thermal grease on laptop GPU?

[kobrrra]

Do I need to apply thermal grease/compound on the integrated GPU on a laptop motherboard, before putting heatsink?

There’s a small rubber pad square that’s glued to the heat sink. This sits on top of the GPU. Do I need to add thermal material between the GPU and this pad? Does the pad need to be changed?

Laptop: HP Pavilion dv4-1220us
GPU: AMD Radeon

 

[bononos]

Putting thermal grease on the pad would be bad because it is not rubber but the thermal interface material. Normally the pad is replaced with grease if the heatsink can be screwed down furthur to reduce the gap btwn the heatsink/die but its not possible in this case.

 

[paul878]

Putting thermal grease on the pad would be bad because it is not rubber but the thermal interface material. Normally the pad is replaced with grease if the heatsink can be screwed down furthur to reduce the gap btwn the heatsink/die but its not possible in this case.

You should NEVER replace thermal Pads with Grease!!!

You suppose to replace the pad with a new pad every time you remove the heat sink. Since you don't have a new pad you can put some grease on the pad and put in back. I have done this countless time without any long term ill effect.