Classic ThinkPad Thermal Paste Change(vermaden.wordpress.com)
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Classic ThinkPad Thermal Paste Change
https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2020/06/30/classic-thinkpad-thermal-paste-change/
46 comments
I ended up going with Thermal Grizzly's Kryonaut when I repasted my MBP (Apple does such a horrible job on their own). Due to how thick it is, pump-out basically can't happen. It's the thickest paste on the market.
It's designed for sub-zero overclocking (thus, the name), and has thinner siblings, but I chose it specifically how thick it is, and how it has no curing time. Sub-zero overclocks has the worst pump-out effect due to the vast range of temps you can travel.
The pump-out on my MBP with stock paste was absolutely absurd (hardly any paste left on the dies, almost entirely shoved to the very edges of it), but given the past year, it has had less thermal degredation than my tube AS5 historically has (which is near-zero, I just have to repaste it every 5-8 years, or "once per life of device").
Apple's own paste didn't survive 3 years, or basically went to shit right after Applecare ended. Suspect this is on purpose, but, obviously, can't prove that.
Edit: By the way, thicker pastes require a little bit more pressure to get good contact. I suggest everyone get a torque screwdriver that can be set to 0.6 Nm/5-6 lbf to screw their heatsink retaining screws on.
Intel and AMD have pretty consistent recommendations, as do GPU manufactures, and they range from 0.8 to 1.2 maximum. 0.6 is enough to not risk overtightening, and is also enough to make thicker pastes happy; 0.6 is also Noctua's universal recommendation.
Also, Arctic Cooling's MX4 is another popular thick paste (usually for GPUs, not CPUs, seems to be more consistent on large dies) that likes high pressure mounts.
It's designed for sub-zero overclocking (thus, the name), and has thinner siblings, but I chose it specifically how thick it is, and how it has no curing time. Sub-zero overclocks has the worst pump-out effect due to the vast range of temps you can travel.
The pump-out on my MBP with stock paste was absolutely absurd (hardly any paste left on the dies, almost entirely shoved to the very edges of it), but given the past year, it has had less thermal degredation than my tube AS5 historically has (which is near-zero, I just have to repaste it every 5-8 years, or "once per life of device").
Apple's own paste didn't survive 3 years, or basically went to shit right after Applecare ended. Suspect this is on purpose, but, obviously, can't prove that.
Edit: By the way, thicker pastes require a little bit more pressure to get good contact. I suggest everyone get a torque screwdriver that can be set to 0.6 Nm/5-6 lbf to screw their heatsink retaining screws on.
Intel and AMD have pretty consistent recommendations, as do GPU manufactures, and they range from 0.8 to 1.2 maximum. 0.6 is enough to not risk overtightening, and is also enough to make thicker pastes happy; 0.6 is also Noctua's universal recommendation.
Also, Arctic Cooling's MX4 is another popular thick paste (usually for GPUs, not CPUs, seems to be more consistent on large dies) that likes high pressure mounts.
Interesting, I had heard somewhat of a different take from Der8auer (who is associated with Thermal Grizzly). In [2] he explains that Kryonaut is a fairly wet thermal compound and that it does indeed suffer from the pump-out effect, and that in direct die applications like GPUs they recommend replacing it once per year.
[2] https://youtu.be/CCqxE-5Ct3w?t=505
[2] https://youtu.be/CCqxE-5Ct3w?t=505
Yeah, I watch his stuff already. He specifically mentions because GPUs are large hot dies. I'd never use Kryonaut on a GPU (I've had very good luck with MX4 on GPUs Ive had to repaste or replace stock coolers on).
Bare die CPUs (laptops, delidded CPUs, etc) don't seem to be big enough to cause issues. I imagine, if I have to repaste the laptop, if it even lives that long (it is from 2012 as it is), it's going to be another 4 years down the road.
