Maintenance of almost 2½ year old X41

[mhca]

Hi everybody

My X41 has been used weekly... in some periods more than others but not very much as I have a nice workstation at home.

My wonders are if I should maybe do some maintenance of the machine hardware-wise...
Ie. should I deassemble the machine so that I can clean the fan from dust or reapply thermal paste/arctic silver on the CPU?

I am not sure but my machine might run a little bit hotter than it did 1½ year ago.

Or should I just leave it as it is as long as I don't have any real problems?

Regards Martin

[mgo]

Hi everybody

My X41 has been used weekly... in some periods more than others but not very much as I have a nice workstation at home.

My wonders are if I should maybe do some maintenance of the machine hardware-wise...
Ie. should I deassemble the machine so that I can clean the fan from dust or reapply thermal paste/arctic silver on the CPU?

I am not sure but my machine might run a little bit hotter than it did 1½ year ago.

Or should I just leave it as it is as long as I don't have any real problems?

Regards Martin

More than likely a good cleaning with canned air or a vacuum would do the job. No new thermal paste renewal should be needed.

Remove the keyboard and hold the fan so it does not spin uncontrollably when you use the air cleaning.

I assume you have done the operating system updates and defragmentation?

[ajkula66]

Your CPU is soldered to the motherboard and can't be removed...so no re-applying AS there...

[mhca]

More than likely a good cleaning with canned air or a vacuum would do the job. No new thermal paste renewal should be needed.

Remove the keyboard and hold the fan so it does not spin uncontrollably when you use the air cleaning.

I assume you have done the operating system updates and defragmentation?

Yeah well... I have considered reinstalling Windows but recently I did a bit of tweaking and such and reduced running processes, registry cleaning and defrag etc. so guess I don't care to do that.

I was mainly thinking hardware-wise maintenance

I will find a manual or something for removing the keyboard unless somebody has a direct link available.
I don't want to randomly mess around with it.

Regards Martin

[Harryc]

X41 Maintenance Manual

[pxa270]

Your CPU is soldered to the motherboard and can't be removed...so no re-applying AS there...

The CPU is soldered, but I'm pretty sure the heatsink/fan isn't. Renewing the thermal paste should be possible. Don't know if it's needed though.

[qviri]

Your CPU is soldered to the motherboard and can't be removed...so no re-applying AS there...

Thermal paste is applied between the CPU and its heatsink, so it definitely can be done should the OP wish to. Applying it between CPU and the motherboard would be a pretty bad idea.

[teetee]

I would run a fitness test on the hard drive to make sure it's under healthy condition. Pop-up the three mouse buttons and inspect the rubber rings are still intact and clean the surrounding area. Check the power jack and make sure the contact points are in good shape. Clean the screen and maybe apply a screen shield if you like.

Though I've only been using my X41 tablet for two months, I don't really think it has any major hardware flaws that need to be taken care of on the timely bases.

[ajkula66]

qviri wrote:

Thermal paste is applied between the CPU and its heatsink, so it definitely can be done should the OP wish to. Applying it between CPU and the motherboard would be a pretty bad idea.

You're absolutely right, of course. My overtired brain has forgotten that the HS is not soldered...apologies...

[Sine]

Yeah well... I have considered reinstalling Windows but recently I did a bit of tweaking and such and reduced running processes, registry cleaning and defrag etc. so guess I don't care to do that.

I would recommend it anyway, for the following reasons:

-A fresh install will make your hard drive just as (or more) organized than any kind of defrag
-Again; you get a clean registry with a clean slate
-Clearing up processes will be a 2-minute job once you have a fresh install

Re-installing Windows is good to do about once a year, and if you keep up with that, you can probably skip the defrags and reg cleaners.

[mhca]

Re-installing Windows is good to do about once a year, and if you keep up with that, you can probably skip the defrags and reg cleaners.

In my opinion a reinstall once a year is an overkill.
This is my secondary computer which means that I usually don't just install a lot of random stuff which is uninstalled later on.

Also there are a lot of setting up and backing up to do after/before a reinstall. Therefore I feel that the benefit isn't worth the trouble as long as the computer is kept as clean as possible during use.


But I do agree that a clean registry is nice and my workstation is usually also reinstalled once a year.

Regards Martin

[synchromesh]

I would use canned air on keyboard too, to flush out the dust and debris. Maybe even wipe it with cleaner/rubbing alcohol.

Reapplying thermal paste is possible and I would recommend it. Wipe down the original paste off heatsink and CPU core with Q-tips and apply some Arctic Silver 5. Just be careful with the core, you don't want to chip it.

I noticed that the paste that came from the factory on the T4x series and below is not very good. AS5 does a better job in general.

Cleaning heatsink with alcohol/compressed air is also helpful. Another thing to consider is wiping the screen but that's a bit tricky. Requires some soft cloth, careful hands and a mixture of alcohol and water (usually 50/50).

I did some of those things on my X40 and it runs great and looks good. Of course it's my 3rd computer and most of the time it just quietly snores on the side of the desk so it doesn't need too much cleaning.