Laptop Running Hot? Try This! 

OMG you used way too much thermal compound, unsubbed! For those that don't get this is sarcasm, it's sarcasm.

"puts laptop in a fridge"

My god... That disgusting, flaky compound, not satisfying for my profile pic.

congrats on the verification my man!

love these experimental videos greg, been watching since 10,000 subs and its awesome to see how far you have come! Keep up the awesome work!!

Yeah thermal paste reapplication is a great start. I'd also recommend undervolting the cpu (if possible) to reduce temps even more.

Under volt with intel xtreme tuning utility thermal past :) Great video

Awesome! You can also turn down the voltage using the intel extreme tuning utility which also helps with thermals quite a bit.

what happened to that "thumbs down if you hate everything about life" outro? I miss it

Great vid. Simple trick to lower the temps. Better than the bulky external fan crap that reduces 1-2' c

great video! dell changed my motherboard and now it runs more hot. I was on the edge of changing the thermal compound my self. I will do that as soon as possible now !

Hey Greg, nice video! Have you tested fan banks like what Cooler Master makes in the form of the MasterNotepal Maker? I currently use this with my current Dell laptop and my temperatures are pretty chilly for a laptop (never get above 74C). This was after replacing the thermal compound like you did.

oh, "cool" video greg..hah?hah?anyone?

good advice. if you're taking your laptop apart it's also worth having a can of compressed air handy to clear out all the dust that accumulates in there and making sure the fans and vents are clear, especially if your machine is a few years old.

Thumbs up for the Noctua Paste .I love that stuff and it performs great.

Nice video. I wish as many laptops were easy to tear down as that XPS. I've done two Qosmio's and it took a fair amount of time and effort to get at the CPU and GPU. Virtually had to disassemble 70% of the laptops. Like you found, just by cleaning and putting on new paste, I achieved a 10 degree drop in comparable temps. A good suggestion is also to get a can of air and clean/blow out out any vents, fans and all the 'nooks and crannies'. Take the opportunity to clean out your laptop and get that limited air flow maxed. If you are using the laptop on a desk consider buying a laptop cooling pad. Plenty to choose from on Amazon. My son has a Cooler Master Pad under his ASUS ROG and it helps keep the temps down. Thanks for another great video. Hope you are enjoying your Audi. Looks a real mean machine.

Thanks to your concise, and no bull**** video, I got a 10 degree Celsius drop from 96 to 86 max running on AIDA64 for 6 minutes on my GL502VSK i7-7700HQ and 1070 GTX. I repasted after 3 years and the old paste was definitely dry. I used the new Noctua NT-H2 and I love it. I applied "X" on GPU and "line" on CPU.

I've seen the Dell XPS line used a few different times to showcase the improved performance from reapplying the thermal paste yourself. I wonder if this kinda thing is Dell specific or if most other windows laptops have this problem. I have a XPS 9350 myself and will definitely be taking a look in there.

Great video. I am curious why your laptop didn't post the first time you did this? Did you potentially fracture some solder balls between the CPU and PCB when over-tightened the screws? Did the CPU make contact with the motherboard again when you loosened the screws?

That reminds me of my ancient FSC laptop, where the thermal compound got so old and dry, that the heatsink of the GPU got pushed out of its place, leaving a hole in the mainboard where one of the screws used to be. Interestingly though it was still operational and a good clean, new thermal compound and a bit of hot glue got it to work until today, although being pretty useless without drivers for anything newer than Windows XP.

I have built many pcs. Played with thermal paste and such... I don't understand why I never thought of this for a laptop. Nice work brain! Going to do this now for my uni laptop! Silence ftw!

Hey Science, would you recommend undervolting? Responsibly ofc.

I managed a stable -140 mV undervolt on my XPS. It helped quite a bit. The temperatures reach Tmax, but when the fans kick in, it stabilizes at around 86 C.

Also can inspect the cooling fan, vents or grills, & any airflow restrictions. Thanks Greg 🤓

Super interesting video! love stuff like this!

This is a great video. Did you also do a video about undervolting?

6 years later and I still use this video for the 3rd time to swap my Thermal Paste on my XPS 9360. Thank you Greg!

