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thermal paste on XPS 1530


boon

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hey, guys

i want to reduce the temperature in my DEll XPS 1530, so i decided to apply tuniq TX-2 on the laptop. But i am a beginner to this thing, so i need some help from all of you.

1. I want to apply grease on the chip of the laptop, which method i should use on the laptop? Put a dot on the chip and use heatsink to rotate it? or i should the grease spread evenly on the chip using credit card and then screw the heatsink?

2. For those have experience on the XPS 1530 laptop, we know that there are three chips on the motherboard. One chip use thermal pad and two others using grease. So, i should apply the tuniq TX-2 on all of the chip? or just apply the new grease on the two chip use grease only?

3. How do i know the process i apply the grease on the chip is correct? I mean the grease i apply will work greatly on the chip? May i determine it is correct through the temperature?

4. Last question, how much degree celcius the temperature drop after apply the grease?

thank in advance for people who help me.

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Look here, should clear things up for you. Was just researching the same thing, actually.

http://www.buildyourown.org.uk/forums/topi...?TOPIC_ID=21134

ok, after read the link you give me, i had general idea. But it doesn't answer my question 2,3 and 4.

Thank for provide the link.

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Won't be able to tell you for sure. You can probably try google or wait for someone with a xps m1530 to reply.

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hey, guys

i want to reduce the temperature in my DEll XPS 1530, so i decided to apply tuniq TX-2 on the laptop. But i am a beginner to this thing, so i need some help from all of you.

1. I want to apply grease on the chip of the laptop, which method i should use on the laptop? Put a dot on the chip and use heatsink to rotate it? or i should the grease spread evenly on the chip using credit card and then screw the heatsink?

2. For those have experience on the XPS 1530 laptop, we know that there are three chips on the motherboard. One chip use thermal pad and two others using grease. So, i should apply the tuniq TX-2 on all of the chip? or just apply the new grease on the two chip use grease only?

3. How do i know the process i apply the grease on the chip is correct? I mean the grease i apply will work greatly on the chip? May i determine it is correct through the temperature?

4. Last question, how much degree celcius the temperature drop after apply the grease?

thank in advance for people who help me.

i applied thermal paste on my first mobo before i got it replaced due to faulty 8600M GT gpu, and it dropped temps down approx. 3c. but if you get better results, id like to know. and no, just apply the paste to the gpu and cpu, leave the pad on the other chip.

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the temperature just drop 3 degree celcius? i thought it should drop larger.

I heard somebody put copper sheet between the heatsink and GPU. Where can i get that copper?

Thank in advance.

Beside, thank to andrew and coolcop06 reply me.

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Hi there boon, we've already covered the nip & tucks of cooling paste & thermal pads in several threads. You might want to take a look here [HOW TO] Cooling paste

and for thermal pads this thread, beginning at post #22.

1. I want to apply grease on the chip of the laptop, which method i should use on the laptop? Put a dot on the chip and use heatsink to rotate it? or i should the grease spread evenly on the chip using credit card and then screw the heatsink?

See my first posting above.

2. For those have experience on the XPS 1530 laptop, we know that there are three chips on the motherboard. One chip use thermal pad and two others using grease. So, i should apply the tuniq TX-2 on all of the chip? or just apply the new grease on the two chip use grease only?

Doing the CPU should be pretty easy. If you decide to replace any thermal pads with thermal grease, be sure to stick only to those places where a frame or other setup applies pressure onto the heatsink. Heatsinks which are directly 'glued' via a thermal pad to the chip cannot really be easily 'converted' to a thermal grease solution, since the heatsink is still needed, but the grease itself is not sticky -- and thus suitable. When doing thermal pad replacement, be sure to compensate for the lost thickness, or the heatsink will NOT be pressed with enough force onto the chip to be a good thermal bridge.

3. How do i know the process i apply the grease on the chip is correct? I mean the grease i apply will work greatly on the chip? May i determine it is correct through the temperature?

Once again, read the first mentioned post.

4. Last question, how much degree celcius the temperature drop after apply the grease?

Possibly none. But taking all things into account, usually a noticeable, and measurable drop will result.

By all means be really careful, and don't even attempt this kind of modification if you have 2 left hands!

