[SOLVED] Replacing CPU thermal paste

[Rava]

I need to replace CPU (also GPU?) thermal paste on my main system which is a notebook.
Do I have to remove the old paste as well, and if so, how do I do that, or do I just add new one onto the surfaces?

[ncmprhnsbl]

Do I have to remove the old paste as well, and if so, how do I do that,?

yes, usually rubbing with a cloth and some sort of isopropyl alcohol.
a search on youtube will produce a zillion videos on it.

[Rava]

usually rubbing with a cloth and some sort of isopropyl alcohol.
a search on youtube will produce a zillion videos on it.

I think I look for one of these zillion clips, better safe than sorry.

Added in 3 hours 34 minutes 4 seconds:
[SOLVED] Replacing CPU thermal paste
I chose two videos.

the 1st one
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aD3AGwHKWp4
rambles on about unrelated stuff but has the info that you should not use a spatula to spread the paste. Also the previous owner of his laptop bent the heatsink and put too much paste on both the GPU and CPU, especially the first thing you should never do.
He also says to not use any kind of spatula (especially a credit card) because you would get too much paste on your GPU/CPU and it is counterproductive when the paste spreads over the border of the actual chip.



The2nd clip
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pn2ZNOyGMkU
states you can use a spatula if one comes with your heat paste, but doesn't use one himself.

Cave! I omit quite some important info here, therefore you could damage your notebook if you ignore those infos I just omitted, go watch at least the two videos yourself or do a yt-dlp like so

Code: Select all

yt-dlp -f 134+251 aD3AGwHKWp4
yt-dlp -f 134+251 Pn2ZNOyGMkU

[Rava]

Unfortunately, my notebook is of a type were is is quite a nuisance to replace the thermal paste. I have to disassemble almost everything, the videos i quoted above show notebooks where you do not need to unscrew and unplug the motherboard (just unscrew the case and unscrew the heat sink), but in my case, I have to do so; but it is what it is.

Added in 4 minutes 7 seconds:
For now I am out of 4,50€ for 1g of heat paste and partly disassembled the machine. (I have its internal keyboard and its DVD drive left out and for now it gets a bit more ventilation due to that. I wait for when the weather gets bad (probably Tuesday) to finish the process, for now I want to enjoy the last summer weather of the year when I have the free time (even when technically we already have autumn)