Bare die CPUs (laptops, delidded CPUs, etc) don't seem to be big enough to cause issues. I imagine, if I have to repaste the laptop, if it even lives that long (it is from 2012 as it is), it's going to be another 4 years down the road.
Good to know. If the PK-3 ever fails me I'll give the Kryonaut a shot.
Any readers understand how the pump out effect works?
In my imagination, it seems like the less paste you have between whatever is emitting heat, and the heat sink, the better- so long as there aren't air gaps.
I see there are many forum posts where people show that it does not, but it feels like the closer proximity of the heat sink to the hot object should _improve_ conduction!
In my imagination, it seems like the less paste you have between whatever is emitting heat, and the heat sink, the better- so long as there aren't air gaps.
I see there are many forum posts where people show that it does not, but it feels like the closer proximity of the heat sink to the hot object should _improve_ conduction!
If the heatsink expands a bit and pushes the paste out, then when it cools and contracts it will pull away and leave a gap.
In theory, yes, you would want just enough thermal paste to fill any gaps between the heatsink and die as the thermal conductivity of the heatsink (e.g. copper) is much higher than that of the thermal paste. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find much on the internet beyond forum posts and anecdotal evidence regarding the pump-out effect. It would be interesting to see a more scientific study of this.
Did you buy a dual heatpipe off the shelf, or did you fabricate on yourself? I’m quite interested in this mod.
Thinkpads with a dedicated GPU come with a dual heat pipe heatsink, whereas ones without the dedicated GPU don't. So, you can take the heatsink for the former and use it on the latter, given that you make sure to insulate the part of the heatsink that is supposed to cool the GPU (this can easily be done by using a quality electrical tape like super 88 on the bottom side). You can buy the part aftermarket or see if Lenovo is willing to replace yours. The part number for the heatsink I put on my T490 is 01YU186.
I never understood why they don’t just put the dual heat pipe on all models. I run my t460p with gpu disabled, and the dual heatpipe cools the cpu so effectively that the fan is inaudible most of the time.
Then you make 1 million laptops and leave out ~20 grams of copper you save 2000kg of copper.
The spot price of copper is presently around ~US$6000 per 1000kg[1]
1. https://markets.businessinsider.com/commodities/copper-price...
The spot price of copper is presently around ~US$6000 per 1000kg[1]
1. https://markets.businessinsider.com/commodities/copper-price...
Thank you for the information!
good thinking
'real' heatpipe manufacturing seems out of reach for most people, the inside surface is processed (etching or diced) to carry heat it's actually fancy
>Those who know me know that I am a bit fan of the oldschool Lenovo ThinkPad laptops
May be just me, as I was expecting oldschool to be IBM Thinkpad.
Anyway you could get $100+ worth of performance simply by using better thermal paste. Unfortunately most Laptop Vendors refuse to do it for whatever reason. May be it is trade off between how long the paste would last?
And while we have trillion dollar worth of silicon improvement in the last decade, are there any recent innovation in thermal paste or thermal cooling?
May be just me, as I was expecting oldschool to be IBM Thinkpad.
Anyway you could get $100+ worth of performance simply by using better thermal paste. Unfortunately most Laptop Vendors refuse to do it for whatever reason. May be it is trade off between how long the paste would last?
And while we have trillion dollar worth of silicon improvement in the last decade, are there any recent innovation in thermal paste or thermal cooling?
Moving heat around is pretty well understood science. Heat pipes are probably the most recent innovation, in that we started using them about 20 years ago in PCs, although they've existed in other applications for 50-60 years.
Regardless of how well you move heat around, all heat is waste. If the goal of better cooling is better mobility, then your bigger limiting factor is that you don't have sufficient battery technology to afford wasting that energy as heat, not that you don't have the technology to sufficiently cool the device. The best innovations in cooling are the improvements in silicon. In the past decade, we now have commonplace consumer PCs that don't need active cooling at all.
