Can you put thermal paste on top of a graphite sheet?

[Abu Ghraib Al Forchani]

Yes it's on the CPU section for a good reason. Nobody on the smartphone section is likely to even understand what I'm talking about.

My Razer phone seems to be having some throttling issues lately, so I thought I'd open it up and apply the best thermal paste I could find.

First here's the layout of the phone. Between the chip and the display there's some generic looking thermal paste at the top of a heat pipe:



But more interesting is the back of the chipset seems to be in contact with metal backplate through what looks like a graphite sheet.




From what I know about graphite sheets they are equivalent to a low quality thermal paste. So what effect would there be if I put some high quality thermal paste right on the graphite sheet?

 

[topmysteries5]

Yes it's on the CPU section for a good reason. Nobody on the smartphone section is likely to even understand what I'm talking about.

My Razer phone seems to be having some throttling issues lately, so I thought I'd open it up and apply the best thermal paste I could find.

First here's the layout of the phone. Between the chip and the display there's some generic looking thermal paste at the top of a heat pipe:
View attachment 5636
View attachment 5632

But more interesting is the back of the chipset seems to be in contact with metal backplate through what looks like a graphite sheet.
View attachment 5633
View attachment 5635
View attachment 5631

From what I know about graphite sheets they are equivalent to a low quality thermal paste. So what effect would there be if I put some high quality thermal paste right on the graphite sheet?

It wont make much improvement, just use high quality thermal paste on SOC area, no too much nor too less. You can replace graphite sheet with high quality thermal conductive copper sheet/tape (thickness should be same as stock graphite sheet)

 

[Abu Ghraib Al Forchani]

It wont make much improvement, just use high quality thermal paste on SOC area, no too much nor too less. You can replace graphite sheet with high quality thermal conductive copper sheet/tape (thickness should be same as stock graphite sheet)

Isn't graphite sheet more heat conductive than copper?

 

[Abu Ghraib Al Forchani]

Why was my post moved from CPU to phone section???

 

[daveybrat]

Because ultimately this is about a phone, not a processor. The CPU forum is for Desktop and Laptop processors.

 

[Abu Ghraib Al Forchani]

Because ultimately this is about a phone, not a processor. The CPU forum is for Desktop and Laptop processors.

This is about cooling the processor!

 

[Abu Ghraib Al Forchani]

Can someone at least tell me if the black rectangle at the back of the phone is a real graphite sheet or something entirely opposite, like thermal insulation? I have no idea myself. All I know is it's black and a rectangle.

 

[topmysteries5]

Can someone at least tell me if the black rectangle at the back of the phone is a real graphite sheet or something entirely opposite, like thermal insulation? I have no idea myself. All I know is it's black and a rectangle.

"YOU will be DOING this at YOUR OWN RISK"
Try to wipe that black sheet with cotton swab and little drop of IPA (isopropyl alcohol) if it looses its black color and cotton swab turns black then it is a real graphite sheet, Otherwise not.

 

[Abu Ghraib Al Forchani]

"YOU will be DOING this at YOUR OWN RISK"
Try to wipe that black sheet with cotton swab and little drop of IPA (isopropyl alcohol) if it looses its black color and cotton swab turns black then it is a real graphite sheet, Otherwise not.

Is there a less destructive way?

 

[topmysteries5]

Is there a less destructive way?

You can try wiping very small area at cornors.

 

[Abu Ghraib Al Forchani]

You can try wiping very small area at cornors.

Is there a still less destructive way?

 

[Abu Ghraib Al Forchani]

You can try wiping very small area at cornors.

Is there a still less destructive way?

 

[topmysteries5]

Is there a still less destructive way?

You can find it out yourself by looking at it if its graphite sheet or something else. Using cotton swab is best way, try in cornor only. It wont destroy whole sheet.

 

[Abu Ghraib Al Forchani]

You can find it out yourself by looking at it if its graphite sheet or something else. Using cotton swab is best way, try in cornor only. It wont destroy whole sheet.

Shouldn't there be some kind of tech documentation about this phone?

 

[topmysteries5]

Shouldn't there be some kind of tech documentation about this phone?

Why would razor will describe about internal parts in their phone ? Even if they do, then it wont be available for public, these manuals are called service manual, used for repairs by company.
I will suggest you to just put some thermal paste between soc and heatpipe (no need of thermal grizzly stuff). Noctua NT-H1 performs same and is cheaper, i have measured only 1.5-2c difference between these paste on my gpu and cpu.
I have a 3yrs old Lenovo x3 (SD 808 CPU), this phone used to heat up and throttle a lot when playing games on it, CPU temps rise to 74-76c. I added NT-H1 paste+small size copper shim+ little bit of 0.5mm arctic thermal pad. Now temps don't go higher than 55c.

 

[Abu Ghraib Al Forchani]

Why would razor will describe about internal parts in their phone ? Even if they do, then it wont be available for public, these manuals are called service manual, used for repairs by company.
I will suggest you to just put some thermal paste between soc and heatpipe (no need of thermal grizzly stuff). Noctua NT-H1 performs same and is cheaper, i have measured only 1.5-2c difference between these paste on my gpu and cpu.
I have a 3yrs old Lenovo x3 (SD 808 CPU), this phone used to heat up and throttle a lot when playing games on it, CPU temps rise to 74-76c. I added NT-H1 paste+small size copper shim+ little bit of 0.5mm arctic thermal pad. Now temps don't go higher than 55c.

In this case 1.5-2C makes a huge difference. On a PC if it was just 1.5C hotter the fan would just turn a tiny little bit faster, nothing the user would even notice. But on a phone there is no fan, so 1.5 C can mean the difference between throttling and no throttling. Not to mention the phone is always in your hands and even slightly higher temps can cause discomfort.

But back to the Razer phone, I believe this black rectangle is just thermal insulating tape. Previously I thought is was a graphite sheet cause the top of the phone always got much warmer than the bottom. But the small are above where the black rectangle is located is always much hotter than the area of the rectangle. That has to mean that the rectangle is insulating heat. This makes sense as it's also in contact with the battery, and it's common knowledge phones are designed to always keep heat away from the battery.

Now the real question is if I should rip out this black tape and put thermal paste in its place. Is the back piece of the chip the same as the front piece? Which side of the chip are the actual CPU and GPU at?

 

[slackerinabox]

sheesh just get a new phone at this point

 

[Abu Ghraib Al Forchani]

Someone just answer me please. Is that big black square (last picture in OP) a graphite sheet or just some random tape?