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I replaced my CPU & GPU thermal paste with the Liquid metall-pads (100% metall, no silicon or something else...) of coollaboratory and my cpu (T8300) now is around 35°C in my vostro 1500, when I'm surfing the web or writing a document; my 8600GT has tempratures around 50°C in idle..., in games it never goes above 70°C; mainly ~65°C

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Hi there boon, we've already covered the nip & tucks of cooling paste & thermal pads in several threads. You might want to take a look here [HOW TO] Cooling paste

and for thermal pads this thread, beginning at post #22.

By all means be really careful, and don't even attempt this kind of modification if you have 2 left hands!

hello, Darmdort, can i replace the thermal pad with copper sheet, then i apply the grease on it?

thank for your link.

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Copper is always a better choice - but it must be flat and smooth to be most efficient.

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Hallo Bevel. You unfortunately forgot to give the temps in the old 'normal' condition. Might have been interesting to our members to hear just what difference all the work achieved.

So Boon......Yes, you can replace those thermal pads with copper sheet. Copper has a relatively high thermal transfer coefficient, which means it is almost seen as a "short circuit" by any applied thermal energy. Silver is somewhat better, and I think diamond is the very best. :) To make your copper sheet function properly you need to be sure that it has an 'absolutely' flat surface, as Zipper correctly mentioned. But that is NOT the end of it!

Since you want to reduce the tension applied to the actual heat sink on the other side of that copper, you must achieve a thickness with your copper which is as close to the thickness of the original thermal pad as possible. That may be quite a challenge, and may require you to choose 2 thinner sheets, rather than a somewhat thicker [but still too thin] single sheet. Now comes the surprise -- no matter how you achieve your thickness with copper, all of the surfaces involved must be treated with thermal paste to form the "perfectly" flat surfaces required for efficient thermal transfer. As I mentioned in the posted thread, "less is more". You're not trying to actually paste anything, but rather fill in those insignificant hills & valleys that result between the [possibly lapped-in] surfaces of the opposing materials [for instance the bottom surface of the heat sink, the top surface of the GPU/CPU/North or Southbridge, and of course the copper you may have used on both sides]. Place only a very small little mound of thermal paste not much bigger than perhaps half a pea on the surface you want to work on. Then use that credit card to 'pull' the material across the entire surface at most twice in runs 90° to each other. You SHOULD have almost all the material hanging on the credit card, and almost 'nothing' remaining on the surface -- just a slight "fog" at best. The thermal coefficient of thermal grease is not all that great, but certainly better than the air between the 2 surfaces that it replaces! If you've already done your chips differently, REDO THEM PROPERLY NOW!

Hope that answers your question.

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Bullseye! (was too lazy to give the full description)

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quote name='Darmdorf' post='105573' date='Jan 26 2009, 01:42 PM']Hallo Bevel. You unfortunately forgot to give the temps in the old 'normal' condition. Might have been interesting to our members to hear just what difference all the work achieved.

So Boon......Yes, you can replace those thermal pads with copper sheet. Copper has a relatively high thermal transfer coefficient, which means it is almost seen as a "short circuit" by any applied thermal energy. Silver is somewhat better, and I think diamond is the very best. :) To make your copper sheet function properly you need to be sure that it has an 'absolutely' flat surface, as Zipper correctly mentioned. But that is NOT the end of it!

Since you want to reduce the tension applied to the actual heat sink on the other side of that copper, you must achieve a thickness with your copper which is as close to the thickness of the original thermal pad as possible. That may be quite a challenge, and may require you to choose 2 thinner sheets, rather than a somewhat thicker [but still too thin] single sheet. Now comes the surprise -- no matter how you achieve your thickness with copper, all of the surfaces involved must be treated with thermal paste to form the "perfectly" flat surfaces required for efficient thermal transfer. As I mentioned in the posted thread, "less is more". You're not trying to actually paste anything, but rather fill in those insignificant hills & valleys that result between the [possibly lapped-in] surfaces of the opposing materials [for instance the bottom surface of the heat sink, the top surface of the GPU/CPU/North or Southbridge, and of course the copper you may have used on both sides]. Place only a very small little mound of thermal paste not much bigger than perhaps half a pea on the surface you want to work on. Then use that credit card to 'pull' the material across the entire surface at most twice in runs 90° to each other. You SHOULD have almost all the material hanging on the credit card, and almost 'nothing' remaining on the surface -- just a slight "fog" at best. The thermal coefficient of thermal grease is not all that great, but certainly better than the air between the 2 surfaces that it replaces! If you've already done your chips differently, REDO THEM PROPERLY NOW!