30 years from now we're going to look back at the people who tried really hard to cool their silicon better like the people who tried really hard to make their vacuum tubes last longer.
Regardless of how well you move heat around, all heat is waste. If the goal of better cooling is better mobility, then your bigger limiting factor is that you don't have sufficient battery technology to afford wasting that energy as heat, not that you don't have the technology to sufficiently cool the device. The best innovations in cooling are the improvements in silicon. In the past decade, we now have commonplace consumer PCs that don't need active cooling at all.
30 years from now we're going to look back at the people who tried really hard to cool their silicon better like the people who tried really hard to make their vacuum tubes last longer.
>In the past decade, we now have commonplace consumer PCs that don't need active cooling at all.
Agree and fair enough. We are going to see an iPad Pro with 5nm SoC that will be ridiculously fast.
Agree and fair enough. We are going to see an iPad Pro with 5nm SoC that will be ridiculously fast.
> And while we have trillion dollar worth of silicon improvement in the last decade, are there any recent innovation in thermal paste or thermal cooling?
This is the real crime. Its 2020, can't we have a better physical interface than a flat surface?
This is the real crime. Its 2020, can't we have a better physical interface than a flat surface?
>This is the real crime. Its 2020, can't we have a better physical interface than a flat surface?
Carbon nanotubes! But they're rather fragile, expensive to manufacture on a commercial scale and you'd be fighting 30+ years of legacy products, marketing and manufacturing infrastructure.
Carbon nanotubes! But they're rather fragile, expensive to manufacture on a commercial scale and you'd be fighting 30+ years of legacy products, marketing and manufacturing infrastructure.
Silicon on Sapphire! One side structured in a visible pyramid pattern. Biting hard into the soft block of gold (instead of copper or aluminum).
I have resurrected almost every laptop I've ever owned by replacing the thermal paste and removing dust clogging up the heatsink.
There's also longevity to consider. I'm not aware of any reviews that test what the best thermal paste is after five years of thermal cycling.
There's also longevity to consider. I'm not aware of any reviews that test what the best thermal paste is after five years of thermal cycling.
I was not able to find tests after long period of time but most places recommend replacing the thermal paste after 2-3 years of use.
Like OP I also have a t420s. It always had overheating issues. A few months after purchase, back in 2012, I even sent if for warranty repair because it routinely got "too hot to touch" and the fan kept going at insane speeds and the CPU throttling. My version only has an integrated GPU (Intel HD3000). When it came back from warranty I guess they replaced the thermal paste and installed some better Fan driver or something. The laptop still overheats on heavy loads occasionally but I have used it ever since (I can only spend on a new laptop every 10 years max).
This year (2020) I completely dissembled it and replaced the thermal paste with new good quality one. It still overheats and throttles.
Back then (2012) I chose this laptop mostly going on ThinkPad reputation for easy upgradeability/ repairability. Boy did I get unlucky... what a bad choice. It's the hardest laptop to disassemble I have ever had the displeasure to work on. To get to the fan assembly you literally have to remove every other component.
In retrospect the reason for this is obvious. The t420s was supposed to be a slim version of the t420 (which by then was already considered thick as a tank). I guess in a away the t420s was Lenovo's first attempt at a proper slim portable laptop. Unfortunately for me the result was a slim, hard to disassemble, short battery life, overheating mess...
This year (2020) I completely dissembled it and replaced the thermal paste with new good quality one. It still overheats and throttles.
Back then (2012) I chose this laptop mostly going on ThinkPad reputation for easy upgradeability/ repairability. Boy did I get unlucky... what a bad choice. It's the hardest laptop to disassemble I have ever had the displeasure to work on. To get to the fan assembly you literally have to remove every other component.
In retrospect the reason for this is obvious. The t420s was supposed to be a slim version of the t420 (which by then was already considered thick as a tank). I guess in a away the t420s was Lenovo's first attempt at a proper slim portable laptop. Unfortunately for me the result was a slim, hard to disassemble, short battery life, overheating mess...
