Hello,

I have a T42p with a broken fan so I bought a new one from IBM part: #41W5204.

I have read several topics on how to install this part, but a have a question: Do I have to remove the pink sheet...?

Some say yes other say no, and I don't know what to do...

Any help with that?

Thanks a lot.

I am getting my long fan soon. "Your item is due to arrive with you in 3-4 working days." thats on 22 so it should be tomorow or saturday. Than i can tell you. But the pink slip as i understand that its to keep the thermal compound safe.

The pink sheet that is attached to the heatsink IS the thermal compound, this is a thermal pad that conducts the heat from the CPU to the fan.

exactly!
it's absolutely necessary, don't peel it off...

How reusable are these (if, say, a fan is moved to a new motherboard)? Where can more be obtained?

No issues at all--easily reusable as long as the pink pad remains. AFAIK, if you pull the pink pad off, that black goo will melt all over your graphics chip and then it's a bear to get it off.

Oh, and you might consider wiping that white grease off and putting some Arctic Silver on over the CPU.

Good luck!

My fan only has the black goop...I wound up separating the heat spreader from the GPU as the only way to get that stuff off.

I received my fan on Friday and its running underneath my keyboard and tell you its making hell lot of noise. Though, my machine is cool like ice.

Here is some picture of the fan
http://www.flickr.com/photos/26078330@N05/2449865185/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/26078330@N05/2449864611/

I did take off the plastic from the pad and then put it back again. I am not sure really whether I should have done that or not.

Hi,

This is what the hardware maintenance manual says :

Only in the case of Fan assembly, long, you need to peel the plastic sheet off on the thermal rubber before you place it on the system board. Fan assembly, long M10 DOES NOT have the plastic sheet.

Basically I'd say if you want to do the 'standard installation', the black goop and the pink gum-like sheet MUST remain. Any plastic sheet on top/covering both must be removed. The idea is that the pink gum sheet avoids the black goop to bond the GPU to the heatsink. If you want to *improve* thermal contact, it is possible to remove both and install the heatsink w/thermal compound in a copper to copper contact, BUT then it is difficult to make sure both GPU and CPU do make good contact because of the leftover gap.

I got a used fan assembly. So the idea would be to wipe off the leftover stuff on the 'pink gum' to make good contact?

Also, what kind of thermal grease/ thermal compound is suited for T41p?I can only find one kind of thermal compound at local bestbuy store. Its brand is Dynex and it has conductivity of 8.2w/mk.

Thanks.

So, if I can carefully slice the black goop from my old GPU, I should be able to install as-is on my new motherboard's GPU? As I recall reading, the black stuff melts to create thermal contact with the GPU and heat sink.

You would need a 2 to 3mm heat-conducting shim to replace the black stuff. The thickness would be fairly critical as you have to make excellent contact with both the processor and the GPU, allowing for a few microns of arctic silver or equivalent contact with both.

Rush242,
I have been trying to get the answer for some time. So let me make sure: I will need to keep the pink sheet intact; then how do I make sure there's good contact between the pink sheet and the GPU? Apply a little bit of thermal grease? As for the CPU, I think it's clear to me now. I only need to wipe off the old grease and apply a correct amount (1-2mm?) of thermal grease on over the CPU?

Sorry for my long list of dumb questions. I just want to make sure everything is correctly done.

Not needed for the GPU. The pink sheet presses against the GPU to make thermal contact.

Edit: There is a short video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xekr6eQL62U showing how to apply Arctic Silver.

The video definitely helps!

The GPU part, I don't quite get it. Do you mean that the pink sheet will automatically attach itself to the GPU?

As long as you don't bend the fan mounting, which is unlikely, when you screw down the assembly, the pink sheet is pressed again the GPU. The pink sheet does not bond with the GPU, so replacing the fan assembly is really quite simple.

Hope this helps.

I had meant carefully removing the black material along with the fan and reusing the whole assembly it on the new motherboard and GPU.

it works. My 41p is back up running again.

Now the cpu temp reads at 44-47C when it idles and shoots up to around 60C when I copy a large amount of data from my thinkpad to a usb disk.

Do these temps sound reasonable?

