Mobo overheat, arctic silver, testing fan

mrredpants

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Jun 6, 2011
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Hello all

Have a lenovo ideapad U460 - it was shutting off randomly, presumably when it was getting too hot. It first started when I was plugging HDMI into LCD TV.

So, I dismantled it - I'm going to put arctic sliver on CPU

A couple questions:

1. The graphics chips have more of a "pad" than the typical cooling paste. Still covered by copper heatsink connecting to tubing going out to fins on side of mobo. I'm going to see how much contact there is between copper and chip to see if replacing with arctic silver will help or hinder - didn't know if anyone had experience here

2. In order to get to fan assembly, have to dismantle a lot. I want to test to see if the fan WORKS, but, want an easy way to do it (besides holding laptop to my ear or feeling with my hand). Any tips or tricks?

Thanks in advance!
 

mrredpants

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Jun 6, 2011
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Answers to my own questions

1. I'm not sure. The heatsink over the graphics chips don't screw down (hence the pad). I applied arctic silver anyway. We'll see if it works.

2. It turns out you can see the fan blades just under the keyboard, so, all you really have to do is lift the keyboard up and power it on and you can see if fan is working.

Mine was..which still leaves me with my overheating question which I will currently investigate!

Thanks.
 

mrredpants

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Jun 6, 2011
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OK, well, problem persists. I'm 99.9% sure this is a CPU overheat and shutdown. To test, I booted into BIOS and let it sit. Within a minute or two it shut down. I don't know what else to do other than dismantle again and try to reapply thermal paste. It's arctic silver, nice thin layer.

Any input is appreciated.

EDIT: So I ordered thermal conductive pads - not sure what thickness - 1.0mm, 1.5mm and 2.0mm - so ordered all three.
So, when they come in, I'll go again - put new pads on GPUs and reapply arctic silver. I'll try to update this post for others.