[Questions] Fan Assembly Removal/Installation

[ulrich.von.lich]

According to the Hardware Maintenance manual, in order to upgrade the CPU, I'll have to remove the fan assembly first. I saw some people in the forum were having problem of detaching the heatsink from GPU without damaging it. Can someone please tell me how hard it would be?

To reinstall the fan assembly, can I still use the stock thermal grease or do I have to reapply it? Please take a look at the photo:

http://www.hcs.harvard.edu/~gsmenden/t43pfan.JPG

What are those stuff left on the CPU and the GPU? Do they come off easily?

Any idea about how to reapply the thermal compound on CPU and GPU? [entirely or only the center?] What kind of thermal grease should I choose? There are too many choices on Ebay..

Any suggestion would be appreciated!

[richk]

Your fan may or may not contact the GPU. The standatd T40/41/42 graphics chip (all the XGA machines) uses a short fan, so there is no heatsink for the GPU. There are 2 long fans. One has a black pad that comes off easily, the other, with a pink pad, (mostly on T42p machines) is harder to get off. I don't use grease on the GPUs for the long fan. I think the thermal pads work fine. For the CPU, I clean both surfaces and apply a thin coat of arctic silver, according to the directions on their website. I advise people to think carefully before upgrading the CPU. For most aplications, you probably won't notice the difference nearly as much as you would if you spent the money on memory or a faster disk.

[PanEuropean]

I own a T42p, with the 'pink' pad on the far end of the fan assembly. I used a teflon automotive trim removal tool to gently pry the heatsink away from the chip underneath. The process was not difficult and the heatsink came off with very little effort needed.

I think the trick is to have the correct tool. Perhaps a corner of a thick credit card might work also, but a teflon stick that is designed for removing parts without scratching them or putting too much pressure on one spot is probably best.

[ulrich.von.lich]

Thanks for the tips! My student card should be thick enough.

About the CPU upgrading, at first I was hesitating. It's the only part still upgradable on my system but it sounds impossible for someone who has never tore his TP apart. But I've decided to give it a try, thanks to the people in the forum who share their experience and the Hardware Maintenance Manual which is detailed enough to make me think I can do it. However I still need some advices before doing it.

It states in the HMM (page 125), to access the CPU, I'll have to remove the LCD assembly, and then the fan assembly. Is it really necessary to remove the LCD?

I don't use grease on the GPUs for the long fan. I think the thermal pads work fine.

Do you mean the black or pink pad? Did you reuse it or did you order a replacement?

For the CPU, I clean both surfaces and apply a thin coat of arctic silver, according to the directions on their website.

Can I clean the CPU with water then dry it out? Is the arctic silver the same thing as the thermal grease? Once applied, can it be cleaned later?

[richk]

Use denatured alcohol to clean it.

[agarza]

1. Get yourself high purity isopropyl alcohol to clean the heatsink, CPU and GPU core. Only clean the heatsink part where the metal touches the CPU.
2. Arctic Silver 5 is a thermal grease. IMO there are better themal greases out there. Try buying MX-1 or Shin-Etsu X23 those are the best thermal greases out there.
3. I think you wouldn't need to order a new fan because of the black goop the the heasink GPU area. I game sometimes and I chose to replace the gunk too and put AS5 (Arctic Silver 5 too).
4. When applying whatever thermal grease you bought (be careful with Arctic Silver 5 touching other electronic component apart from your CPU core) you should put a half rice sized amount of the stuff on the middle of the CPU core (I recommend at this point that you've already also removed the dust where the heatsink fan is installed (noticed your picture, also use compressed air in the heatsink so that there is no dust where the hot air should ventilate when fan is operating). Once you put the thermal grease on the CPU you simply reinstall the heatsink and twist it a little to make sure there are no bubbles trapped between the CPU and the heatsink. Reconnect the heatsink cable to the motherboard and presto.

Right after you did the above procedure make sure to monitor your CPU temps using TPFanControl. I right away use a stressing program like SuperPI (sometimes along ATITool) to see if the thermal grease is doing its work). Let it run for about 5-10 minutes and see the peak CPU temperature.

What i like about other thermal greases (like the MX-1) is that everytime you shutdown your machine (when the compound is freshly installed) your idle/load temps would decrease over periods of time (AS5 claims to do this as well, but I haven't seen dramatic changes over days).

After I run the stress test I power off my laptop and the fire it up again like 30 minutes later (this is if I'm satisfied with the results)

Good luck

[ulrich.von.lich]

Thank xtr! I've already ordered AS5. I'll do it next week.

So I only apply AS5 on the CPU, not on the heatsink or both, right? Do I have to remove the LCD to access the fan?

I don't know where to get some isopropyl alcohol, but I found a replacement:

http://www.arcticsilver.com/arcticlean.htm