This was one of the best videos og how to fix laptop I have seen on RU-vid for a while. An amazing system, very structural work, and a a point for us to understand how getting cool pasta out on the cpu, titening all 4 scrues in a system so it be good conection all over the surface of the cpu.
How to fix laptop overheating: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-1PTRCc_BRtQ.html The ultimate guide to a laptop overheating covers everything from software solutions to CPU and GPU undervolting, and hardware checking.
3 Plastic clips near the heatpipe broke off easily. Had to glue them back on but they are hard to get right. Dell really should have just placed two screws in there to hold the bottom panel down. Very stupid design.
Totally fine to spread paste- and in this case with the irregular die shapes, spreading is a better way to go. Using the dot method won't give very good coverage on multiple long rectangles. Smooth spread helps avoid air bubbles for any who are also spreading along to this video.