Create accountLogin

Recent searches

No recent searches

Search options

Only available when logged in.
toot.wales is one of the many independent Mastodon servers you can use to participate in the fediverse.
We are the Mastodon social network for Wales and the Welsh, at home and abroad! Y rhwydwaith cymdeithasol annibynnol i Gymru, wedi'i bweru gan Mastodon!

Administered by:

Server stats:

713
active users

toot.wales: AboutStatusProfiles directoryPrivacy policy

Mastodon: AboutGet the appKeyboard shortcutsView source codev4.3.7

Jamie Nemeth

After taking apart more of my HP Pavilion ze4800 laptop than I wanted to, finally got to the CPU. And this is what I saw.

At first, I panicked the old thermal paste had pulled off bits of the die, but after microscopic examination, it was a layer of black on top of the pink die.

AMD Athlon laptop CPU, without the usual lid typical of a desktop CPU. The die can be seen directly, with some old thermal paste stuck to it.
AMD Athlon laptop CPU, without the usual lid typical of a desktop CPU. The die can be seen directly, with some old thermal paste stuck to it.
AMD Athlon laptop CPU, without the usual lid typical of a desktop CPU. The die can be seen directly, with some old thermal paste stuck to it.
AMD Athlon laptop CPU, without the usual lid typical of a desktop CPU. The die can be seen directly, with some old thermal paste stuck to it.
#Laptop#PC#Repair
Mar 22, 2023, 01:29 AM·Public·Mastodon for Android
0boosts·0favorites
Public
Jamie Nemeth

Said microscopic examination.

USB microscope image of an AMD Athlon laptop CPU, without the usual lid typical of a desktop CPU. The die can be seen directly (pink), with some old thermal paste stuck to it (black).
USB microscope image of an AMD Athlon laptop CPU, without the usual lid typical of a desktop CPU. The die can be seen directly (pink), with some old thermal paste stuck to it (black).
USB microscope image of an AMD Athlon laptop CPU, without the usual lid typical of a desktop CPU. The die can be seen directly (pink), with some old thermal paste stuck to it (black).
USB microscope image of an AMD Athlon laptop CPU, without the usual lid typical of a desktop CPU. The die can be seen directly (pink), with some old thermal paste stuck to it (black).
Public
Jamie Nemeth

The black crud is coming off the heatsink quite well, with a cotton swab and isopropyl alcohol.

Following research, it's supposed to be OK to do this on the CPU die as well, just taking care not to leave any threads behind. Made sense to practice on the metal bit first, though!

Underside of a laptop heatsink (the part in contact with the CPU die), showing some old leftover thermal paste (black marks on the silver).
Underside of a laptop heatsink (the part in contact with the CPU die) after partial cleaning. It's clearer now that the silver rectangular part was the only part in contact with the CPU die, and untouched black thermal paste surrounds it.
Underside of a laptop heatsink (the part in contact with the CPU die) after cleaning the entire underside. The blackened cotton swab used to clean it is resting on it.
Public
Jamie Nemeth

Cleaned up good! Just hope it still works 😬

(only partly talking about the de-crudding / eventual re-pasting...concerned about how I ran it like this back in the day, not knowing to check thermal paste at the time, getting frustrated at its slowness and assuming it was the HDD)

Before: AMD Athlon laptop CPU with die visible (pink) and old thermal paste (black).
After: AMD Athlon laptop CPU with die visible (pink) after cleaning off the old thermal paste.
Public
Jamie Nemeth

Long story short: new thermal paste applied, somehow got laptop reassembled, and it lives!

Next up: flash hard drive replacement (I was beginning to worry that I should've done all this dramatic disassembly/reassembly before buying something for a laptop that might not work...)

AMD Athlon laptop CPU with fresh thermal paste applied to the die.
HP Pavilion ze4800 laptop, power lights on, starting to power up. The HP logo can be seen on the LCD display.
ExploreLive feeds
About