I agree that it's not that hard once you do it once.

Thanks for all the info.

I was replacing the motherboard in my T42 today and finally noticed the pink pad; the black goop had melted and flowed around the edges a bit, hiding the pad from view. Even with a couple of tears from the removal process, the pink pad and black material are still working, keeping my new GPU to under 80 C under heavy load.

The new long fan I got from IBM came with little white dots of what I expect is pre-added thermal grease there.

Is that what you're referring to?

Is it safe enough to use as-is?

I confess that I'd prefer to, as I'm afraid I'll screw it up somehow by smearing or mixing things if I try to wipe it off and use my own. I also couldn't find Arctic Silver anywhere and only could get "Thermaltake", high-density with 8.7 conductivity.

Which fan model did they send for your T41p...the 41W5204. Keep us posted on the installation.

The 41W5204 comes with thermal grease preapplied, and pressing in onto a cleaned CPU should provide you with more than enough thermal contact. Just make sure that you use something soft to clean the CPU surface, you dont want to damage it.

Also the pink sheet should not be removed if you have the M10 in your notebook. Actually that black stuff is pretty annoying, it sticks pretty nicely to your GPU, making it a pain to remove the fan if some of should be on the wrong side of the heat pad.

Hi,

I just installed the 41w5204 long fan on my T42 with radeon 7500 gpu. It was born with the short fan, which didn't cover the gpu.

I left the pink gum-sheet on, but it still seems to be a small gap between the gpu and the pink sheet. Now the gpu is actually hotter than with the short fan!

Any ideas how to fill the gap?

Jingo,

You need a copper sheet.... or similar thing, An aluminium foil could work out also... But the fact is that it must be completely smooth and be able to make good contact through both sides (GPU and HS). A sanded thin copper coin could do also.

Another option would be to bend the GPU part of the heatsink a bit... but you must do it very carefully and make sure it ends up touching the GPU flat and not at an angle.. this requires bending by two places with the additional problem of not damaging the heatpipe... and if you do it wrong it is almost impossible to get the thing perfectly straight again.

I've done both and both solutions work well but require a few testing and trials. Make sure you do get enough CPU contant when filling the gap, use a good thermal paste and *never* fail into the temptation of *bonding* the heatsink to the GPU with thermal adhesive or thermal tape. Sooner or later you will want to remove the heatsink again and then you will be in trouble.

Jingo,

Did you see the illustrations in the thread T43 fan noise... really that bad? (in the post by AdaSch of Sat May 31, 2008 11:58 pm); the pictures very well explain in a visual way what your problem seems to be; obtaining contact between the GPU and the fan/heat-sink with the lowest possible thermal resistance.

Johan

Thanks to all your comments, I just finished replacing my fan, and evrything went quite well!!

And I left the pink sheet as mentionned above. (I saw that there was a pink sheet on the old fan assembly )

The short youtube video about artic silver did really helped me!

Thx again!

OK. Report back your GPU temps with the pink and black goop included in the heatsink.

I made the decision 2 years ago when I received my new T42p to replace the brown goop (completely scraped it) and then used Arctic Silver 5 on the GPU, I had to bend the heatsink so that there would be no gap. I also replaced the thermal paste on the CPU.

I think it was worth it, however I did not really measured how many degrees I shaved off when CPU and GPU are at load.
Just recently I did a random test, ran AtiTool 'Scan for Artifacts' the GPU jumps from 52C to 68C in the interval the test took place (2 minutes). I'm sure is a good temp, CPU ramps up to 58C.

However if I replace my HSF one day I will install it with the brown and pink film.

Apart from the fact that I bent the heatsink I also placed a piece of paper at the top of the heatsink where it's supposed to touch the GPU, when the keyboard is installed, there's pressure so that I'm pretty sure there's good contact between the HSF and GPU, but not the most elegant solution.

Good to hear you've achieved a 'cool' performing T42p with the work you've put into your unit.

It may not be elegant, but it seems to work pretty well. I'm wondering now if someone has tried machining a copper plate to put between the heat sink and GPU to obviate the need for bending.

How in the world did you guys remove the heat sink from the GPU - that black stuff is on there real good - won't budge