Asus G1S CPU, GPU and Arctic Silver 5

My laptop usually got very hot and CPU and GPU idle temperatures were in the range of ~75C and ~80C respectively. Its about eight months I bought my laptop and I finally decided to open it up and apply thermal paste to both CPU and GPU.

Getting to the CPU was fairly simple just remove 2+4 screws and apply the thermal paste.

But, getting to the GPU was real pain. So, I decided to write a post to describe it in simple steps and gotchas that I discovered.

Disclaimer: Opening and applying thermal paste to CPU or GPU will void your laptop’s warranty! Author assumes absolutely no liability for these opinions nor for any damages that may result from reading and/or implementing following steps.

Before starting anything, unplug the power 🙂 and remove the battery.

1. Remove the keyboard. For this remove the two screws that are labeled ‘K’ from the under side of the laptop, then using a small flat(slotted) screw driver, un-clip three plastic holders at the top edge of the keyboard . Then tilt it over and unplug two flat cables and one connector with wires grouped together.

2. Then remove the covers of the ram and the hard drive compartment. Carefully remove the rams modules and hard drive and keep it a side. If you haven’t removed CPU compartment cover do it now.
* In the CPU compartment, there is a screw hidden just between the heat sink exhaust and the edge of the laptop. The is covered by the aluminum foil so you have to peel it to remove it.
* Also don’t forget to remove a screw just beneath the hard drive!

3. Remove 3-4 tiny steel screws from the battery compartment. Then remove the rest of the screws from the laptop base. Also remove six screws from the under side of the hinges. Two hinge covers will come off.

4. Remove screws from backside and remove the lid covering the LCD cables. Carefully remove two screws under this lid. Then unplug the two connectors.

5. Tilt screen to the max and remove two long screws that hold the LCD panel in the grooves. Carefully remove the LCD panel and keep it aside.

6. Now slowly lift the upper cover. It should come off w/o problem. You’ll get a first look at the motherboard. But you still don’t see the GPU!!!

7. You have to remove couple more screws and unplug speaker cables and the DVD drive. And volia! you can lift the motherboard and turn it over. And there you’ll see the other heat sink.

8. Go ahead and remove the screws from the GPU heat sink, unplug the fan power connector and carefully detach the heatsink. You’ll see that the underside of the GPU heat sink has a thin aluminum foil that according to me prevents thermal paste short circuiting the connectors on the GPU. There is another reason for doing it this way. During laptop assembly the person gets hardly few minutes to apply the paste and set the heatsink, it is easy to just use the foil to cover the die and apply paste and slap the sink on to it – quick and dirty huh? But as I told earlier it does prevents thermal paste spreading over the GPU circuitry around the die!

9. Remove the foil and the thermal paste. Observe how excessive paste was used! I used a plastic card to get rid of it and finally cleaned it up with some 90% isopropyl alcohol (picked it from local Wallgreens for $2) and cotton swabs. The copper heat sink was now smooth and clean like a mirror. The die should be clean as new – but just to make sure clean it as well using a new cotton swab and alcohol.