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I happen to own 2 Acer Aspire notebooks - old 5737Z and newer V3-571G. One thing they have in common is overheating a lot (I wouldn't blame them, they were abused a lot). I heard it could help quite a lot to replace standard thermal pads with copper ones. My questions are:

What dimensions should the pads be? I disassemblied the older computer a few times and the old ones seemed quite thick, so how about something like: http://www.dx.com/p/heatsink-thermal-copper-plate-pad-for-hp-dv2000-hp-dv3000-hp-dv9000-more-10-piece-pack-132949#.VDUrF_l_t8E ?

What about the other one (never opened it before)?

Should I do this? Is it safe? I am quite comfortable messing with electronics in general, but inserting loose pieces of metal into a computer feels a bit adventurous.

If yes to above, how do I do this? I reckon just spread thermal grease both sides and stick it in place, right?

jahmaican
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Wehter you should do this is up to you and how you judge your abilities. It is safe (for you) when you remove the battery from your laptop. Whether it is safe for your laptop is again up to your abilities.

I think there is a misunderstanding here. What you posted in your question is a thermal pad. They are used instead of thermal paste for heat dissipation not in combination! You could remove the old pad and replace it with paste.

Unfortunatly I have no experience with pads. I always used paste. There are many pastes available, from cheap to enthusiast grade. But even the most enthusiast grade paste will give you maybe only a 5°C difference compared to a cheap one. But more expensive paste has the feature to be spread more easily.

Which one is the right for you is hard to say but you could read this

If you use pad or paste is also up to you but don't apply paste if you are going to use a pad!

On how to do this: No, one does not apply on both side paste. The method I use and which is also wide spread is to place a rise corn big drop in the center of the chip and let pressure of the heatsink do the spreading. There are thousands of videos on YouTube with different methods.

In case you decide to use paste: I highly recommend you to not use any liquid metal paste! They have the best heat dissipation but removine the paste again will require a grinding machine.

Edit: You didn't mention at all what your temperatures actually. Normally laptop CPUs and GPUs are made to withstand a higher temperature compared to a desktop. Maybe it wouldn't be even worth it to replace the pads.

ap0
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