I changed the fan and heatsink unit in my HP elitebook convertible tablet thing. I also had to remove every other component. Never did get Bluetooth back afterwards.
Similar! I never got the SD card reader working again... I ended up taking the whole thing out and leaving an extra gap for improved airflow.
Does thermal paste expire?
I've got a P51 that's 2 years old now I think.
The fan is always on max. And it's hot, like I wouldn't wear shorts and put it on my lap hot.
Or perhaps there's another cause?
I've got a P51 that's 2 years old now I think.
The fan is always on max. And it's hot, like I wouldn't wear shorts and put it on my lap hot.
Or perhaps there's another cause?
Does thermal paste expire? Yes and no.
The manufacture paste isn't supposed to expire and is designed for a long long life (5-10 years). That said, pump-out still happens.
Pump out is the result of thousands of thermal cycles of the heat source and the heat destination on the thermal interface material.
You might be able to fix your problem by replacing the thermal paste, but caveat is that "performance" thermal paste is MORE susceptible to pump-out and would need to be replace more frequently.
Manufactures choose "less performant" thermal pastes because they have longevity. You don't tell users to re-paste their CPUs on a year/bi-yearly basis.
DIY people choose the "performant" options because benchmarks happen only on the first day and non-performance means it's time to upgrade.
For you, replacing the thermal paste will improve the transfer of heat to the heat sink, but if your CPU/GPU generates more heat than the system can get rid of, it's MAX fan time. It's really a function of efficient your system is at generating and dissipating heat and what you are doing on the laptop.
The manufacture paste isn't supposed to expire and is designed for a long long life (5-10 years). That said, pump-out still happens.
Pump out is the result of thousands of thermal cycles of the heat source and the heat destination on the thermal interface material.
You might be able to fix your problem by replacing the thermal paste, but caveat is that "performance" thermal paste is MORE susceptible to pump-out and would need to be replace more frequently.
Manufactures choose "less performant" thermal pastes because they have longevity. You don't tell users to re-paste their CPUs on a year/bi-yearly basis.
DIY people choose the "performant" options because benchmarks happen only on the first day and non-performance means it's time to upgrade.
For you, replacing the thermal paste will improve the transfer of heat to the heat sink, but if your CPU/GPU generates more heat than the system can get rid of, it's MAX fan time. It's really a function of efficient your system is at generating and dissipating heat and what you are doing on the laptop.
Check your fans? Might need to clean them.
I've had to do this on much newer thinkpads. The fan on my T470 was on constantly until I went in there and found that the manufacturer applied paste was done badly. Grr.
This is just my experience, but I had observed a wild temperature difference at idle and load on two identical MacBook Pros.
I’d already recently (within days) replaced the thermal paste with the same paste but still one of them was getting 10-15 deg C hotter.
The one that was cooler had been through AppleCare and it appears the copper surface had been scratched up intentionally as well as some dents on the fins.
The worse performing heat sink looked immaculate aside from some dust over the years. The copper surface was polished smooth.
Just for the heck of it I swapped the heat sinks and now the temps were reversed.
In the end I figured maybe the heat pipes were damaged or there was some performance differences of the heat pipes during manufacturing.
I’d already recently (within days) replaced the thermal paste with the same paste but still one of them was getting 10-15 deg C hotter.
The one that was cooler had been through AppleCare and it appears the copper surface had been scratched up intentionally as well as some dents on the fins.
The worse performing heat sink looked immaculate aside from some dust over the years. The copper surface was polished smooth.
Just for the heck of it I swapped the heat sinks and now the temps were reversed.
In the end I figured maybe the heat pipes were damaged or there was some performance differences of the heat pipes during manufacturing.
I recently used Sex Wax surfboard wax til I could get to the local electronics store to buy proper thermal paste.
Does that not simply melt at high temps?