This was helpful. Think I’ll try this with my XPS

do undervolting aswell. i have about 70° with thermal paste and -0.100v under full load(xps15)

Great video! I wonder if I can do this with my Razer blade stealth? It thermal throttles at idle.

I like your new static mat where did you find it?

Loved the vid. Definitely gonna do this when I get my Dell 7567

That laptop is so simple to disassemble. I'll do the same with mine one of these days when I have so free time. It's a Lenovo G580 and from the guides I've looked up it seems a lot more complicated to disassemble. I think I'll have to replace the bottom panel too because the part where the left hinge screws on to it is cracked.

"What do you expect" I expect a machine I spend heaps of money on not to shut down for doing what it's built to do.

About to get an XPS 15 and I'll definitely think about doing this, Thanks!

yup... had a similar experience with my brother's laptop. He was complaining about the temps the keyboard and other components reached During games so I launched hwinfo and a normal virus scan and the cpu package hit 105c, throttled, notified critical ring package temperature, negative TJmax... after only 10mins !!! Changed with an aftermarket thermal paste and the temperatures dropped down about 15c.... the strange thing is, we're sporting the same hardware and mine has been always way cooler than his... could the silicon lottery gone bad on his cpu?

Good thermal paste can make all the difference. It's all I did to repair my father's Toschiba. It was loud as hell and freezing all the time while he was gaming. Just some cleaning and changing paste made it running both quiet and stable.

I'm curious if you repasted with Grizzly Kryonaut or Gelid extreme how much lower the peak temperatures would be. I don't think Noctua's TM is near the top as far as thermal conductivity goes. However, I can say that on my Razer Blade (2017 Kaby Lake w/ GTX 1060 model) replacing the garbage factory thermal paste job with Grizzly Kryonaut, as well as factory thermal pads with the most conductive pads I could find dropped idle temps by about 10-12 C. I still need to do some stress tests to see max temp but since it isn't my main gaming rig this has not been a priority.

Great video! Now I only need the thermal compound!

Very well presented, I've been recommended to give this process a go by a friend who also had similar issues with throttling. I will be following along when my thermal past arrives in the mail!

Hmmm... I have that same laptop, XPS 13 9343. Thinking about doing this since I already need a new battery due to water damage. Might as well put in some after market thermal paste while I'm at it, especially since my warranty just expired and it's so easy to do.

Thank you for making this video! I have an ACER ASPIRE 4730Z that has been notorious for overheating. A friend cleaned cooling fan, cleaned thermal paste, applied Arctic Silver thermal paste, installed brand new mainboard and I bought an Xpad. So hopefully it will run cooler--I'll let you know. Can't wait to try AIDA64. I also have a DELL LATITUDE E6410 and the avg temp for CPU under 100% load was 82.1C after 2:00

I've been thinking about doing that too, especially since I've had mine for over 3 years now and it used to be my main computer, but unfortunately my laptop is a real pain to open.

Get one of those 4 color sided nail filing blocks and lap the copper heatsink on the laptop. Especially if your laptop takes a lot of work and you have to dissemble the entire thing to switch thermal paste. Most still require that especially Corporate/Enterprise laptops compared to consumer ultrabooks. The filing blocks will have extra coarse, coarse, fine and extra fine sides. The extra coarse side is what will make it as flat as possible and you spend most of your time on that. The rest will just bring it up to mirror polish level. This typically drops the laptop another 5-15 degrees. Depending on how uneven the copper block was. Plus around another 5 from good paste. Since your sanding material is already in flat block form it really helps to get the copper heat sink flat. Plus these nail filing blocks are usually only $1-$3. Usually get almost 15-20 laptops out of each one. And they are the perfect size to fit in the laptop heatsinks.

What program did you use for testing the temps and thermal throttling?

Hey Greg, could you do a questionnaire session video? I have some non-tech related questions (about university admissions and stuff) and would love to have some advice from you.

so how often should the thremal past be replaced? What about the motor of the cooler fan, isn't a motor getting slower over the years?

