Here's a Tutorial for Applying Liquid Metal TIM to a Laptop

AlphaAtlas

AlphaAtlas

[H]ard|Gawd
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Thanks to its remarkable thermal performance, liquid metal TIM is a favorite among high end desktop PC builders who aren't turned away by the somewhat daunting application process. But Overclocked Inside points out that liquid metal TIM can give laptops a huge boost as well, as their CPUs and GPUs are strongly limited by their relatively meager heatsinks and low-cost TIM. The site posted a tutorial for applying Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut to laptop CPUs and GPUs, and reportedly observed a performance jump of around 17% after applying the compound to a Dell XPS 17 notebook.

Before the application with liquid metal, the CPU reached the maximum core temperature of 100C under load after less than 1 minute on turbo clock and then only clocked at 2.2GHz and kept this clock just below the temperature limit. By default, the laptop is configured by the manufacturer for 45W continuous load and 65W short-term peak load. With these performance values, the CPU, as already mentioned, ran so hot after a few seconds that the thermal protection function had to reduce the clock frequency to the standard clock... After using the liquid metal, the full all-core turbo clock rate of 2.8GHz could now be maintained after any number of runs of the benchmark without a break in between. With a Long Term Power Target of 52W. The Short Term Power Target has also been adjusted to 52W. As a result, we now received 478 points in the Cinebench R15, which corresponds to a performance increase of more than 17% and an equally reduced computing time.
 
I've already done this to my laptops for a while now. Cooling laptops is important since today running over 90C is normal.
 
Important to remember though that re-application every couple of years or so is required (or shorter, opinions vary on this) and make sure the contact plate of the heatpipe assembly isn't aluminium. I'll admit, I didn't watch the vid, so it's possible they covered this - if so, ignore :)
 
zalazin said:
I like the results but not so sure I would use it. Apparently it does not harden and will migrate https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-...iewpnt?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B079HDBYY3#R20RJTQC4MJG7H

This scares me...
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Only if you use too much I think... had it for a year on a GPU which is angled with die vertically with no signs of creep. I believe surface tension should keep it in check as long as you haven't chucked too much on to squeeze out.

I've applied it to my PS4 Pro with great results as well.
 
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I was super tempted to get this as the 1070 in my laptop gets hotttt, and I found a lot of before/after, this stuff definitely seems to produce good results. However, I think after reading for 30 minutes the horror stories of migration and frying components are making me not want to do it.
 
Changing out the TIM on a laptop will help improve battery life as well. It is worth it, but I would just use cheap, non-conductive TIM with slightly worse performance - it will likely last longer and be less of a hassle than the liquid metal TIM.

Used liquid metal TIM on a CPU once. Never again. It was the best performance ever initially, but then dried out and had worse performance after about a week, because it fused with the copper heatsink/die and created bubbles. I imagine any of these gallium/indium based alternatives have similar problems. They both have the "do not use with aluminum heatsink" warning and gallium / indium are the only useful liquid metals that work at room temperature. The picture looks the same as the Coolaboratory stuff. I've applied TIM on probably near 100 different components and used probably 10 different types - trust me.
 
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Just don't use it unless your heatsink is nickel plated. Aluminum is soluble in gallium and copper is prone to ionic transfer. The former results in a brittle alloy forming and the latter results in the bubbles described above.
zalazin said:
I like the results but not so sure I would use it. Apparently it does not harden and will migrate https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-...iewpnt?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B079HDBYY3#R20RJTQC4MJG7H

This scares me...
Click to expand...
The article covers this. You can protect the vulnerable components surrounding the die in various ways. The most common material I've seen people use is clear nail polish.
daglesj said:
Considering most would be removing the cheapest paste on earth initially, then just some good ol' MX-4 would be 90% of the battle.

Filed under - Just because you can...
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More like MX-4TW. Love that stuff.
 
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almost 30 percent temp reduction sounds a bit fanciful to me. maybe 5 or 6 percent. I smell a little technical bs. Maybe the the original TIM was dried out already or poorly applied..
 
all of my intel I7 laptops peak at around 80 on full load.... If a machine hits 100 something is wrong.....
 
sleepeeg3 said:
The picture looks the same as the Coolaboratory stuff. I've applied TIM on probably near 100 different components and used probably 10 different types - trust me.
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I'm still rockin a bottle of that MG Chemicals heat transfer compound Kyle recommend over a decade ago. I've noticed when taking off heatsinks from builds years prior its still a bit gooey. When it comes to long term all the high tech compounds I've tried dried out, unless something has changed in the last few years. I just use the MG on my own builds now.
 
RealBeast said:
Like the original Dell application. Never seen a laptop that had a proper application from the factory.
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To be fair, they push workers to slap it together quickly. Gone are the days of taking enough time and money to do it right, the first time.
 
Provided you have delidded your CPU
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Per the article, if you don't catch that little part, you could be screwing your warranty. Kinda the one thing I really take serious when I buy a laptop is getting a good warranty with it.

That said, do you need a special delidder for a mobile CPU?

*bwaahaha, first post here though I thought my account was like, 15 years old! wow!
 
I've never worked with Liquid TIM's.

They made me nervous considering they are both liquid and highly conductive.

How do you stop that shit from just squeezing out and getting where it doesn't belong and frying shit?
 
1Nocturnal101 said:
Honestly, I wouldn't risk it, not in a laptop, I'd just run some real good kryonaut instead.
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This is my thought exactly. I’ve used it before in my PS4 Pro and Desktop but I agree with the review on Amazon. It’s a laptop, it’s moving around all the time and not stationary. As you walk you naturally exert force pulling the laptop down all the time.

Kryonaut and call it good. You’re not getting i9 9900k performance from a laptop so why does that 5% matter?
 
It is good stuff no doubt, but that is just way too much effort for the results for me.
 
next-Jin said:
This is my thought exactly. I’ve used it before in my PS4 Pro and Desktop but I agree with the review on Amazon. It’s a laptop, it’s moving around all the time and not stationary. As you walk you naturally exert force pulling the laptop down all the time.

Kryonaut and call it good. You’re not getting i9 9900k performance from a laptop so why does that 5% matter?
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Completely agree, unless it's a desktop replacement PC you don't plan on moving, but as soon as it's stored vertically in a bag and banged around a bit, the chances are there for failure just like morons using liquid metal in smartphones Linus had to do a Video explaining not to do it or it's at your own risk.
 
For long term use and stability I would never recommend Liquid metal on pretty much any laptop. It mostly comes to the fact that liquid metal has a tendency to flow more than other TIMs and is eclectically conductive. As it flows it tends to go places where you don't want it to go which causes your system to act funny or even let out the magic smoke.
 
A bit too nervous to do this to my Titan GT80 2QE but man that CPU gets hot at around 80c or more. I'm sure it would help. It's sad that during simple OS updates I hear the cooling fans wind up. Oh, well.
 
Surely there are too many downsides to using this stuff in a laptop? Hell, I don't even want to use it at all, due to all the issues with it.
 
There is no way I'd use this.
I set fire to a set of headphones trying to solder a wire, so can you imagine the damage I'd do with this.
I'd put it on a laptop and my TV would explode

:D
 
As soon as someone makes an industrial diamond/graphene sheet of TIM to put into your CPU heatsink, then things will get interesting.
 
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