Thermal Pasting help

Treek

New Member
Hi everyone,

I needed a bit of guidance on thermal repasting my graphics card.

Just did a temperature check on my gpu card and somehow it was over 90 celsius. (yikes)

Anyhow I assumed it was a problem related to the thermal paste and took apart my laptop to check. And it seems there isn’t any thermal paste on the card at all from what I can tell.

Here’s a picture of the gpu card: (Can someone confirm this is the graphics card?)
34qjtxk.jpg



And here's the cpu card (I think?):

2dhwdh0.jpg


So as seen in the two pictures above it seems the gpu card (first picture) has no thermal paste on it? And the cpu card (second picture) has thermal paste on it? Since there doesn't seem to be any white paste on the gpu card (first picture) like in the cpu card (second picture).

Can anyone confirm this? Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Thank you.
 

Calin

Well-Known Member
Yes, there's no paste on the GPU. You need to apply some. Also, since you took the heatsink off the CPU, you will need to clean the old one and reapply.
 

Treek

New Member
Yes, there's no paste on the GPU. You need to apply some. Also, since you took the heatsink off the CPU, you will need to clean the old one and reapply.

Appreciate it Calin,

I thought something was off when I saw no evidence of thermal paste on the GPU. It seems the manufacturer skimped out on the gpu’s thermal paste. :/

Also I wasn’t planning on reapplying thermal paste to the CPU since it already has paste. But do I need to reapply just because I took the heatsink off?
 

Treek

New Member
Hi everyone,

Following up from cleaning the thermal paste off my CPU. I managed to clean the majority of the paste off the CPU but there is a bit left on an area I can’t get off.

CPU:
2jcixqp.jpg



Zoomed in:

f9o7ic.png



Does it matter if I leave any thermal paste on that area? Are those pins or something?

Also while cleaning the thermal paste for the copper heatsink I noticed a black padding on the underside like a sticker of sorts.

Here’s the picture:
2mfck5h.jpg



Zoomed in on slight tear:

2mre4g7.jpg



What is that suppose to be? I ended up tearing it a little on the corner as seen in the above picture, when trying to clean off the thermal paste so was wondering if that was going to affect anything?
 

beers

Moderator
Staff member
I'd try your best to clean up that area. It looked like in the original photos that some of the pins were bridged by the paste. That may or may not be okay depending on the specific paste used. Some of them are more conductive/capacitive than others which is no bueno.

I think the tear piece should be okay you're mainly concerned with the physical contact of the block. I would assume it's an insulating material to keep the heat specifically around the heat pipe and avoid radiating to surrounding components but I haven't seen that before. @johnb35 works on a much larger volume of laptops and could give you a better insight.
 

Darren

Moderator
Staff member
I wouldn't worry about the tear in the black material, it's there just to ensure proper seating on the actual die (shiny part). As long as it's making contact with the copper you should be fine.

As @beers said I'd clean it up as best you can but I've repasted over 100 laptops and seen numerous ones with pins like this caked in thermal paste with zero issue. I'd use 90%+ isopropyl and soak a paper towel or coffee filter and let it sit on top of the contact then scrape off what you can with something plastic. You're probably safe as is anyway, I usually just get the gunk off the die itself and call it good.
 

Treek

New Member
I wouldn't worry about the tear in the black material, it's there just to ensure proper seating on the actual die (shiny part). As long as it's making contact with the copper you should be fine.

As @beers said I'd clean it up as best you can but I've repasted over 100 laptops and seen numerous ones with pins like this caked in thermal paste with zero issue. I'd use 90%+ isopropyl and soak a paper towel or coffee filter and let it sit on top of the contact then scrape off what you can with something plastic. You're probably safe as is anyway, I usually just get the gunk off the die itself and call it good.

Got it, thanks for the input everyone. Just finished repasting and everything seems all right like you said. Appreciate it~
 
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