project!

2nd edit: also, the fan is attached to the heatpipe/sink assembly with some black tape, which allows the fan to be angled away from the heatsink fins when not installed in the computer. Anyways, when opened up, this contact is full of dust/hair/other junk, which would definitely have been restricting airflow. I took a photo or two of what I'm talking about, but won't have the photos until I get home.

[jnkw]

I changed my paste this weekend (have done it previously on desktops, but this is the biggest thing I've done to my S-XPS). Made a HUGE difference (~10C) for the video card temps, though CPU temps are about the same. Still, pretty awesome and I've thrilled about this. Time to play with overclocking!

1st edit: Used Arctic Silver 5 with the cleaning kit before application. Since the die is rectangular on the i7 CPUs, I used the spread method (as recommended by the manufacturer). Also, since there isn't much wiggle room once the heatpipe/heatsink is pressed against the CPU/GPU to heat spread the paste, it makes sense to me to use the spread method.

I tinted the heatpipe with the compound (again part of the instructions) as it didn't look very polished/shiny/smooth, as this is supposed to help fill in microscopic gaps.

All in all, a very fun, easy, and actually useful project!

2nd edit: also, the fan is attached to the heatpipe/sink assembly with some black tape, which allows the fan to be angled away from the heatsink fins when not installed in the computer. Anyways, when opened up, this contact is full of dust/hair/other junk, which would definitely have been restricting airflow. I took a photo or two of what I'm talking about, but won't have the photos until I get home.

Sounds great! I would like to do the same with my SXPS but I don't do much hardware stuff so the process is a bit unnerving for me. I've watched the video in the OP though and it seems relatively simple. Any things not mentioned in the video that you would suggest someone watch out for?

[RacingGun]

Hmm a few things I suppose:

The little wires on the wireless card were fairly difficult to pull off, but I've been bad to my nails this last week, so that might have contributed :P

I followed Arctic Silver's instructions for applying the paste: http://www.arcticsilver.com/pdf/appm...pread_v1.1.pdf instead of the bead method shown in the video.

Everything was definitely straight-forward, so I wouldn't be too worried. Don't over tighten any of the screws when putting stuff back together, just a nice snug tightness if enough. Small screws are easy to strip.

[andrew9]

And what temps are you getting right now? (for CPU and GPU - IDLE and maybe under stress)

[RacingGun]

Idle is between 45 and 50 C.

Two threads of Prime95 + Furmark = 65 C on the GPU and between 65-70C on the different CPU cores.

Before repaste this would get me around 75-80 on the CPU and low 80's on the GPU.

Also, here's the image of the area between the fan and the heatsink that I talked about. It was even dirtier, because I wiped it once with my finger before taking the photo.