Repasting Laptops

Choopyplz

Choopyplz

Limp Gawd
Joined
Dec 19, 2013
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Wondering what are peoples' experiences here regarding repasting laptops.

I own a Dell G15 5510, with specs:

CPU: Intel i7 10870H
GPU: RTX 3060 mobile
RAM: 32GB Corsair Vengeance 3200mhz
HD: Stock 500GB NVME

I only recently starting attempting to use it for newer games and actively monitor the performance. At stock the CPU and GPU temps predictably went sky-high, with mid 90's celcius on the CPU, and mid to upper 80's on GPU. It was idling around low 60s C on the CPU, then I went and turned off the turbo for the CPU and it still idles in the mid 50's, which seems a bit high to me still. I'm thinking to try repasting the CPU and GPU, and maybe even repadding the VRMs and see if there are any improvements. I read pretty extensively about which types of pastes work the best on laptops to avoid the pump out effect, and decided to try Thermalright TFX. Not expecting a massive improvement, but a few degrees celcius lower would be welcome.

What are your experiences with repasting laptops? Any special advice? I'll report back on my results when the paste arrives in the mail, and try to set up a realistic comparison scenario of before and after.
 
is the unit in warranty? if not, rip out all the filters over the grills and repaste it. could be as little as 5c off or as much as 15c depending on airflow and what crap oem paste was used.
 
It is still within warranty, but I got it from the refurb outlet so it only has about 6 months left on it. I think it's technically within spec, so I dunno that anything would come of it if I sent it in other than them possibly replacing the heatsink/fans, or repasting with whatever stuff they use. It isn't all that weird that temps get so high playing a pretty graphically intense game, but the 50's C idle temp with the turbo off (so clocks running a little over 2 ghz) seems slightly high. I think Dell's power settings for the fans make it so the fans don't kick in hard until the temp gets already very high, so I may try some fan-control software or something, too, to have a better overall fan curve.
 
High-end pastes are now all much of a muchness. I still feel the last +-2 degrees comes down to luck of how you put it all back together and which way the wind blew that day.
 
KarsusTG said:
Honestly get a few carbonaut pads, setup a small undervolt and call it a day. I did that with my 10750h and 2070 super and it made a world of difference.

https://www.amazon.com/Thermal-Grizzly-Carbonaut-Pad-0-2/dp/B07PHN2ZNY
Click to expand...

I had actually been looking at those a bit ago, and the cooling performance seems kind of strange to me. It looks like they are good at distributing the heat evenly for good core uniformity, but it seems like the temps overall were raised versus paste options, like they were uniformly high... >.>
 
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Choopyplz said:
I had actually been looking at those a bit ago, and the cooling performance seems kind of strange to me. It looks like they are good at distributing the heat evenly for good core uniformity, but it seems like the temps overall were raised versus paste options, like they were uniformly high... >.>
Click to expand...

Kinda sorta? Its been my experience that it generally is only ~1 ish degree difference between the pad and paste until you get into high wattage chips, which is just not the case in laptops where even a high end cpu is only around 45watt TDP. It also depends on the paste.

The benefit is you never have to think about it again. Since it never degrades, dries out, or any of the other problems that come with the paste you can do it once and forget about it.

The temps on my GS66 stealth in my sig were nearly identical to yours. After doing this and a small under volt, my idles were in the 40's and highs were basically the same. But I think that is because the cpu is designed to keep pushing until it hits that temp. Great improvement in performance though and the lower idle temps were most welcome.

Of course, you can go with liquid metal which will out perform any of these solutions, but one mistake on the application or securing of the cooler and you are buying a new board, cpu, or both.
 
KarsusTG said:
Kinda sorta? Its been my experience that it generally is only ~1 ish degree difference between the pad and paste until you get into high wattage chips, which is just not the case in laptops where even a high end cpu is only around 45watt TDP. It also depends on the paste.

The benefit is you never have to think about it again. Since it never degrades, dries out, or any of the other problems that come with the paste you can do it once and forget about it.

The temps on my GS66 stealth in my sig were nearly identical to yours. After doing this and a small under volt, my idles were in the 40's and highs were basically the same. But I think that is because the cpu is designed to keep pushing until it hits that temp. Great improvement in performance though and the lower idle temps were most welcome.

Of course, you can go with liquid metal which will out perform any of these solutions, but one mistake on the application or securing of the cooler and you are buying a new board, cpu, or both.
Click to expand...

Interesting -- I appreciate your input on it! Honestly I think I've committed to trying the TFX, but if it isn't satisfactory I'll revisit the Carbonaut pads idea. A set-and-forget solution really is very appealing. At the very least I'll look into undervolting to further try and tame the temps.

Also yeah, liquid metal would rule, but I would probably fudge the installation somehow and get the tiniest microscopic bit onto something it shouldn't be on lol.
 
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