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Arctic Cooling MX2

Merlin5

Merlin5

Merlin5

Soldato
Joined
17 Aug 2009
Posts
18,778
Location
Finchley, London
Just a quicky guys. Thinking about disassembling my laptop, which means removing the motherboard to access the fan, heatsink and cpu, and redoing the TIM, possibly on the GPU as well but I've no idea how it looks till I get to it.

I've got a pretty full tube of MX2 I bought from OcUK september 2009, so 5 years ago. Think I only used two small blobs from the tube. I just squeezed some out and it looks fine, silver grey coloured, consistency normal. Good to go or does it lose it's effectiveness?
 
Ok, after finally removing the motherboard, I've now cleaned off old dried paste from the cpu and gpu. I'm about to reinstall the heatsinks.

Can someone kindly confirm if this looks ok before I seal it? It's been a while since I did thermal paste. Is this looking ok, too little or too much? It's roughly what I remember putting on when I installed my desktop cpu. I'm not intending to spread the MX2, just let the HS squish it for me.

20140901_213639.jpg


I also put some on the heatsinks and then rubbed it off just to fill pores.
 
Looks a bit much to me. When the heatsink it put on it will squash the paste which will spread out. I believe the recommendation is about the size of a grain of rice or two.
 
Hades said:
Looks a bit much to me. When the heatsink it put on it will squash the paste which will spread out. I believe the recommendation is about the size of a grain of rice or two.
Click to expand...

Ok I'll skim some off.
Does the whole surface of the cpu and gpu need to be covered or just most of it?
 
Well after all that, idle temps are unchanged, even a degree or two higher on the gpu. Cpu still idles at mid 50s. Although apparently it's not uncommon for this laptop. Load temps on intel burntest and prime95 are around 72 to 75, same as when I first bought the laptop 3 years ago. I'm wondering if I cna be bothered to take it apart again and redo the TIM. Maybe it could do with less, more, or even try spreading it next time?


Also, after cleaning off all the old TIM,there seems to be light scratching on the CPU. Nothing I did that I'm aware of. Don't think it's causing any problem though.
http://s12.postimg.org/ycj61gust/image.jpg
 
There is a "curing" time with MX2 I'm sure.

Give it a day or two and more heat cycles and then see if there is an improvement.
 
stulid said:
There is a "curing" time with MX2 I'm sure.

Give it a day or two and more heat cycles and then see if there is an improvement.
Click to expand...

Thanks stulid, that would be good if it cures and improves. Athough tbh, I didn't think MX2 needed to cure, I thought that it was just arctic silver that needed curing time.
 
Actually you are right (just googled it which I should have done first).

Having too much paste can have a negative effect.
 
stulid said:
Actually you are right (just googled it which I should have done first).

Having too much paste can have a negative effect.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I never really know how much is too much or too little. I removed some of the paste from the picture above but it wasn't that much less tbh. I could have possibly scuffed it when screwing the heatsinks down, or maybe there was still too much paste. Is it worth me spreading it next time, very thinly, to be sure?
 
The pressure applied by the clamping force will spread it for you.

It was mentioned a few posts up. A rice grain sized blob should be plenty on those chips.
 
stulid said:
The pressure applied by the clamping force will spread it for you.

It was mentioned a few posts up. A rice grain sized blob should be plenty on those chips.
Click to expand...

Yeah, it's what I did years ago on my desktop, just let the heatsink press down and spread it and my temps were good. If I do the laptop again, I'll just do much less.

Well, although idle temps are unchanged, I'm doing prime95 again now large ffts and full load temps are better and taking longer to increase. It was hitting over 80c almost immediately a few days ago but nowhere near that now, so I might have improved it.
 
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