What program do you use for checking the temps and thermal throttling?

hello sir, I’m wondering is it a must to have conformal coating around cpu/gpu if I’m applying liquid metal to a laptop?? (I bought kapton tape already not sure if that’s enough)

Thanks, Greg, this works fine for my Dell M3800. Before I replace the thermal compound, the CPU temperature is about 80c, after the replacement, it's about 55c±.

What camera do you use for the video capture? Thanks

can this be done to any laptop ? I've got an old Toshiba laptop from 2009 that i'm still using as a secondary laptop mainly for storing movies and pictures and sometimes it does get really hot , so hot that I was forced to elevate it so that it can dissipate as much heat as possible . The thermal paste does wear over the years , doesn't it ?

In Norway we open a Window for extra cooling which also provides better reaction times in games.

I have a 4.5 year old Dell Vostro for which I have been considering this same action. My temps had been running in the 135-150 range (Fahrenheit, not C... ). But by using "SpeedFan" to jack the pwm up to 100% (~5100 rpm) I got literally a 35-40 degree improvement... so... I may still try this maintenance step. I suspect the TIM on mine is in no better shape! Thanks for the demo of yours.

Which utility/app do you use to see the temp. and/or potential throttling?

have you got problem with the sticky rubber coating on your XPS 13 ? If yes, how do you restore the surface to the original smooth surface?

Thank you for this. I thought my temperatures were still too high after using fresh paste but you allowed similar temperatures to mine. Though I might upgrade the paste to a high quality one. My gpu has exposed components around the heatsink (on the actual chip), any idea how I can clean it without ripping cloths and stuff on those components? Really annoying to keep checking for bits that were ripped off

what app did you use for checking the throttling in the video?

I recently swapped out thermal compound + undervolted the CPU of a 2013 MSI gaming notebook, temps dropped by 15°C under load and by 8-10°C in idle.

Your PC in NZXT case is SO beautiful!

Before I updated to 17.04 on the xps 15 Kaby I was getting quite a lot of crashing when watching any streaming video for a long amount of time. The heat exists and makes the keyboard up top a little warm but with the latest os it's not crashed. Going to try this anyway since that seems dangerously crappy thermal job dell put into it. Any other performance mods for the xps 13?

Sou do Brazil, quero saber se da para trocar memoria RAM do Dell XPS 13?

Thanks Bro! I just followed the video and repaste my laptop after changing the battery for the second time and it has never been quieter! You're the best!

can you do a channel update video explaining your new workflow and office now that you are doing RU-vid full time? great video as usual

i have an old laptop with a sandy bridge i3 should I bother taking it off and applying new thermal paste?will it show any improvements on such an old chip ?

What is that desk matt he has on his table? Thx in advance

nice video, I've taken many laptops apart and they always cheap out of the thermal compound. Sucks that dell is doing that for there high-end XPS models.

I highly recommend you look up for a tear down video on youtube for your own specific laptop model. I helped my cousin to dismantled his alienware laptop just to clean the fans and heatsinks. It was a nightmare. We had to remove everything, including the keyboard just to reach the fans. So having a video to know how to take it apart is very useful.

What screwdriver set and program did you use?

Hi, do you think doing this operation on the xps13 voids the warranty? Thanks

I used that exact same thermal compound (NT H1) and I replaced the paste a month or 2 ago. Now temperatures seem to be worse than ever, though initially they were much improved. Any ideas what is wrong? Would it be worth attempting a second paste application?

I just bought a MSI GP72MVR 7FRX 699NL and I was wondering if this "trick" also applies to my brand new gaming laptop. It is summer currently and my cpu gets 93 degrees while playing games under heavy cpu load. So does MSI use thermal paste properly or do I need to repaste? Laptop is about 2 months old.

what is that software you use to monitor the CPU temp? its good with graph.

What about drilling holes, or slotting, the laptop hard drive door for air flow cooling of the SSD? I'm seeing laptops with SSDs where once the hard drive temperature starts moving north of 50C some SSDs throttle the performance of the drive.

you could go with a bit of undervolting too i undervoletd my XPS13 by 100mV and i'm achieving similar performance (tho being 2 to 3 °C hotter) and don't having any thermal throtteling might change thermal compound sometimes

Great Video Greg, i did this and got good results. But how about liquid metal? Can i put it in my laptop? Will it get me better results?

