Just took my Dell XPS L702x apart to reapply TIM

buzzlightweight · 3 Apr 2012 at 17:11

I have only had my laptop since January and I love it, but what I don’t love is the fan which has slowly been getting louder and going full pelt even when idle!

I bought some akasa tim clean and arctic thermal compound from OCUK and went about taking my laptop apart.

I was surprised at how easy it was to do, dell have done well with the design of this laptop

I was more surprised at the amount of tim they used on the gpu and CPU! There was over spill everywhere!

It took a while to clean off but was happy with the outcome; I blew the dust out of the fan and rad and put my baby back together.

Well the temps have dropped (between 3c - 5c idle) and the fan only really kicks in if I’m playing a game or using Photoshop. Iv embedded some images to show what a mess the tim was, sorry for the bad photography

Laptop stripped down

Motherboard less the heat sink

Close up of GPU and CPU

Heat sink

Close up of heat sink

Close up of clean GPU

Clean CPU and GPU

FlyingFish · 3 Apr 2012 at 18:42

Holy disassembly Batman :eek:

Did you have to strip it down to that level just to regoop the chips? Blimey!

Pop the cover on the 'ol GX660r, n a few screws later, both gpu & cpu heatsinks are off! Thankfully!

I watched the disassembly video for my laptop....Scary, a squillion pieces!!

Mick

beermonster · 3 Apr 2012 at 19:04

All too common sight I'm afraid, though I have seen far worse amounts applied. Guess it comes with mass production.

buzzlightweight · 3 Apr 2012 at 21:03

FlyingFish said:
Holy disassembly Batman

Did you have to strip it down to that level just to regoop the chips? Blimey!

Pop the cover on the 'ol GX660r, n a few screws later, both gpu & cpu heatsinks are off! Thankfully!

I watched the disassembly video for my laptop....Scary, a squillion pieces!!

Mick

its not really that bad, just a few things to be carefull of, like breaking the ground for the screen!! its like the thinest wire i have ever seen!!

I do wish it was easyer to disassemble but now iv done it once i will be able to do it all the time.

beermonster said:
All too common sight I'm afraid, though I have seen far worse amounts applied. Guess it comes with mass production.

very true but seriously it took me less than 30 seconds to apply the tim properly they must just dump a load on then tighten the screws down

pjcltd · 4 Apr 2012 at 07:57

WOW man i have one of these laptops i got mine 2 months a go
not got any fan issues yet !!

if i do i will upgrade the cpu at the same time
thanks for the pics
Did you use a guide to strip your laptop if so can you post a link

thanks

buzzlightweight · 4 Apr 2012 at 08:19

pjcltd said:
WOW man i have one of these laptops i got mine 2 months a go
not got any fan issues yet !!

if i do i will upgrade the cpu at the same time
thanks for the pics
Did you use a guide to strip your laptop if so can you post a link

thanks

its a good idea to change the tim that is stock, i bet dairy cream will do a better job lol

i googled how to remove the keyboard but other than that i just unscrewed everything but kept a log of what screws went where.

if you ever want to dismantle your laptop let me know and i will make a video and put it on youtube for you

pjcltd · 4 Apr 2012 at 09:36

buzzlightweight said:
its a good idea to change the tim that is stock, i bet dairy cream will do a better job lol

i googled how to remove the keyboard but other than that i just unscrewed everything but kept a log of what screws went where.

if you ever want to dismantle your laptop let me know and i will make a video and put it on youtube for you

Hi that woudl be cool thanks for the offer

at the moment it's ok
the spec of mine
i
CPU 2ghz i7-2630QM
Ram 16GB Ram
C:\ 256GB SSD
D;\ 750 Hybrid drive
DVD Standard
Windows rating is 6.9
CPU 7.4
Ram 7.6
Graphics 6.9
Gaming Graphics 6.9
Pri hard drive 7.9

Love the laptop only payed £870 brand new

buzzlightweight · 4 Apr 2012 at 10:37

i take it yours is 3D and bought from an outlet?

first thing i did was get an SSD in mine, Damn HDD's are so painful!!

Ben Cole · 4 Apr 2012 at 10:51

4 words.

Good work that man.

Tee Hee Johnson · 4 Apr 2012 at 10:56

I done that too... made quite a difference!

Mines would hit 100oC very easily when running a quick run of cinebench... never mind gaming!

Never seen it hit that since... yey!

pjcltd · 4 Apr 2012 at 12:12

buzzlightweight said:
i take it yours is 3D and bought from an outlet?

first thing i did was get an SSD in mine, Damn HDD's are so painful!!

Yep
not got the galsses need to get some

deaglecat · 8 Apr 2012 at 19:24

I am guessing that this would affect the warranty ? OP: Did you break any seals ?

picktooth · 23 Feb 2013 at 14:41

Going to do this next week, i was getting temps of 100o last week so i stripped it down and found the heat sink vent/fins are completely blocked, cleaned and much better temps now, and no fps drop.Never done the paste as i dint have any available.
pics of the dust.

DotA · 23 Feb 2013 at 14:57

I think someone needs to buy some compressed air or stop using the laptop as a vacum for the carpet.

Schizophonic · 24 Feb 2013 at 11:20

picktooth said:
Going to do this next week, i was getting temps of 100o last week so i stripped it down and found the heat sink vent/fins are completely blocked, cleaned and much better temps now, and no fps drop.Never done the paste as i dint have any available.
pics of the dust.

That just looks like mold...

BigBoy · 25 Feb 2013 at 07:54

Second set of pictures looks like its from a smokers household! Sorry no offence meant but have seen many that look the same all from smoking households.

The TIM all over the place is very common unfortunately

either that or there is hardly any on there at all.

4T5 · 25 Feb 2013 at 07:58

Looks like smokers dust to me as well & I should know as I've been clearing it out of my system as long as I've had one, Don't let mine get that bad though but then it is a Lappy.

I'm liking the Blue armchair USB holder though. :cool: