Hardware Exchanging thermal paste?

[ganons]

Some temps of before and after would be handy. Also please post pics would be very helpful for noobs. My switch heats up by just playing mario maker in handheld mode.

On a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being hard) how easy is it for a noob to do this?

Which method of therma paste you applying? Drop or completely over cpu?

 

[Volkaru]

Some temps of before and after would be handy. Also please post pics would be very helpful for noobs. My switch heats up by just playing mario maker in handheld mode.

On a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being hard) how easy is it for a noob to do this?

Which method of therma paste you applying? Drop or completely over cpu?

I'd say it's about a 7. If you accidentally mess up one of the pins near the CPU/RAM You can screw up your switch. Just be careful and it's not too hard, though. And you HAVE to apply the paste to the entire CPU, because of the kind of system it is. Any section of it not covered in paste will be a hot spot and probably fry it. I just used Arctic MX4

 

[Volkaru]

It actually feels like my switch gets warmer after doing this. That might be because of the increased thermal conductivity to the back metal panel, though.

 

[wiewiec]

Shame that installing for example IC Graphite is probably not possible

 

[City Hunter]

I want to improve cooling as I want to overclock my switch in handheld for Dragon Quest XI, However after watching the available videos and read the whole thread, I came across some different infos regarding the thermal pads, I have mx4 Paste and arctic thermal pads in all 3 sizes at my home (0.5, 1 and 1.5mm), so i would like to ask the following:

1. Which thermal pad sizes did you end up using, I am pretty sure abort the 0.5 directly on top of the memory chips, but not sure about on top of the memory chip cover and on the heatsink. Also did you completely remove the copper thing and left it out or not?

2. Any quick way to check temperature before and after, without running a demanding game for 2 hours? I am not interested in seeing exactly how much it improved, only to see if there is a slight improvement and I didn’t make it worse than before.

3. Someone tried to overclock to docked speeds in handheld and do you think it’s okay? I know that there is concern regarding battery drain, but I have always a ravpower Bank with me, which should nearly prove the same power as an ac line.

 

[WhoIAm]

It actually feels like my switch gets warmer after doing this. That might be because of the increased thermal conductivity to the back metal panel, though.

Mine feels warmer after the mod as well. But since the fans are also quieter than before, and don't seem to spin up as often, I'm inclined to believe that it's due to the increased thermal conductivity.

 

[scroeffie1984]

the back of the switch why not cut out a round part of the plastic the the fan has better intake it wil drop at least 10C
you can buy a dust filter ! thats what i did with my ps3 slim ,i dont have waranty so... that and the thermal paste would at least drop it 15C maybe ? i know my ps3 is stable at 40 degrees celcius in game / as you can see the shielding already has the hole ! so why not use it,is it possible to test temps with sx os ?

 

[swutch]

sys-clk now supports temperature logs.
so we can compare values in games.

5Min in Tials Rising(heavy overclock) and the log time set to one minute (temp_log_interval_ms=60000)
looks like this on my Switch in original Nintendo Dock:

[2019-10-19 20:56:56.565] [mgr] TitleID change: 01003E800A102000
[2019-10-19 20:56:56.647] [mgr] CPU clock set : 1683.0 Mhz
[2019-10-19 20:56:56.681] [mgr] GPU clock set : 921.6 Mhz
[2019-10-19 20:57:17.294] [mgr] SOC temp: 42.8 °C
[2019-10-19 20:57:17.308] [mgr] PCB temp: 38.4 °C
[2019-10-19 20:57:17.320] [mgr] Skin temp: 38.9 °C
[2019-10-19 20:58:17.522] [mgr] SOC temp: 47.1 °C
[2019-10-19 20:58:17.533] [mgr] PCB temp: 41.3 °C
[2019-10-19 20:58:17.539] [mgr] Skin temp: 41.3 °C
[2019-10-19 20:59:17.560] [mgr] SOC temp: 52.0 °C
[2019-10-19 20:59:17.568] [mgr] PCB temp: 47.0 °C
[2019-10-19 20:59:17.576] [mgr] Skin temp: 44.4 °C
[2019-10-19 21:00:17.753] [mgr] SOC temp: 53.0 °C
[2019-10-19 21:00:17.764] [mgr] PCB temp: 48.6 °C
[2019-10-19 21:00:17.768] [mgr] Skin temp: 45.2 °C
[2019-10-19 21:01:17.951] [mgr] SOC temp: 53.8 °C
[2019-10-19 21:01:17.961] [mgr] PCB temp: 49.2 °C
[2019-10-19 21:01:17.969] [mgr] Skin temp: 45.4 °C
[2019-10-19 21:02:18.078] [mgr] SOC temp: 54.2 °C
[2019-10-19 21:02:18.086] [mgr] PCB temp: 50.1 °C
[2019-10-19 21:02:18.096] [mgr] Skin temp: 45.7 °C

I exchanged the thermal paste with Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut.
The copper plate and the aluminium plate are removed.
1,5mm "Thermal Grizzly Minus thermal Pads" are on Ram chips.
And 0.5mm Pads to connect the heatsink with the metal housing

probably another game is more suitable
but it was a first try.