When I pulled it apart to replace the wax with thermal paste I was surprised to discover the wax hadn’t even full melted.
Didn’t really put it under any load though, just installed Windows, drivers, and some software :)
Didn’t really put it under any load though, just installed Windows, drivers, and some software :)
Lol, how were the thermals?
Didn’t stress test it. Replaced it with the good stuff couple days later :)
> If this is a sponsored blog entry? Unfortunately not, but maybe in the future …
Still, somehow the article reads like a promo for that paste.
I was curious whether the original factory paste indeed gets older to such degree that it causes the overheating. Instead, the only mentioning was that the old paste came off easily.
I replaced the paste on a few old ThinkPads. Mostly because I was cleaning/replacing the fan. For paste I used some no-name white goo, the kind you get in those pill-sized squeeze pouches. Usual procedure, nothing special, just wiped off the old thin layer; nothing crusty or peeling old paste. Other as old ThinkPads hum along well without any re-pasting.
Perhaps, this story is just a case of reseating the fan and reapplying the paste, than ThinkPad paste got old.
Still, somehow the article reads like a promo for that paste.
I was curious whether the original factory paste indeed gets older to such degree that it causes the overheating. Instead, the only mentioning was that the old paste came off easily.
I replaced the paste on a few old ThinkPads. Mostly because I was cleaning/replacing the fan. For paste I used some no-name white goo, the kind you get in those pill-sized squeeze pouches. Usual procedure, nothing special, just wiped off the old thin layer; nothing crusty or peeling old paste. Other as old ThinkPads hum along well without any re-pasting.
Perhaps, this story is just a case of reseating the fan and reapplying the paste, than ThinkPad paste got old.
Paste certainly does have a shelf-life. The stuff they use in the factory even on modern laptops optimises longevity over performance- that’s why you get thermal benefits by re-pasting new laptops.
But the paste still ages and dries out, even liquid metal will age (by virtue of it eating the metal of the heatsink over time).
Good rule of thumb is repaste after 4 years if it’s a factory paste, and every 18 months if it’s an aftermarket performance paste (like arctic silver).
It will still perform decently; it’s not like your machine will die, but it’s not ideal.
But the paste still ages and dries out, even liquid metal will age (by virtue of it eating the metal of the heatsink over time).
Good rule of thumb is repaste after 4 years if it’s a factory paste, and every 18 months if it’s an aftermarket performance paste (like arctic silver).
It will still perform decently; it’s not like your machine will die, but it’s not ideal.
Last weekend I replaced the motherboard of my i5 x220 and took the chance to change thermal paste with Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut. I cannot say how it is performing since I'm only using the laptop with a minimal Debian installation in tty mode but everything seems ok so far.
My next project is to replace the fan/heatsink of my i7 x220 with the x230 one, which is supposed to be just as efficient but noticeably quieter.
My next project is to replace the fan/heatsink of my i7 x220 with the x230 one, which is supposed to be just as efficient but noticeably quieter.
Why not replace whole bottom part with x230 one?
I have a couple of X201 Tablets that I picked up cheap a few years ago, and they could definitely use this. Running BOINC/Rosetta@Home, they often get into the high 90s.
I should have thought about thermal paste - these machines don't have clogged fans.
I should have thought about thermal paste - these machines don't have clogged fans.
I'm using liquid metal on my X201 tablet and it still hits about 80-85c under full load.
Laptop wise I've changed the paste on 2 macbook pros and 1 macbook. 2/3 times CPU throttling got better. I will probably never do it again, smartest move is to buy a new laptop and sell the old one on ebay.
As much as I'm dismayed at Reddit's recent purge, there's also https://old.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/ for some good ThinkPad support.
I ended up going with Prolimatech PK-3 as it's a fairly viscous thermal paste, and it has held up well for the past six months. Although, I have noticed slightly higher max temperatures than when I originally applied it, but nothing alarming.
[1] https://www.overclock.net/forum/28099300-post10.html