Solved! T43p fan and dark fat paste *PICS*

[Tasurinchi]

Hi!

I wanted to replace the thermal compound in my T43p (first time for me), but the fan is stuck and I see a black thick paste over the graphic card. Is this paste normal? I've took some photos:





I didn't want to force it that much. Is this paste normal to be there? My T43p is second hand and I'm not sure what the previous owner did.

Thanks in advance!

[Harryc]

Yes it is normal. See the post by poshgeordie in this thread about how to remove the heatsink.
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... 57#p602157

[Tasurinchi]

Thanks Harry for the fast reply!

I was using the search function with "T43p fan" and other variations. I didn't know that T42p have the same fan model. Funnily enough, Poshgeordie wrote his post today! Lucky me

Cheers!

[Tasurinchi]

Another thing... It's the first time I have to criticize the HMM, it doesn't mentioned anything about the adhesive paste for the GPU!

EDIT: I take it back! Looks like the paste was put there by the previous owner.

[poshgeordie]

Replied to you in the other post you asked the question in.

You do not need the Arctic Silver adhesiive between the top of the GPU metal plate and the underside of the pink pad, only if the metal plate on top of the GPU comes off.

Also you do not need to use Arctic Silver heatsink paste between the top of the metal plate and underside of the pink pad.

Also, as in your other post you need to either put a link to your photos or reduce the size to 50k as per forum rules, rule 5.

EDIT - OK take that back - you've put the pic warning!!

[Tasurinchi]

Thanks Nick! (we just crossed postings)

[poshgeordie]

Just PM'd you coz I'd like to "borrow" your excellent quality photos for a new How To if possible

[Tasurinchi]

Ok! contact you in a couple of minutes (daugther + friends needs dinner!)

[Dottore]

Hello,

I'm taking off all metal plate with the pink and drop in a dark paste.
I used Artic Ceramique and 2 months passed and no problem.

Just me a bit concerned with the temperature 2 degrees higher.




Ivan, Croatia

[poshgeordie]

Hi Ivan and welcome to the forums.

You should use the pink pad on the bottom of the heatsink. The black paste has no heat conducting properties and was used to glue the heatsink to the top of the chip.

This is why your GPU temperature may be slightly higher than normal

Alternatively if you no longer have the pad, use a piece of copper of the same thickness as the gap between the heatsink and top of the chip, and put a very thin layer of Arctic Silver heatsink compound between all the metal surfaces for good heat conduction from the chip to the heatsink.

You may also want to use Arctic Silver Adhesive between the copper and heatsink to keep the copper in place.

[Harryc]

Nick, thanks for your continued presence on the forums.

[Dottore]

pink fall no more
I accidentally threw into the trash long ago. if it is not a problem, where can I buy?

what a piece of copper? be a guide and images. etc. ..

[poshgeordie]

I don't have any pictures of the copper, but what I mean is similar to this which is for sale on UK eBay.

You need to measure the gap between the bottom of the heatsink and metal top of the chip and buy the right thickness of copper sheet.
Then cut out a piece which is the same size as heatsink.
Then use Arctic Silver Adhesive (UK eBay again) to glue the copper piece to the heatsink.

Put a very thin layer of Arctic Silver heatsink compound on the underside of the copper piece and on top of the CPU, and fit the heatsink to the motherboard in the normal way.

Use the thinnest of thin layers of AS since it's used to fill in any imperfections between the metal layers. Too much could stop heat transmission from the chips to the heatsink.

Alternatively (and maybe not the best solution) is to buy some plastic thermal pad, which is slightly thicker than the gap, like this on UK eBay. (Type "thermal pad" into eBay search.)

Hope that helps!

[Tasurinchi]

Another question popped to my mind. In the pictures of the OP you can see an empty screw hole right to the GPU heatsink. Should a screw be there or will one of the palmrest or keyboard screws coming from the back of the notebook fill the hole when I reinstall everything again?

[Harryc]

Yes either a palmrest or keyboard screw would go there.

[Dottore]

Thanks Nick for rapid response.
My mistake was that I threw and destroyed
I ordered over http://www.sidewindercomputers.com/



Impressions will occur as soon as shipment arrives



@ Tasurinchi
It goes over the keyboard and the screw goes down so it attaches to.
in fact it keeps the keyboard

[Tasurinchi]

Thank to Nick's help I was able to finish today my job replacing the thermal paste. I just did some photos to document some of the last steps I did, it may help newbies like me:

Lifting the fan


I turned the fan around and cleaned the remainings of the paste in the fan and CPU


A big drop of artic silver 5, actually I took a little bit out of paste after the photo


Spread the rest of the paste


And then put the fan back and pressed firmly before put the screws in place. The final result can be seen here:


I then put the keyboard which I washed again using my kitchen method and now the TP looks like new! I'll keep an eye on the new temperatures. Btw, does someone know which software to use under Ubuntu 10.10 to undervolt the CPU and check the temperatures?

Cheers!

[poshgeordie]

Great pictures again - any chance of forwarding them to me since again so many people don't know how much paste to put on the chips - I can see another How To coming up...

BTW what camera are you using?

I use gkrellm to monitor the temperatures. I'm running Ubuntu 10.10 and haven't quite worked out which temp number is the GPU, but I'm using Temp 2.

I haven't tried it myself but a search of Ubuntu Forums typically showed this.

Would be interested in how you get on, but maybe you'd be better posting in the Linux section of the forum (it's getting off topic!).

Really impressed with 10.10 but twice now I've had to reboot because suddenly all open programs stopped working - very strange.

[Tasurinchi]

Great pictures again - any chance of forwarding them to me since again so many people don't know how much paste to put on the chips - I can see another How To coming up...

No problem I'll send them in a minute. I'm using actually a very simple and cheap camera: a Canon A590. Using the wide format it takes pictures at 8mp, the camera is around 3 years old but still working with no problems. I just turn on the macro feature for close up pictures and also turn off the flash. But the picture of the CPU with the thermal paste is with flash, as I don't have a strong light in my living room (just one of this new energy saving bulbs). The result was slightly overexposed I've just noticed it when I uploaded the picture.

Will give a try to gkrellm, I think I have it in my T61 as well... I have to check.

Cheers!

[Dottore]

Well that's great. I always have liked the pictures.
Have you used over Photoshop? Supposedly it has the best algorithm .jpg and .png.
I'll just surprise her for 10-12 days

[Tasurinchi]

No, I did not use Photoshop. I've just uploaded them to Picassaweb. Google does a great job compressing the fotos indeed. The details are still good and the files are very lightweight. At least the mods did not complain yet

[ParatoOptimal]

Tasurinchi,
What is your kitchen cleaning method of which you speak?
Thanks

[Tasurinchi]

what is your kitchen cleaning method of which you speak?

I normally wash the keyboards under the water tap in my kitchen's sink. I use a strong hot water stream, being carefully that the back doesn't get wet. I'll leave the keyboard dry for a couple of hours or overnight, sometimes use an hair dryer as well at the end (but with minimum power).

So far I've cleaned almost all the keyboards of my TPs with this method. Easy and effective , but you need to wait the couple of hours for them to get dry.

[lukee]

I'm cleaning my keyboard with an toothbrush specially dedicated by me for technical issues. Very good results with it!

[Tasurinchi]

I normally wash the keyboards that have a lots of dirt inside, below the keys. For the surface I have Mr Cyber Clean, see here