 

[guily6669]

the back of the switch why not cut out a round part of the plastic the the fan has better intake it wil drop at least 10C
you can buy a dust filter ! thats what i did with my ps3 slim ,i dont have waranty so... that and the thermal paste would at least drop it 15C maybe ? i know my ps3 is stable at 40 degrees celcius in game / as you can see the shielding already has the hole ! so why not use it,is it possible to test temps with sx os ?

Some people already do that in their Switches... the old cooling mods videos on youtube shows on one of them that he bought a clear case and made a big hole near the fan intake, but sadly he didnt put a dust cover so I think his switch will eat dust like nuts all over inside, though what is important at leats the fan and the cooler at least he can even always clean it without even having to open the console by just touching the fan with 1 finger to prevent it from spinning and just spray air all over the place...

Mine feels warmer after the mod as well. But since the fans are also quieter than before, and don't seem to spin up as often, I'm inclined to believe that it's due to the increased thermal conductivity.

Yep more heat transfer, so the die should be cooler and the rest warmer...

However we have to be careful here is that by removing the copper crap sheet we have to make 100% sure the thermal paste covers the entire die and that 100% of the die makes full contact with the cooler plate because there could be hot spots and some cores might not get efficiently cooled...

I wish was that there was a custom inexpensive full copper thick cooler that would be cooler+back cover all in thick copper and with the exit fins all soldered with the pipes also soldered to the back full copper cover, it would probably even be enough to fully cool the switch portable without having to turn the fans ON, that would save even more battery.

sys-clk now supports temperature logs.
so we can compare values in games.

5Min in Tials Rising(heavy overclock) and the log time set to one minute (temp_log_interval_ms=60000)
looks like this on my Switch in original Nintendo Dock:

[2019-10-19 20:56:56.565] [mgr] TitleID change: 01003E800A102000
[2019-10-19 20:56:56.647] [mgr] CPU clock set : 1683.0 Mhz
[2019-10-19 20:56:56.681] [mgr] GPU clock set : 921.6 Mhz
[2019-10-19 20:57:17.294] [mgr] SOC temp: 42.8 °C
[2019-10-19 20:57:17.308] [mgr] PCB temp: 38.4 °C
[2019-10-19 20:57:17.320] [mgr] Skin temp: 38.9 °C
[2019-10-19 20:58:17.522] [mgr] SOC temp: 47.1 °C
[2019-10-19 20:58:17.533] [mgr] PCB temp: 41.3 °C
[2019-10-19 20:58:17.539] [mgr] Skin temp: 41.3 °C
[2019-10-19 20:59:17.560] [mgr] SOC temp: 52.0 °C
[2019-10-19 20:59:17.568] [mgr] PCB temp: 47.0 °C
[2019-10-19 20:59:17.576] [mgr] Skin temp: 44.4 °C
[2019-10-19 21:00:17.753] [mgr] SOC temp: 53.0 °C
[2019-10-19 21:00:17.764] [mgr] PCB temp: 48.6 °C
[2019-10-19 21:00:17.768] [mgr] Skin temp: 45.2 °C
[2019-10-19 21:01:17.951] [mgr] SOC temp: 53.8 °C
[2019-10-19 21:01:17.961] [mgr] PCB temp: 49.2 °C
[2019-10-19 21:01:17.969] [mgr] Skin temp: 45.4 °C
[2019-10-19 21:02:18.078] [mgr] SOC temp: 54.2 °C
[2019-10-19 21:02:18.086] [mgr] PCB temp: 50.1 °C
[2019-10-19 21:02:18.096] [mgr] Skin temp: 45.7 °C

...............

That's actually not looking any bad if the values are even any reliable...

Wish SX OS and Atmosphere would add the thermal+clock reports to the home menu like we would play any game, just go the the home menu where we can change the screen brightness and we could see all temps+clocks, that would be amazing and I can't wait till someone adds that...

 

[Msebastian]

I've taken apart my Switch to replace the thermal paste and add some thermal pads. There was paste under the copper pipe and under the copper shim above the CPU. After removing the heat shield from the RAM/CPU area, I discovered there was no paste under it. Should there have been paste there between the shield and RAM? From reading here, many have replaced it. If mine didn't have any, should I add it now? Should I bother putting the copper shim back?

 

[The Real Jdbye]

It actually feels like my switch gets warmer after doing this. That might be because of the increased thermal conductivity to the back metal panel, though.

Probably. Also you need to make sure you use quite a lot of thermal paste, because the heatpipe and the thing it's attached to isn't an even surface.

I've taken apart my Switch to replace the thermal paste and add some thermal pads. There was paste under the copper pipe and under the copper shim above the CPU. After removing the heat shield from the RAM/CPU area, I discovered there was no paste under it. Should there have been paste there between the shield and RAM? From reading here, many have replaced it. If mine didn't have any, should I add it now? Should I bother putting the copper shim back?

