Alphacool Apex 17W/mK thermal paste 1g

Watch the tutorial on YouTube


Replacement instructions

20 min
Moderate

Requirements:

A soft underground
– You could use a towel

A container to put the screws in
– Make sure you don’t lose the screws

Screwdriver
Spudger (or a similar plastic tool)
Thermal paste with a spatula
Metal cleaner
Wet wipes
Microfiber cleaning cloth

Put the laptop upside down on a soft underground.

This is needed to prevent scratches on the laptop’s screen lid. Then, remove all the screws with the screwdriver.

Take the spudger and put it between the bottom case and the hinge.

Gently apply pressure to the hinge. Do this on both sides. You can then carefully remove the bottom case entirely.

Disconnect the battery temporarily.

This is a security measure to avoid short circuits.

It is highly recommended to do this step.

Unplug the heatsink cables.

Remove the heatsink screws. The screws that are marked with the numbers 1 and 2 stay in place, while the other screws go out entirely.

Carefully lift the heatsink at both sides. This can be a bit stiff because of the sticky thermal paste.

Remove the thermal paste on the CPU (and NVIDIA GPU, if present) and on the heatsink.

Use the spatula for this. After that, you can use the wet wipes to further remove thermal paste.

To clean the heatsink and CPU completely, please use the microfiber cleaning cloth with metal cleaner.

Put some thermal paste on the spatula.

Spread it out on the CPU (and NVIDIA GPU, if present) evenly.

Make sure that you no longer see the mirroring effect of the CPU (and NVIDIA GPU, if present).

Carefully place the heatsink back in its original position.

Make sure that you don’t move the heatsink after putting it back in place.

Install and tighten the heatsink screws and reconnect the heatsink cables.

Install the bottom case by placing it back in the right position.

Gently press the part on all sides.

Make sure that the bottom case fits snugly on all sides.

Use the screwdriver to install the screws back in place.

This was the final step, you are ready to use your laptop again.

Well done!