HOW-TO: ArcticSilver 5 your Alienware m9700's CPU and GPUs!

Ok, here's my guide to applying AS5 to the CPU, GPU and motherboard chipset.

First, a disclaimer - if you're at all unsure about doing this, don't do it.
If you break your computer, stab yourself with a screwdriver or accidentally tear off a limb in the process - I am not liable. You are carrying this modification out at your own risk, and understand that you are most likely voiding your warranty in the process.

I repeat - if anything goes wrong, neither myself nor NotebookForums.com are in any way liable.



So, equipment you will need:

Pictured is - a small, good fitting Phillips (cross-head) screwdriver, a small plastic card to spread the AS5, AS5, ArctiClean Thermal Material Remover, ArctiClean Surface Purifier, clean paper towel, a soft cloth to put the laptop on to avoid scratches.

If you don't want to use ArctiClean then pure isopropylalcohol should work well.


Step 1:

Turn the laptop over and place it on the cloth. Remove the four screws that secure the back plate on - they are the clearly visible non-recessed screws.


Step 2:


Lift the base plate out by inserting your nails under the recessed areas - two are pictured above, the third is just to one side of the section that sticks forward.


Step 3:

Unplug the tiny power connector that goes to the processor fan. Be gentle, the wires are a little fragile, so try to use your fingernails under the lip of the connector rather than pulling on the wires. The connector just pulls off straight upward.


Step 4:

Unscrew the four screws that secure the heatsink to the processor. They have springs under them to prevent over-tightening, but the springs don't fall off so remove the screws completely and set them aside with the case screws.


Step 5:


It's easiest to remove the heatsink assembly if you first lift at the processor side, then rotate the entire assembly up fan-end first before sliding it out in the obvious direction.


Step 6:


Set the laptop aside, and place the heatsink face-up. Apply a few drops of the ArctiClean TMR and leave for 30-60 seconds before scrubbing clean.
When you have all of the thermal material off then apply three drops of ArctiClean Purifier, leave for a few seconds then wipe clean with a clean cloth.
You should be left with a lovely shiny pure copper heatsink base like so:



Step 7:

Apply a small amount of AS5 to the center of the heatsink (about half the size of a grain of rice), then using a finger wrapped in a plastic bag and rub the AS5 into the heatsink in circular motions, back and forth, for a few seconds.
When you have done that, wipe the excess off with a towel - you are aiming for a slight grey haze to the surface of the copper, just enough AS5 to fill in the microscopic valleys, like so:



Step 8:

Apply a couple of drops of ArctiClean TMR to the CPU core and leave for 30 seconds or so before wiping off with the corner of a clean paper cloth. Try not to stick your fingers all over the core, and only clean the core itself.
Once you've cleaned the old thermal material off, drop a couple of drops of Surface Purifier on, leave for a second then wipe off with a clean area of paper cloth. You should be left with a very shiny and very smooth core.


Step 9:

Apply a tiny, tiny blob of AS5 to the CPU core, about 1/4 the size of a grain of rice. Spread that evenly over the surface of the core - you are aiming for an even covering about the thickness of a single sheet of paper, and no more. More does not = better in this case. Use the plastic scraper or a razor blade to evenly spread the AS5 untit it looks like this:



Step 10:

Slide the heatsink back in, vent end first, then wiggle it until it will drop in fully - it takes a bit of jiggling as the gap the vent end goes into is a very tight fit. Once it's in, drop it down until it sits flat on the CPU - now try not to move it at all as you screw it back up. I find keeping one finger in the center helps there.
The screws are numbered - put them all in a few turns in the numbered order then repeat the order tightening a little at a time until they are tight down. Be careful not to strip the heads.


You're done with the CPU! Now, on to the GPUs:


Step 11:

You need to remove the two black screws on the fan assembly. The two tiny silver screws on the on the motherboard chipset (bottom left), and the four black screws on each GPU. You DO NOT need to remove the silver screws on each GPU heatsink, they hold the heatpipe to the mounting plates.

Before you can remove the four GPU screws on each card, you will need to remove the SLi link cable. BE CAREFUL these are fragile. They pull straight up, however they are very tight - I found it best to lever very gently on one end with the screwdriver to just free them off, and then pull by the release tabs:



Step 12:

Release the GPU heatsinks - the RAM sinks on mine were attached with slightly sticky reusable soft pads, so I had to put a fingernail under and lever the whole assembly up until they unstuck.
Now unplug the power connector to the fan, same as before, and pull the assembly up and out at an angle like so:



Step 13:

Set the laptop aside again, and clean the thermal pads off the same was as with the CPU heatsink. You are only cleaning the two GPU core pads and chipset pad, you do not clean the RAMsink pads off as they are extremely thick:

Actually they're disappointingly thick It's a shame Arima didn't see to make those sections with a nice Cu pad on them, perhaps we'd be able to get a slightly better GPU overclock, then.

