[SOLVED] Liquid metal in laptop only on CPU or both?

[Zlounos]

Howdy guys, I'm planning to apply a liquid metal (Conductonaut) in my Asus GL504GW, because it's not rare for the CPU to go up to 95 °C and TT. I've already done a repaste with a MX-4 which yes, decreased the temps by 5-10 °C, but it's still not good enough. The heatsink is of a compatible material and most of the time I'm using the laptop as a desktop, so I don't really fear breaking it.

The question I wanna ask is whether I should apply the liquid metal only on the CPU, since the GPU thermals aren't that bad (85 °C tops without TT). I'm asking because I heard that applying LM to both can overflow the heatsink with too much heat (or something along the lines) and acutally make overall thermals a bit worse in the end. So I'd like to know if that's true or a total BS and I'm open to any of your recommendations, thanks people.

 

[Phaaze88]

Applying LM can kill your precious hardware if you're not careful. Should it happen to ooze past the die it's placed on, and touch even ONE of the little transistors along one of the sides, or gets even further than that, you can kiss the cpu and whatever else gets touched goodbye.
You could do a preventative measure, like using nail polish or kapton tape around the die - it does not take much LM at all to spread over the entire die.

Then there's staining, corrosion, or binding(chemically) depending on the metal: https://www.gamersnexus.net/guides/...cts-copper-nickel-and-aluminum-corrosion-test
Since the Asus GL504GW is a laptop, and there looks to be the typical aluminum heatsinks inside for the coolers... you could have a bad time.
I don't know what you mean by the heatsink being 'of a compatible material', as many air cooler heatsinks are aluminum.

You're better off - and it's less riskier - with thermal paste.

 

[Zlounos]

Applying LM can kill your precious hardware if you're not careful. Should it happen to ooze past the die it's placed on, and touch even ONE of the little transistors along one of the sides, or gets even further than that, you can kiss the cpu and whatever else gets touched goodbye.
You could do a preventative measure, like using nail polish or kapton tape around the die - it does not take much LM at all to spread over the entire die.

Then there's staining, corrosion, or binding(chemically) depending on the metal: https://www.gamersnexus.net/guides/...cts-copper-nickel-and-aluminum-corrosion-test
Since the Asus GL504GW is a laptop, and there looks to be the typical aluminum heatsinks inside for the coolers... you could have a bad time.
I don't know what you mean by the heatsink being 'of a compatible material', as many air cooler heatsinks are aluminum.

You're better off - and it's less riskier - with thermal paste.

Thanks for the reply. I'm well aware of the risks and I'm planning to use the nail polish. I also know that gallium reacts violently with aluminium, but I have no worries about that, because this laptop has a copper heatsink (it might even be nickel plated, but I'm not sure about that one).

So the question is: If I were to use the LM, should I use it only on the CPU and use a conventional thermal paste on the non-problematic GPU (less spillage risk, less heat accumulation in the heatsink), or would it be better to use the LM on both while I'm at it?

 

[Phaaze88]

May as well use it on both - if you're willing to take the chance, but I don't feel comfortable with actually telling others to go and do something risky.
Thus I am saying to stay with paste.

Besides, the Asus GL504GW is a gaming laptop that uses a shared heatsink, right? Well, going by the quick search images anyway.

 

[Zlounos]

I see, thanks and you don't need to worry at all, it's gonna be good. And yes, the heatsink is shared, that's why I'm cautious of the "heat overflow" idea.

 

[Phaaze88]

Paste/LM is just a bridge for the devices doing the actual cooling. Those little gains seen from high end pastes/LMs is just improving the heat transfer between the two mediums; just icing on the cupcake.
The heatsink + fans is doing the bulk of the cooling.

What I was getting at with the shared heatsinks is that the design is inefficient compared to models that have them separated. The curve gets worse the more power parts can use in particular.
Manufacturers use them though because it's cheaper for both them and the customers.

 

[Zlounos]

Interesting, that makes sense, thanks for the info! Anyways since I've already got the answer I was looking for, I'm gonna mark this as solved, thanks a lot once again.