Official ICD7 Thread

InfectedSonic · 09-01-2009, 12:48 AM

ok i finally got some time to finish my testing and here are my results. sorry it took so long...

here are my initial tests with stock and mx-2 paste

masterx3001 · 09-01-2009, 01:37 AM

Sorry if this was already covered. I read the first half of this thread and didn't see it. But how much thermal compound do we need to purchase to cover a GPU, CPU and some TIM? 1.5g is ~7-$10 from your distributors and 4.8g is ~$20.

Hello_Moto · 09-01-2009, 05:10 AM

the 24 carat tube should accomodate your needs quite nicely.

masterx3001 · 09-01-2009, 06:30 PM

I'm trying to avoid spending twice as much as needed though. I know the 24c will cover my needs but what about the 7c o.0?

Hello_Moto · 09-01-2009, 07:59 PM

7c tube is definitely enough to cover CPU and northbridge. Not too sure if you will have enough to cover the GPU + its RAM (4 chips IIRC) as well though.

masterx3001 · 09-01-2009, 08:25 PM

Alright. I'll just have to see how it works out. I'll post back here once I get my shipment and apply it to let you guys know how far it went. It shipped out today so within the next week you'll have my results.

masterx3001 · 09-03-2009, 04:40 PM

I just got my ICD7 in the mail about an hour ago and I applied it to my laptop which is a 6850FX and I'm running a stress test now as we speak. I was happy to find when I opened my computer that the GPU did not have a notorious gap between it and the heat stink.

What was weird though was that the CPU and GPU were using two different kinds of thermal compounds. Here's a picture below. The grey stuff was on my gpu and the red stuff (looks/feels like clay) was on my GPU. There is a key in the picture to give you a good idea of a scale. Also notice I have plenty of ICD7 left for later application. I'll have my idle/load before/after temps up shortly.

Wow... These are some amazing results. Here are the Load temps before and after the ICD7 application for the CPU. Ignore the GPU as I didn't include that in this test. I'll be running that seperately (You can still see that there's a 7 degree idle temp difference in it though)

BEFORE

AFTER

For My GPU load temps:
Before ICD7: 87 Celcius
After ICD7: 72 Celcius

I'm very happy for the $10 I spent on this product. It was very worth it.

LexusForever · 09-06-2009, 02:59 PM

As promised (gentleman's agreement!), I am posting my results.

First of all, a HUGE thank you to Andrew from Innovation Cooling and for the free sample of IC Diamond 24. It's an amazing product, and I definitely recommend it! But let's start from the beginning.

My wife has a Dell XPS M1330, which is known for extremely overheating 8400M video card, because of that thermal pad between the GPU and the heatsink. When I just bought it, it worked fine, but after about a year of usage, and the thermal pad losing its effectiveness, the temps were as following (all temps in degrees Celsius, taken with HWMonitor):

Code:

Component            Startup         Stress
-------------------------------------------
CPU Core 0             39                93
CPU Core 1             38                94
GPU                    62               100
HDD                    30                48

Yeh, I know, it's crazy, GPU running at 100 degrees C under load. Because of that overheating, it was impossible to use the computer for more than 30-40 minutes -- the palmrest was so hot that the palms were sweating and burning, and the touchpad felt like a hot frying pan, literally roasting fingers at every touch. Because the computer was barely 11 months old and still under 1 year warranty, I sent it to Dell and they replaced that thermal pad between the GPU and the heatsink. When the computer arrived, it was pretty good, just like when I first purchased it, with the temps like so:

Code:

Component            Startup         Stress
-------------------------------------------
CPU Core 0             38                74
CPU Core 1             38                74
GPU                    60                83
HDD                    29                34

Even though the temps now looked good, I knew that in one year, the situation will repeat, so to squeeze some more effectiveness and making the laptop cooler, I decided to undervolt the CPU, and the temps become as following (I only measured them under stress):

Code:

Component          Stress
-------------------------
CPU Core 0             55
CPU Core 1             55
GPU                    81
HDD                    38

Even though it started to look promising, I knew that with the thermal pad losing its effectiveness, the temps will start to go up in several months, so after looking for a remedy, I decided to perform a copper mod on this computer.

The "Copper Mod" thread on this forum suggested getting a copper shim 14 x 14 x 1.5 mm and Arctic Silver 5 thermal compound, as the recommended way to do the copper mod. So I posted an ad here in the NBR Marketplace, requesting to buy a piece of copper and AS5. One good fellow offered me a piece of copper, and eventually sent it to me for free (thanks again man!). He also mentioned that I can use IC Diamond instead of Arctic Silver 5, and pointed me to this thread, where I requested a tube of IC Diamond from Andrew (from Innovation Cooling), and received it in about 2 weeks. After doing some more reading, I learned that it's better to use IC Diamond on its own, without any copper piece in between (well, I realized that it's logical: the less different layers, the better). Here's how the computer looked with the heatsink removed, when it just arrived from Dell, after they put a new thermal pad:

There was a clay-like substance on the CPU, which I removed:

And here's what that thermal pad on the GPU looked like (just a piece of sponge-like material):

So, I removed that pad from the GPU, removed the clay-like stuff from the CPU, cleaned both with alcohol swabs (isopropyl 70%), making them nice and clean, and then applied IC Diamond on both the GPU and CPU. As suggested I put a large pea-sized blob of the grease and with a flat wooden stick spread that slightly to cover the area of contact to the heatsink. After that I placed the heatsink back, secured it, closed the bottom and turned on the computer right away. During the very first session, the temps were:

Code:

Component            Startup     Idle   DVD-playback   Stress    
-------------------------------------------------------------
CPU Core 0             33         33        41           50
CPU Core 1             31         25        41           50
GPU                    59         55        73           74
HDD                    31         31        39           37

I knew that IC Diamond 24 cures fast, in a matter of hours. I took temps measurement again in 2-3 days, and here's the max temps under stress:

Code:

Component          Stress
-------------------------
CPU Core 0             50
CPU Core 1             50
GPU                    73
HDD                    37

So, after the grease cured, the GPU under stress ran 1 degree cooler than when the grease was just applied, 8 degrees cooler than after undervolting, and 10 degrees cooler than when I received it from Dell with a fresh thermal pad (and the CPU under stress runs 0, 5, and 24 degrees cooler respectively). Of course, under light usage or when idling, the temps are much much better. My wife is very happy now, the computer is completely usable and runs pretty cool. So, all in all, I am very satisfied, and I highly recommend IC Diamond grease / thermal compound. Thank you everyone once again!

viilutaja · 09-06-2009, 05:16 PM

Good job! Your post is great. I have been a fan of IC7/24 four about 2.5 years now

RobbyMA · 09-07-2009, 05:01 AM

Does Artic Silver 5 fill gaps good like ICD7?
(i do have some artic silver 5 at home but I am not sure how well AS5 fills gaps.)

with no thermal pad i was thinking the ICD7 may do a better job when there are larger gaps?

PS. I have a 7811FX.

and is Andrew still giving out free samples for testers?