I'm sure many of you have seen my recent complaints about my overheating laptop. Well, after dealing with it forever and realizing Best Buy wasn't going to do anything about it, I finally decided to crack her open. It took a bit of fumbling and guesswork since I've never opened anything other than access covers on a laptop, but I worked my way through it.
It was really cool to pull out the keyboard. It's so thin and light! You have to see one to know what I mean, but it sort of surprised me. Anyway, after removing that and a big metal plate (which I assume sort of acts as a big heatsink), I get down to the good stuff. There was one assembly containing two fans and an intricate design of heat fins and a couple pipes. Intriguing!
Anyway, I carefully remove that to reveal the GPU hardwired to the motherboard and the CPU stuck to the fan assembly with its thermal 'junk' which was sort of squished out. When I say junk, I mean junk. It looked like some nasty, white, marshmallow foamy stuff that screamed "I'M NOT DOING MY JOB!!!." Funny, I had already assumed that. Also note that the CPU socket was still in the lock position which means that the pasty crap had a very strong hold.
After prying off the CPU and spending a good five or ten minutes cleaning all the crap off (some of it being dried and crusty), I replaced the CPU and locked it. At this point, I busted out my super handy syringe of ARCTIC SILVER 5!!!!!!!!!! ARCTIC SILVER, I CHOOSE YOOOUUUU!!!!!!!! So yeah, I spread a little dab of the stuff on, and carefully begin the reassembly process - all the while feeling the anxiety and suspense of finding out if I had royally effed something up.
I start up and am relieved to see everything booting normally. The fan I could see had started spinning during POST but stopped afterwards which alarmed me at first, but then I realized that it didn't need it. After logging in and whatnot, I open Everest Home to be greeted with the sweet taste of a 36C processor. I'm happy to say that it is STILL at 36C even after writing this whole thing out with music playing and another program running (average load). Compare this with the typical 48C I got before. I think the hard drive temp is way down, too, but I don't remember exactly what it used to be. Anyway, I did my first laptop mod!!!!!!!!!!!
Now I know this is a super long post, but I feel very accomplished in doing this and felt I should share it with everyone here. For one thing, I have never done anything like this. I've always been hesitant to pry open my laptop for obvious reasons. I've taken apart almost everything I own, but I still refused to try to take it apart. Finally, I just decided.... "What the hell.... I'm doing it." The second, more important reason is that there are VERY FEW resources for laptop repair and modding on the internet or anywhere else. This is understandable since few people would want to mess with one, and an even fewer number of people would actually know how to. I searched for anything that could help me, but I found practically nothing. I guess you could say that I feel a bit like a pioneer.... a laptop guru!
It was really cool to pull out the keyboard. It's so thin and light! You have to see one to know what I mean, but it sort of surprised me. Anyway, after removing that and a big metal plate (which I assume sort of acts as a big heatsink), I get down to the good stuff. There was one assembly containing two fans and an intricate design of heat fins and a couple pipes. Intriguing!
Anyway, I carefully remove that to reveal the GPU hardwired to the motherboard and the CPU stuck to the fan assembly with its thermal 'junk' which was sort of squished out. When I say junk, I mean junk. It looked like some nasty, white, marshmallow foamy stuff that screamed "I'M NOT DOING MY JOB!!!." Funny, I had already assumed that. Also note that the CPU socket was still in the lock position which means that the pasty crap had a very strong hold.
After prying off the CPU and spending a good five or ten minutes cleaning all the crap off (some of it being dried and crusty), I replaced the CPU and locked it. At this point, I busted out my super handy syringe of ARCTIC SILVER 5!!!!!!!!!! ARCTIC SILVER, I CHOOSE YOOOUUUU!!!!!!!! So yeah, I spread a little dab of the stuff on, and carefully begin the reassembly process - all the while feeling the anxiety and suspense of finding out if I had royally effed something up.
I start up and am relieved to see everything booting normally. The fan I could see had started spinning during POST but stopped afterwards which alarmed me at first, but then I realized that it didn't need it. After logging in and whatnot, I open Everest Home to be greeted with the sweet taste of a 36C processor. I'm happy to say that it is STILL at 36C even after writing this whole thing out with music playing and another program running (average load). Compare this with the typical 48C I got before. I think the hard drive temp is way down, too, but I don't remember exactly what it used to be. Anyway, I did my first laptop mod!!!!!!!!!!!
Now I know this is a super long post, but I feel very accomplished in doing this and felt I should share it with everyone here. For one thing, I have never done anything like this. I've always been hesitant to pry open my laptop for obvious reasons. I've taken apart almost everything I own, but I still refused to try to take it apart. Finally, I just decided.... "What the hell.... I'm doing it." The second, more important reason is that there are VERY FEW resources for laptop repair and modding on the internet or anywhere else. This is understandable since few people would want to mess with one, and an even fewer number of people would actually know how to. I searched for anything that could help me, but I found practically nothing. I guess you could say that I feel a bit like a pioneer.... a laptop guru!