Hope that answers your question.

Hai darmdorf...

1)Do your mean to be most efficient for the way to transfer the heat, i have to apply the thermal grease on the surface of CPU,GPU, then on both side of copper and finally on the surface of heatsink?

2)Does apply grease on too many surface will cause the applied grease become too thick? I heard that too thick will result in poor heat transfer.

3 )Another question is thant when i use credit card, i have to use it by 90 degree. But my question is the credit card touch the surface of chip or not? or it just touch the grease only?

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=268081

Does the applied grease shown in the picture in link above is too thick?

Thank for your concern to my question. Thank very much.

Happy chinese new year.

Edited by boon
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http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=268081

Does the applied grease shown in the picture in link above is too thick?

Seems pretty massive. You can always take it apart again and check that the thermal compound is mostly pressed away from the gap letting the surfaces into intimate contact.

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Hi darmdorf...

1)Do your mean to be most efficient for the way to transfer the heat, i have to apply the thermal grease on the surface of CPU,GPU, then on both side of copper and finally on the surface of heatsink?

Of course. You have to mate each of those smooth surfaces to the next, thus you must properly apply thermal paste to each surface in the "chain" along which the heat will flow.

2)Does apply grease on too many surface will cause the applied grease become too thick? I heard that too thick will result in poor heat transfer.

If you apply the thermal grease correctly there will be almost virtually NO grease at all remaining between the surfaces -- just the amount required to fill-in the unevenness, making the surfaces perfectly flat. And yes, too much is definitely going to cause a very bad heat transfer.

3 )Another question is that when i use credit card, i have to use it by 90 degree. But my question is the credit card touch the surface of chip or not? or it just touch the grease only?

OK, I know its a bit difficult to understand what I meant:

-> 1. After you've placed that minimal amount of grease on the surface to be done, you hold your trusty credit card almost vertically in your hand (perhaps 10-15°) so that it will scrape across the WHOLE surface a bit like a putty knife.

-> 2. Be sure to choose an orientation with the card that will allow you to SCRAPE 'all the way across' the surface in one smooth movement without hitting the surroundings.

-> 3. Be sure that you're holding the card ABSOLUTELY parallel to the surface or the result will be worthless. Carefully clean off the paste remaining on the cards edge.

-> 4. Then just make another pass in the same fashion with the card cross-ways to the first. That should guarantee a perfectly level 'playing field'.

-> 5. There may still be paste on the sides around the surface which should also be carefully wiped away.

-> 6. When you're all finished, the surface should merely look a bit 'foggy' at best, but most certainly not at all be a closed layer of paste!

-> 7. When placing the opposing surfaces together AVOID any rotation, just bring both sides fully parallel to each other together. You can press a bit if you want. Other wise you'll cause the sticky paste to build waves between the surfaces, leaving some of the thinner areas completely dry and ruining all your work!

I have to agree with zipper completely! They used WAY TOO MUCH GOO! You can see a white surface of thermal paste in the pictures, and that is definitely not one should have. His work will definitely result in inferior performance. As I said, there should be almost no paste left at all -- the paste is an 'equalizer'.

Check his FAQ Nr. 5. He seemed to have violated it very nicely in his pictures. Don't you think?

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thank for darmdort and zipper for the explaination.

Recently, i cannot find isopropyl alcohol to clean the remain of thermal paste. So i bought a Acetone (alcohol). The seller said it is pure alcohol.

1) So can i use pure acetone to clean the thermal paste remain on the CPU, GPU and heatsink?

2) When i seach the forum, they say use 100% alcohol. What does 100 % alcohol mean? Does it means pure alcohol? or the concentration of the alcohol must be very high?

Thank again for guiding me. :)

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Acetone has nothing to do with alcohol (well, if you drink alcohol, it goes thru acetone phase when "burning" in liver I think...) It's a heavy plastic solvent so best to keep it away from plastics.

Pure alcohol - well, a 60% or more dry vodka is a pretty good solvent.

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Recently, i cannot find isopropyl alcohol to clean the remain of thermal paste. So i bought a Acetone (alcohol). The seller said it is pure alcohol.

