Laptop GPU has no physical contact with fan/heatsink. Normal?

[Vincent PKH]

I have an acer aspire 4738G which kept overheating. Decided to change the thermal compound after going thru loads of YouTube videos. However I discovered that the GPU does not contact the copper conductor at all, ie, I placed 2 small plastic sheet on the GPU and CPU, replaced the fan unit and screwed it tight. I could remove the plastic sheet that was placed over the GPU but not the CPU. I checked the motherboard but it doesn't seem to have slumped in under the GPU and I could see a small gap between the GPU and heat sink when viewing from the sides. Is this suppose to be normal? Or should I change the entire fan/heatsink unit so that it has actual physical contact on both the CPU and GPU? Pls advise. Thanks!

 

[Someone Somewhere]

The GPU usually has a coloured thermal pad (~1.5mm thick) on it - it sounds like this is missing. Alternatively, they may use thermal paste and the springs are missing.

There definitely shouldn't be a gap.

 

[Vincent PKH]

The GPU usually has a coloured thermal pad (~1.5mm thick) on it - it sounds like this is missing. Alternatively, they may use thermal paste and the springs are missing.

There definitely shouldn't be a gap.

Thanks for the quick reply! No wonder there was a huge glob of dried paste over the GPU when I first removed the fan unit.
I'll see if I can buy a thermal pad somewhere or maybe I'll just put more compound on the GPU.
I may have posted the same question a few times by mistake. Sorry for that!