really.. they use poor paste on purpose.. they must...

[wirednuts]

acer 5742z about a year of use and its running hotter then a devil, and im just browsing web forums.

hands are literally sweating on the palm rests.

dissasemble laptop, take apart heatsink, wipe off the 1/4" thick blob of gummy crud, apply thin layer of real heatsink paste. put it all back together, and viola. laptop runs 1080p youtube without even getting warm.


why the hell do they do this? its crappy stuff they use to begin with, and they put so much on there it becomes an insulator. they would be better off not putting any paste in there at all.

cant recall how many laptops ive fixed by doing this. it takes 1-3 years for it to happen and YES IT ALWAYS COORELATS WITH THE WARRANTY

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

I think you just answered your own question.

 

[wirednuts]

what makes it even worse is they make the heatsink the hardest thing on the whole system to remove. you must dissassemble everything, motherboard must fully be removed. there is no way this is by accident. no to mention the fact that the processors are on the bottom, which is just stupid. and yes, it would have been impossible for them to cut an access door in the bottom where there is nothing in the way at all ugh..

 

[Sleepingforest]

Don't forget to clean out the fans...

 

[wirednuts]

Don't forget to clean out the fans...

i did. hardly any dust in it. its only a year old and i vacuum my apartment often.

 

[Torn Mind]

CPU on the top would certainly make for a toasty keyboard area.

Acer seems to be a high volume, low margin seller that needs to undercut the competition to keep its head up above the water. So, they offload the future maintenance costs to the buyer in exchange for a cheaper upfront product.

 

[mfenn]

They do it because white silicone paste is cheaper than silver paste.

/thread

 

[wirednuts]

its not even wet paste. its grey dried crap... like if you let poop dry and squish it. i think.

i think it conducts heat about as good as those weird spongy thermal pads do. the ones they put in a lot of electronic devices. theyre good for spreading passive heatsinks, but anything that runs somewhat hot just doesnt work. i use cheap ceramic paste myself, and its still a lot better then whatever comes in these cheap laptops.

i will say though, this acer is very well designed internally. most of the screws are the same, and its actually easy to assemble without any prior history on it. ive always liked the screen too... so when i say 'cheap' laptop i am just pointing at the price. if you dont count the poor heatsinking the actual laptop is pretty nice.

 

[mfenn]

its not even wet paste. its grey dried crap... like if you let poop dry and squish it. i think.

Paste doesn't stay wet after it gets hot for a long period of time. It was wet when they put it on.

 

[wirednuts]

Paste doesn't stay wet after it gets hot for a long period of time. It was wet when they put it on.

i know.. but i see the white stuff last a lot lot longer. it doesnt help that they put enough to do about 40 jobs on one die either...