Repaste laptop CPU - remove orange cover?

[zaprophet]

Hello,

I disassembled my laptop (Asus g53j) in order to clean its fans and repaste the CPU/GPU.
I removed the heat sink from the CPU and the CPU is covered by an orange rubbery and transparent cover with 2 square holes in it. The CPU only made direct contact with the heatsink through those 2 square holes in the orange cover and that is mostly the only place where there is old paste on.

I have some ArctiClean and I was wondering if I should remove the orange cover before cleaning the CPU or not?

Thanks for the help.

 

[Ubrales]

Since you got this far you might as well remove the rubbery cover and clean the CPU heat spreader carefully with some alcohol swabs. Then follow desktop CPU/heatsink installation procedures and put it back together without the orange cover. Check repair manuals if you can.

 

[zaprophet]

Is it safe to post it back without the orange cover?

 

[Ubrales]

Is it safe to post it back without the orange cover?

It looks like the orange cover is some sort of proprietary procedure used on their assembly line. On the automated assembly line they cannot afford to assemble the CPU and heatsink using traditional and accepted procedures using thermal compound. The orange cover may be their way to ensure automated assembly. I am not 100% sure on this but if I were doing this I would re-assemble in the traditional way (without the orange cover).

When you take the orange cover off you will know its function and whether it should be used for re-assembly.

 

[zaprophet]

Well the main issue as I see it is that the cover is a bit dirty from the old paste so in that regard I wouldn't mind not having it there. On the other hand the heat sink has 2 points of contact with the CPU and those points of contact are a bit elevated compared to the rest of the CPU so that means that if I don't put the cover the will be a lot of well space between the CPU and heat sink where they don't not touch each other.

 

[Ubrales]

Well the main issue as I see it is that the cover is a bit dirty from the old paste so in that regard I wouldn't mind not having it there. On the other hand the heat sink has 2 points of contact with the CPU and those points of contact are a bit elevated compared to the rest of the CPU so that means that if I don't put the cover the will be a lot of well space between the CPU and heat sink where they don't not touch each other.

Then you must clean the orange cover using alcohol swabs and then re-use it. It is a spacer to prevent rocking when the two elevated areas contact the heatsink.

 

[zaprophet]

I see. One last question. The orange cover has a bit of glue on the side touching the CPU. Since that is the side you said I should clean, won't it mess up the glue?

 

[Ubrales]

I see. One last question. The orange cover has a bit of glue on the side touching the CPU. Since that is the side you said I should clean, won't it mess up the glue?

The glue is to prevent the orange spacer from slipping and sliding during automated assembly on the conveyor belt. Since you are hand applying the thermal compound, once the spacer is in place and the heatsink over it, it cannot move anywhere. Hence the glue is not required for hand assembly.

 

[zaprophet]

Thanks a lot for your help. Managed to clean everything and put it all back together. Gonna do a stress test tomorrow to see if everything is in order. Thank you.