1) So can i use pure acetone to clean the thermal paste remain on the CPU, GPU and heatsink?

Oh my! Sorry boon, but acetone is NOT alcohol, but rather a chemically derived solvent and would be otherwise quite good for the job. You might as well take it back, unless you want to remove your nail polish with it! But, as the writer of that post mentioned in his FAQ Nr. 1, most acetone commercially available WILL have artificial oils added to please your nose, but making their use for your purposes inadequate.

2) When i seach the forum, they say use 100% alcohol. What does 100 % alcohol mean? Does it means pure alcohol? or the concentration of the alcohol must be very high?

The isopropyl alcohol you want can be found at your local drug store, and is meant for normal household cleaning jobs. 100% merely means that there are no additional substances added, the alcohol is chemically pure.

I just looked a bit closer at the arrangement of the chips in that Dell M1330 thread you mentioned. If your Dell XPS 1530 is constructed similarly, you have a few additional things to think about too. Unfortunately the heat pipe solution Dell decided to use makes any changes extemely challenging, since the pressure applied by that long casting is, and must be, divided 'equally' across those 3 individual chips, and whatever happens to be on top of them. :) What I'm trying to say is that any changes you make (copper or thermal grease) must additionally restore the proper "original heights" of each chip, otherwise the pressure applied by the casting will not be made equally across all the chips and the thermal transfer will be ineffective at best, possible even worsened! Its basically like building a 'Tower of Hanoi', where each element must be high enough to get proper pressure, but not so high as to keep the neighbor from being pressed down enough. Quite a nasty job. Do you follow my thoughts?

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I just looked a bit closer at the arrangement of the chips in that Dell M1330 thread you mentioned. If your Dell XPS 1530 is constructed similarly, you have a few additional things to think about too. Unfortunately the heat pipe solution Dell decided to use makes any changes extemely challenging, since the pressure applied by that long casting is, and must be, divided 'equally' across those 3 individual chips, and whatever happens to be on top of them. :) What I'm trying to say is that any changes you make (copper or thermal grease) must additionally restore the proper "original heights" of each chip, otherwise the pressure applied by the casting will not be made equally across all the chips and the thermal transfer will be ineffective at best, possible even worsened! Its basically like building a 'Tower of Hanoi', where each element must be high enough to get proper pressure, but not so high as to keep the neighbor from being pressed down enough. Quite a nasty job. Do you follow my thoughts?

hai darmdorf, so you mean i should measure the pressure exerted on the chip?

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?p=3991550#post3991550

the link above is related to copper mod on GPU on XPS 1530. It is contained in one of the post by the person called jb1007. can you help me to check it wether the problem about pressure you stated above needed to be considered when i do the copper mod?

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Well boon, it looks like the 1530 does have a casting pressing down on the 3 chips, but arranged in 2 arms pressing 2 chips & 1 chip. On the 2 chip side the pressure comments I made above DO apply! You don't really have to measure the pressure per se, just be sure that the thickness of your [copper] solution is basically the same as the original.

Happy hunting. :)

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Thank for your guiding along the way. I really appreciate it.

Happy chinese new year.

Edited by Darmdorf
Removed quote of previous post
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I have to agree with zipper completely! They used WAY TOO MUCH GOO! You can see a white surface of thermal paste in the pictures, and that is definitely not one should have. His work will definitely result in inferior performance. As I said, there should be almost no paste left at all -- the paste is an 'equalizer'.

Check his FAQ Nr. 5. He seemed to have violated it very nicely in his pictures. Don't you think?

hello darmdorf....

i had tried your method. But the problem i am facing now is how does the foggy thermal paste on the GPU look like. I know the thermal paste have to be foggy but how much level of 'foggy'. When the thermal paste become foggy, the thermal paste look uneven accross the chip.

Can you give me the picture for the illustration? A picture of it will help me a lot.

Edited by boon
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Well boon, maybe you misunderstood what I was saying. The thermal paste does not BECOME foggy, per se. I just meant that when you apply it correctly, there will be more or less of a 'fog' of paste resulting from your proper application, and NOT a really recognizable sheet of white stuff looking back at you. The result will as you say, most likely look uneven or even splotchy, all depending upon how flat the surface was to begin with. Remember -- you're only going to leave paste in whatever 'valleys' happen to be present in the surface. You're not making 'peanut & jelly' sandwiches!

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