Thermal paste help (thermal pad?)

[EllimistOfOld]

So a brief intro first:
I had noticed that the frequency of my laptop crashing (powers off) had increased lately, earlier this happened only after hours of gaming (relatively heavier ones like farcry3,nfsmw '12) and that too only rarely, but now even about 20 minutes of badcompany2 can crash it.

specs:
core i3 2328m 2.2GHz
nvidia gt620m 1gb
2gb ram

Having had previous experience of crashes while gaming on my old pc (fan wire problem causing overheating), I ran a temp check program while playing games and found that temps exceeded 80+ for cpu and 90+ for gpu (~50 for HDD),
under moderate load (browsing,videos) - ~50 CPU, (~40-45 for HDD) (GPU kicks in only when needed)

So I took it apart(videos and dell manual as guide), to see whether it was dust in the fan or something and found just a bit of dust sticking to the blades and cleaning didnt improve the temps much. A bit of googling and I suspected that it might be the dried out thermal paste (saw it all cracked up and breaking apart when I removed the heatsink to clean the fan).

Now I've ordered a tube of arctic silver 5 and just needed to clear a few things before I apply it:

1)The manual on Arctic silver website and some AS5 application vdos said it should be spread manually, but some commenters and some websites said that you're only supposed to leave a little blob on it and let the heatsink do the spreading. But I guess it'd be safer to stick with what AS5 website said ,right?

2)Area to be applied: only the marked rectangular/square part right?

3) which of these (marked in the photos) are the cpu and gpu? ( 1 is cpu and 2 is gpu?)

4)On number 3 there was a thing like a 2 sided adhesive tape,(visible in the last photo,on the corresponding part of heat sink) is that a thermal pad? if it is, do i need to replace that too as it too was coming apart

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heatsink flipped

 

[1LiquidPC]

1. Either way should be fine. I've done both, but tend to just spread out evenlyevenly rather than guessing on blob size. The temp difference would probably be 1 degree at best.

2. Yes, the square part in the middle is the actual die. That's where you want the paste.

3. 1 is CPU and 2 is GPU.

4. Yes, that is thermal pad remnants. Since they are damaged, scrape the rest off the heatsink assembly and replace with the AS5.

 

[EllimistOfOld]

Thanks for answering ^_^ but is it ok to replace that thermal pad with as5? I mean will the surfaces make contact? you know ..since paste wont be thick as the pad? or will it just meet as I screw it down?

 

[Neutr1n0]

Don't spread the TIM yourself (Can cause air bubbles). Let the pressure from the heatsink spread it.

You can use some AS instead of the thermal pads. Just make sure there is contact with the heatsink.

Btw you should ALWAYS re-apply thermal paste when re-seating any cooler. Also (and especially in your case with dried TIM) clean old TIM before re-applying. Use some cloth damped with isopropyl alcohol.

 

[Neutr1n0]

You should find out yourself if there is contact. Apply some TIM, mount the HS, remove the HS and check if there was contact.

use old TIM you have around for this test... dont waste the good stuff...

 

[EllimistOfOld]

Ok thanx . Will first try without manually spreading