Question I have questions about changing thermal paste on my laptop.

[Aude01100]

Hello everyone,

I just took apart my laptop to change the thermal paste.

There was thermal paste only on the processor. Next to it, there's another small square, I assume the chipset? There was no thermal paste on it, just a small piece of rubber. This small square (graphics chipset?) isn't in contact with the metal plate, so it's not cooled by the fan. I watched teardown videos of this PC (ACER i3-6100 processor), and there's no thermal paste there, only on the processor.





The problem: The thick paper that acts as a cushion between the copper tube and the small square has disintegrated. What can I replace it with?
I don't know what this material is and whether I should buy some or if I can use something else instead. I assume it's to avoid direct contact with the copper tube?

Thanks.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

Looks like the second die is indeed the chipset. Usually the chipset is separately located on the board but on this generation it is part of the same package.
https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/intel/cores/skylake_u

The square you are referring to is known as a thermal pad. It serves the same purpose as thermal paste to enhance thermal transfer, but adds thickness. Example: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09V52NPBS

However: Thermal pads come in various thicknesses and you need to order the correct one to ensure proper contact after the replacement.

Is the factory one intact enough for you to measure its thickness? What model acer is this?

 

[Aude01100]

That's an Acer Aspire E17

You're right, it's a thermal patch, but I can't measure the thickness.

I don't understand why they chose to use a thermal patch instead of thermal paste. I don't understand the design...

The problem is not being able to measure the thickness. If the thickness isn't exactly the same, is that a problem?

Thanks.

 

[Eximo]

It needs to be thick enough to make contact, but not too thick that it prevents the CPU/Thermalpaste from touching.

If there is any unsquished part of it left, you would just measure that depth. Or get yourself some sort of moldable eraser or putty and put it there in excess, put the CPU cooler on, take it back off, and measure the result. Whatever that size is, order something slightly thicker.

For example, if you measure the thickness to be 1.35 millimeter, get a 1.5 millimeter thermal pad.

 

[Aude01100]

It needs to be thick enough to make contact, but not too thick that it prevents the CPU/Thermalpaste from touching.

If there is any unsquished part of it left, you would just measure that depth. Or get yourself some sort of moldable eraser or putty and put it there in excess, put the CPU cooler on, take it back off, and measure the result. Whatever that size is, order something slightly thicker.

For example, if you measure the thickness to be 1.35 millimeter, get a 1.5 millimeter thermal pad.

where it is not crushed, it measures exactly 1mm, 0.5 where it is crushed

So I ordered a 1mm thermal patch.

I don't understand the purpose of this thermal patch; it seems much less effective than thermal paste.

 

[DavidM012]

doesn't slide out with gravity the laptop is portable and in transport the internals may be subjected to centrifugal forces so paste would swish around like in a blender. Plus the smaller chipsets are not so easy to put screw mounts over and it's just cheaper production wise to have the thermal pad connect to the heat pipe and sink array they are often compactified to fit in so has to share with several components where your desktop has individual vrm, cpu, gpu and chipset heat dissipation devices. There is a lot less space for airflow too so all the heat has to be drawn into that one all encompassing array which exhausts the heat assisted by the fans through one vent. simply no room for anything else in the compact design.