I was bored today, so I did the artic silver thing. Didn't lap the heatsink, just cleaned the hell out of it, mushed some AS onto the heatsink, wiped it off, put a thin layer on cpu, wiggled it a little to get air out and was done. I did not expect to see any differences really, but let me tell you, wow, huge difference. Temps are only really down a few degrees but the fan, when it ever does come on, barely has to spin and its off again...such a sweet mod. Went from 55degrees while playing WoW down to not once above 50.

hey aussie,

how'd you get the heatsink out? i've got an 888E and i can't figure out how to do that. and i'm guessing it's not possible to get to the fans? dunno what happened, but today was the 2nd time i tried to clean the heatsink and now it won't boot.

puthupa

There are 4 captive screws that lock the heatsink to the CPU. You need to unscrew those. Be careful as they are spring loaded.

I read in another thread, or somewhere, that Sager (or Clevo?) tests whether applying Artic Silver is really worthwhile, and determined that it was not worthwhile on all models previous to the 9860, but that on the 9860 it was deemed worthwhile, so the 9860s come with the Artic Silver already applied. What is the consensus here on whether it is really worth the time and effort to apply Artic Silver to the 5660, and if it is worthwhile, why didn't Sager just do that in the first place? I should add that I also read, consistent with what Aussie has posted here, that Sager strongly recommends cleaning to reduce heat issues. It is hard to say whether the better temps people are reporting with AS are really due to the AS or due instead almost entirely to cleaning?

My guess they wouldn't do it themselves because it costs extra and is much more of a pain than just sticking the thermal pad on. Applying AS seems much more of a delicate job.

Either way the only real effect that AS has is to improve the heat transfer between the CPU and heatsink (ie. thermal conductivity). Due to the design of most computers they have a thermistor based cooling system which forces a cooling gas (air) or liquid (water, liquid nitrogen) across/thru the heatsink. As the cooling system uses a simple hysteresis (on/off) control mechanism the fans come on when its high set point is reached and go off then the low set point is reached. AS plays no part in the on/off temperatures. What AS does due to its higher thermal conductivity is transfer the heat more effectively thus if the transfer characteristics of the heatsink allows for even more heat to be dissipated for a given air/liquid flow the CPU will cool quicker and the fans shut off sooner (ie. decreasing the on time). Down side is that the AS may cause the on cycle to happen earlier as the CPU's heat will more effectively transferred to the the heatsink. When it comes to enthalpy there is no free lunch. Entropy makes it even worse - ps. Never explain entropy to a manic depressive.

Of course as erisalit32 mentions cleaning the vents has a much larger effect than any thermal compound.

Anyone have that link (that concluded that AS application on Sager models prior to the 9860 is not worthwhile) handy?

When I did this guide my laptop was relatively new and I had recorded load temps (did not record idle temps though) after cleaning out the cooling vents/heatsink.
I saw a drop of 4C under load (did not record idle temps before I had applied AS) on my 5680 relative to the load temp I was getting prior to applying AS. Granted, I did lap the heatsink so AS wasn't the only player in the game. Although dust/etc. removal is signifcantly more important on average than applying a more efficient thermal interface material, I think that the temperature drops my 5680 experienced were not affected by dust/etc. removal.

Thing is Ge|atinous Fury that you will not see any change in idle temps as they are controlled by the fan controller. The laptop will just cycle from the lower setpoint temperature to the upper setpoint temperature. The only difference will be the fans are on for a shorter period of time as the thermal conductivity has improved therefore the heat can be removed more efficiently (read quicker).

Under continuous load the high speed fan mode will cut in but again the length of time the fans are on should be shorter at the higher speed.

You have to realise that the amount of heat generated by the laptop for any given task load will be a constant. Changing the thermal compound will not change the temperatures per se as the fan controller has those set during manufacture.

I agree with you completely about idle temps, but fans going on or off at certain temperatures don't really come into play at full load because the fans are (almost) always on 100% of the time when the cpu is under heavy load, AS or not.

So in both scenarios (stock TIM vs. AS TIM) where the cooling fan(s) are on the vast majority of the time, the thermal conductivity of the TIM can make a relatively large difference (hence the lower full load temps with the TIM with higher thermal conductivity), effectively justifying the application of it.

For laptops that do not experience full load conditions frequently, the application of a TIM with higher thermal conductivity would do exactly as you said, which is nothing to idle temps and a change in the start/stop times of the cooling fans. Of course, this is also the end effect of AS on any laptop that is not experiencing full load conditions that trigger the cooling fans to be on continuously.

Edit: Thanks for sharing the idle temp insight Aussie. I've now edited the line in my guide about lowering idle and load temperatures to say it lowers just load temperatures.

Thanks for clearing up my posts too Ge|atinous.
I agree wholeheartedly with your point.
Temp under load is where AS WILL make a difference.
Now we just got to convince the manufacturers to use it...

Has anyone done this for a 4760 (or it's 4780 cousin)?

Are the results as good?

How are you guys finding out system temps? I downloaded Motherboard Monitor 5 to find out the CPU temp but it doesn't support Sagers. What program can I use to find out CPU temp?

I second that last question, also can the pics for the tutorial be revived?

The pics was hosted on my site, and I don't own the domain anymore, I still have tihe pictures if someone wants to host them. The original post has to be edited also in order to show the pictures.

Could not view the pictures showing the access to the heatspreader....Can you help ?

Henrik you might be able to use Imageshack to host the pics.

For temp monitoring check out mobilemeter.
It does not measure RAID disks as they are hidden behind the controller. But JBOD disks (ie non-RAID) can be monitored and the CPU as well.