I agree with the thermal compound amount. A little too much is far and away more safe than not using enough, especially if you are applying directly to the CPU or GPU die.

What app are you using to measure temperatures and throttling ?

I'd love to try that on my recent purchase (a p73, i9-9880H, 128GB RAM, 6 TB storage) ThinkPad, but I don't want to void the warranty. The dmesg says it's being throttled even with minimal load, and the entire thing is hot. I'm running a 4-fan platform to add air-flow to the bottom, but it doesn't seem to make much difference. I'm open to suggestions.

I like the sound panels. I'd like to get someone for one wall to stop sound from going into the bedroom

To complete the task you need to actually tear down the fan assembly aswell because there is guaranteed amount of dust and wool balls blocking the airflow. However in this case the fins come of with the heatpipe/block assembly so not necessary in this case. However Acer and Asus uses fin stack attached to fan assembly and that way you need to remove pretty much everything. I have also found out that using laptop 1-3h a day about 5 days a week trough out the year will cause the fan assembly to get full of dust and requires cleaning and which worries me people do not do that.

Hey guy like the video I am going to do this to my Dell pretty soon. Also video idea try to undervolt it and compare the temps to what you were getting before. I have undervolted my dell and it now will run at 3.5Ghz constant.My dell is the 7000 inspiron13in i7. It is worth a try at the very least.

Thank you so much.

Great video! I am about to do this to a latop i repaired. Thermal paste on the way :). Its a thinkpad and the old paste was also flaky and bad.

I would add an extra trick I picked up. Using intel XTU, I undervolted my XPS 15 processor by 150mV. This removed any thermal throttling issues I encountered in the past without impacting performance. Apparently, it is standard for Dell to feed more power than required to the CPU "just in case".

Which XPS13 is yours? My XPS 13-9434 i7 has no Thermal Throttling

Can you talk about undervolting to lower overall temperature of the cpu? For example, I found that my gaming laptop reaches up to 90 Degrees even after I thoroughly cleaned the internals and reapplied the thermal paste for the CPU and GPU. So i felt i was left to Undervolt/Underclock the machine cahnging the core offset to -0.09 and frequency from 3.2 Ghz to 2.6 Ghz. To maintain a 80 degrees threshold.

Shall we spread the thermal paste or we can directly put the heat pipe on without spreading it

with new thermal paste sometime a small undervolt help too. and a good cleaning. (by the way take care it has no diamond in the thermal paste or any other abrasive that could kill the die.

would this also work with liquid metal or would that cause problems with the heat pipes?

Which app do you use to test the laptop?

nice, I'm considering this now

which software you are using to check thermal thodaling.. ?

Hi, when I start Cinebench2024 the cpu(Acer Nitro 17 i7: 13700HX, RTX 4060) immediately throttling, the fans are set up to max and the temperature hits 100C. The test runs for 10 minutes and the cpu clock speed drops to 3GHz(the cpu max frequency is 5GHz). The cpu score in cpu-monkey is 1371, but mine has 938. Also Intel XTU shows power limit throttling, the cpu is idle, and power limit and current/edp throttling at the same time while gaming. For example in Days Gone the fps are capped to 120 and the graphic setting are almost the highest, the cpu and gpu temps are about 75C, but the cpu frequency and frames drops(3GHz and ~90fps) from time to time(every 30-60 min) for 2-3min. Do you think these problems can be fixed with replacing the motherboard, the laptop is under warranty. I bought it two mounts ago and it is cooled with liquid metal thermal paste. Thanks!

Just did this on my laptop and cpu temps dropped by 12-15 celcius -> No more throttling while gaming. I was meaning to do it for awhile but seeing your video sparked my inspiration do finally do it, so I must thank you!

what type of guitar music genre you play?

Hmmm may need to do this for my new 5530 Precision 2 in 1 4k laptop.

Very informative , thank you for the video good sir

you can also undervolt with XTU and get better battery life.

hey, whats the hes using to watch temps and thermak throtling?