So i have this alienware laptop, and on the GPU there is no Thermal paste/grease, the OEM uses these sticky pads (flat strips, sticky on both sides, exactly the size of the components). In the past i've had 2 GPUs die, the first was due to an assembly error which resulted in a screw landing on the GPU and causing it to short circuit, and was replaced under warranty, the second time was due to these sticky pads drying out on the GPU dye, this time i had to pay for the new GPU myself but the people who replaced and fitted it again were different. Now i want to replace these thermal strips/pads just as a precaution, but i can't find replacements anywhere and the guys who replaced the GPU for me before cannot procure a new one, i have no experience in applying thermal paste/grease and neither do they, and i don't wanna fiddle around with a $570 GPU on my first try, so i'm stuck here and i don't know what to do. The precaustions i've taken since my last GPU replacement (7 months ago) were using nvidia inspector to limit my frames per second to 50~55 max instead of leaving it open all the time, i always keep the laptop dust free by cleaning the fans and heatsink (like twice a month), i ALWAYS monitor my temperatures to see if anything is out of the ordinary (thankfully nothing is so far), and i routinely check on the thermal pads to check if they're drying out, but i cannot check on the thermal pad sitting on the GPU dye and i don't wanna decouple the heatsink from the GPU to check as this will create air bubbles which won't seal again and will ruin the thermal conductivity between the GPU and heatsink. Ordering some pads online is also a little complicated, because i do not know the required thickness of the pads i need (there's differing color pads with differing thicknesses on the gpu), and importing stuff is hampered by all the policies and checks the things have to go through when entering the country (Egypt). So to the actual question now, Should i be worried about these pads giving up on me in a moment's notice??, do i really need to be chasing after a fresh set of stickies???, or am i just too paranoid??
So if I read this right you payed 570dollars for a 675m because the preapplied thermal pads dried out and killed it? Sounds totally legit
Pretty much, it's an alienware, so it's like Apple prices without all the quality. edit: prices also become compounded when you add tariffs and VAT and vendor service.
Yeah, thats true. As for the pads, I think if they dried once they will dry again. I think monitoring the temperatures should be enough to see if something bad is going on. It won't be like one second its working and the next it's dead. Temperatures will give away if something is happening. As for a replacement I think your only chance is ordering one from the interwebz you dont have to find a 100% match, because you can cut it to kinda-sorta match which is good enough. It's height should be exact or higher because the pressure will make it fit nicely.
You said you always monitor your temps, keep doing that and stop worrying. When you see higher than normal temps, post here. Your gpu won't instantly fry if the pads dry out. You'll see signs of that, like throttling/reboots etc, plus higher temps (doh').
I'm one of those guys who just can't help himself to the insides of everything i own. I have always opened my Laptops/consoles and reapplied the thermal solution and maybe even added a mod or two to help with heat. I must admit that opening laptops is not for the faint hearted. It's a very tricky job that needs a lot of patience and sometimes a little bit of brute force but the end results are usually well worth it. I bought a big selection of thermal pastes over the years but the one i use mostly to replace pads is Arctic Silver Ceramic. I've used this to replace pads a few times and as long as the HSF is screwed down flush then there should be no clearance problems. The performance over the pads is usually very good and i've seen a 10C decrease before now. I suggest that you remove every screw one by one and label them all, i even do a little drawing on a piece of A4 paper and then push the screw into the paper where it goes on the laptop. Once inside i do another quick drawing and do the same for the inside screws. If you have heat problems with an Alienware then i'm pretty sure it has a long warranty and it should be replaced/fixed free of charge. If you can't then do it yourself or find someone who can do it. My old PC shop would of fixed this for about 30 pound.