When you are done, you should be left with a shiny heatsink assembly - don't forget to use surface purifier:


I found that one of my RAMsinks didn't make very good contact with the RAM, so I gently eased the heatsink down a little - you can tell which ones make a good connection as there will be little RAM-shaped impressions in the soft thermal material.


Step 14:

Clean the thermal material off the GPU cores and the chipset core the same way as with the CPU core. When finished you should be left with clean, shiny cores - don't forget to use surface purifier again.


Step 16:

Apply AS5 to the cores in exactly the same way as the CPU core. Use a slightly bigger blob (maybe 1/3rd of a grain of rice) on the GPU cores as they are larger than the CPU core. Again, you want an even thin coat like a piece of paper.


Step 17:
Reinsert the heatsink assembly again - similar to the CPU heatsink, jiggle it in vent end first, then set it down flat on the GPU cores and make sure it doesn't move.
Again, the GPU core screws are numbered in order of insertion and tightening - tighten them a little at a time until they are tight, but don't overtighten - you don't want a cracked motherboard here!

Push the SLi cable back on and reattach the fan cable, then close the lid.


And you are done!


I saw my GPU idle temps drop from about 62C to 59C on initial startup, and I expect they'll drop another degree or so as the AS5 burns-in (which takes about 200hrs of normal thermal cycling), though peak temps still hit close to 80C, do remember it is nearly 30C in my room right now!

CPU idle temps are down in the mid 40's without PowerNow! active, and rise to mid 70's when under full load running Super-Pi for a few minutes.


Again, AS5 takes a while to burn in, so the true test will be how temperatures look in a week or so.

Enjoy!

Excellent - my first sticky at NBF Thanks Craig.


It's mainly because the GPU core is a good bit higher (2-3mm / 1/10") than the tops of the RAM chips, as the GPU core sits on a similar packaging to the CPU, albeit soldered not socketed.

The pads are thick spongy material primarily there to take up the dead space, I believe.

It's a real shame Arima didn't use slabs of Copper there, and then normal thermal pads between the copper and the RAM chips - that would have given a much better thermal interface than the thick spongy stuff.

Perhaps at some point I'll look into getting some thin copper sheet of about the right thickness and lapping it down to an exact fit, then ArcticEpoxying it to the aluminum heatsink and using Akasa ShinEtsu thermal pads between the copper and RAM..

But that won't be for a while yet, I think


To be honest I wouldn't do this mod for temperature reasons, but longevity reasons.. The temp drop isn't as great as you'd get in a desktop case - I imagine because the cooling system is designed to be right on the edge of efficiency as it is due to space constraints (believe me, it's tight in there!).

It would be nice to think that with some AS5 and a little patience we could get a similar GPU overclock to the Dell guys (they're getting up to and over GTX speeds on their single pipe GS cards), but our box just won't take it.

I suspect it's more down to the SLi chipset than cooling, however, given the speed that the GPUs give up at.

By way of an update to this:

I ran some burn-in tests last night (repeated 3DMark05 & 06 to really load the GPU & CPU up) then left everything off overnight.

This morning my idle temps are about the same as last night, however my heavy-load temps are 5-8C cooler on the GPU, and 4C cooler on the CPU..

It's perhaps 2C cooler in the room today, going by the thermometer, so that's a corrected drop of around 3-6C GPU and 2C CPU, and I expect that to fall another degree or so. And I should point out that todays temperatures were with a 9MHz FSB overclock and the GPU clocks pushed up to 387/529 - impressive, significant FSB overclock, small GPU overclock and lower temps..

Not bad, I think.

Pretty stable now - it's still quite warm over here (high 20's Celcius, that's mid 70's to 80's Fahrenheit) which keeps the temps up at home vs. when I'm in the airconditioned office at work, but..

Idle GPUs hover in the high 50's - 58 to 60C on average, even when I have the laptop sat on my lap pretty much blocking the vents, which is damned impressive.

Under load the GPUs high high 70's, tickling 80C after a long session, which is acceptable to me.


The CPU idles about 48C on average, hitting mid 70's under continuous heavy load (it spent three hours transcoding DVDs last night and pegged at about 78C in the end), which is also pretty acceptable to me.


When I overvolted the GPUs I did see their idle temp go up a couple of degrees (which leads me to believe the GPUs were ignoring the '1V in 2D' setting and running 1.1V constantly) and up to mid 80's during a 3DMark session.

The rationale used to be that you were filling in any microscopic voids on the heatsink by 'pushing' tiny particles of AS into them - then you wipe off everything else off the surface so all you have is a grey 'haze' on the surface of the heatsink.

I notice that AS now say you only need do that if you're using AS1, 2 or 3, and not 5 - so you can probably skip that step.

I didn't do it on the GPU heatsinks because they are aluminium (which is, largely speaking, voidless) rather than milled copper as the CPU heatsink is - if you try it on the alu heatsink plates, even with AS3, everything wipes back off and leaves no trace.. so it's just a waste of good AS

I use NvTempLogger, v3.38 came out recently: http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=1194