Thinking about upgrading the CPU in my D820 - Thermal paste question...

[Daz]

I have a 64bit itch to scratch you see. Not a traditional upgrade for a laptop I'll admit, but reading around it is possible, Dell very graciously provide service manuals (http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/latd820/en/sm/cpu.htm#wp1084976) for all the world to see, and there are success stories (http://www.notebookforums.com/thread200607.html) around. I'll have to pretty much take the thing completely to bits but it looks do-able... just have to keep hold of all the screws :D

Question though - in terms of thermal paste, what are the cool kids using these days? It can't still be AS5 can it (still see it for sale everywhere)?

Oh, and if anyone is or knows someone flogging a T7200, T7400, or T7600 for a good price, let me know ;D

[divine]

Yes, Arctic Silver 5 is still pretty much king of the hill in the world of thermal interface material.

[Garp]

Blutac is an essential item for all maintenance. Stick every screw head down into it and you'll never lose one :D

[LeperousDust]

Dell laptops are eeeeasy to take apart :) All the documentation is generally online, i've gotta take my mainboard out again soon to oven bake it for a few mins, damn nvidia ****ing graphics. The processors are generally stuck down with a thermal pad, which i wasnt sure about when i first removed, i was hoping there wouldnt be a huge gap inbetween the heatsink and the processor too big for paste to fill, but it seems to work ok for me, for the graphics, south bridge and processor :).

As for taking the screws a apart, as you do certain sections i put the on a peice of paper circle around them and label them and then just work backwards putting it all together, and yet still end up with screws over ;D ;D

[Mark]

Watch for heat issues if you go for the higher end stuff. My D830 has a T7700 and I've actually had to throttle it (thank you Intel SpeedStep). I was getting crazy high temperatures (well into the 90s).

PS - I suspect it'd be a bit too much of a leap for my trusty D600. ;D

[Toby]

Arctic Cooling MX-2 is supposed to be slightly better than even AS5 but I found it quite viscous and quite hard to work with. I'd stick to good ol' AS5 tbh, it's what I've always used.

[Daz]

Thanks for the tips guys, AS5 it is :) Might even still have some in the box of stuff(tm)

Watch for heat issues if you go for the higher end stuff. My D830 has a T7700 and I've actually had to throttle it (thank you Intel SpeedStep). I was getting crazy high temperatures (well into the 90s).
Looking at the 7200 tbh, I'm not doing it for the speed (it's 3 years old and it's plenty fast for me, <3 linux), and I figure the 7200 will be both cheaper and cooler.

[Daz]

$ diff oldcpuinfo.txt newcpuinfo.txt |grep model\ name
< model name : Genuine Intel(R) CPU T2500 @ 2.00GHz
> model name : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU T7200 @ 2.00GHz
< model name : Genuine Intel(R) CPU T2500 @ 2.00GHz
> model name : Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU T7200 @ 2.00GHz
:cool:

[Mark]

That was suitably painless. Have you got some thermal monitoring, just in case?

PS - If you have, I'd be interested. Laptops (Dell included) are notoriously difficult to get working.

[Daz]

Just some gnome applet, will get something more comprehensive tomorrow :-) not really stressed it yet, reinstalled buntu though with a 64bit install without issue. Will compile something suitably chunky tomorrow and watch the temps :)