I don't think most people remove the electromagnetic shielding covering the SoC. But it sounds strange that there wouldn't be any thermal paste there. Not even a thermal pad?

 

[Msebastian]

I've seen videos where the shield isn't removed and read posts here to remove it because the thermal paste under is most likely not done right. To my surprise the RAM had no paste. I'd post a pic but need to post a couple more times.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

Probably. Also you need to make sure you use quite a lot of thermal paste, because the heatpipe and the thing it's attached to isn't an even surface.

I don't think most people remove the electromagnetic shielding covering the SoC. But it sounds strange that there wouldn't be any thermal paste there. Not even a thermal pad?

No paste and no thermal pads on the RAM. Very clean. I'd link a photo but I need to post more.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

I've seen videos where the shield isn't removed and read posts here to remove it because the thermal paste under is most likely not done right. To my surprise the RAM had no paste. I'd post a pic but need to post a couple more times.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------



No paste and no thermal pads on the RAM. Very clean. I'd link a photo but I need to post more.

The RAM probably doesn't need it, but the SoC?

 

[Msebastian]

The RAM probably doesn't need it, but the SoC?

I'm not sure what you mean by SoC. You mean the CPU? I've read one or two posts here of people putting paste on the RAM (though I may have read incorrectly).

 

[The Real Jdbye]

I'm not sure what you mean by SoC. You mean the CPU? I've read one or two posts here of people putting paste on the RAM (though I may have read incorrectly).

It's a SoC (System on Chip)

 

[Msebastian]

Oh, wait. I'm using the wrong terminology. The shield is the large piece of metal that covers the back of the switch (copper pipes etc). I also removed the metal covering the RAM chips to see what's under it.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

Just did this. Took off the copper shim, took off the I/O shield covering the RAM modules. Applied thermal paste, put it back on, cleaned and applied thermal paste to the CPU. Direct contact with the head sink pipe. Placed 1mm thermal pads over the RAM part of the shield. Put .5mm pad on the outer metal shell along the bottom half of where it contacts the pipe. And then put thermal paste along the pipe as well.
Took over two hours with my giant hands, and the factory wasn't kind to a couple screws, they were stripped a bit.

Will edit results once I finish transferring over everything to a new SD card. I play heavily modded skyrim at max OC. The switch sounds like a jet engine and gets fairly hot. Hoping this will help a bit!

After you removed the I/O covering, are you saying you applied paste to the RAM under the I/O shield?

 

[guily6669]

LOL, I think in all full switch disassembly videos it clearly shows RAM has no cooling on them... ppl who do a full custom cooling mods are the ones who add memory cooling...

It's not like its even necessary to cool the memories because they are not high frequency low latency memory that produce a lot of heat, even most PC GPU's with like GDDR5 don't have cooling on them...

However in my opinion the cooler it is the better, so when I will open my switch I will do a full cooling mod, I will try to cool the charging chip and video out chip too (most dead switches out there are mostly all the time a fault on either of those chips and its a pain in the ass to remove them and solder a new one even though they cost almost nothing, it needs to be done with a heat gun which I'm not comfortable, I only have the soldering iron), add thermal pads on the ram, remove the copper sheet and use direct contact from the die to the cooler using Kryonaut thermal paste, add a huge amount of Artic MX-4 all above the heatpipe for max heat transfer to the backplate and maybe even later I will think if I will order a custom back plastic transparent case and make a big hole near the fan for maximum airflow...

Since I don't use my switch I still haven't modded it, only modded the controller quite a few time ago with a ON\OFF button on the joy-con for RCM...

..................Will edit results once I finish transferring over everything to a new SD card. I play heavily modded skyrim at max OC. The switch sounds like a jet engine and gets fairly hot. Hoping this will help a bit!

Humm, from what "swutch" posted his consoles had nice temps at max OC, though maybe it was just Trials game that wasnt enough to produce a lot of heat, no idea... Hope he can test Skyrim too at full OC and post the temp results, but with the temps at max OC he shown at leat on trials the console shouldn't ever be jumbo jet loud...

I'd recommend you open the switch and verify the die if it made full 100% contact with the cooler plate as some cores might not be having good contact and might have hot spots, that is if your not too lazy like me ...

Or at least a few time from now if you decide to clean your switch definitely verify if the thermal paste applied to the SOC die really made nice full 100% contact with the cooler plate.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

LOL, I think in all full switch disassembly videos it clearly shows RAM has no cooling on them... ppl who do a full custom cooling mods are the ones who add memory cooling...

It's not like its even necessary to cool the memories because they are not high frequency low latency memory that produce a lot of heat, even most PC GPU's with like GDDR5 don't have cooling on them...

However in my opinion the cooler it is the better, so when I will open my switch I will do a full cooling mod, I will try to cool the charging chip and video out chip too (most dead switches out there are mostly all the time a fault on either of those chips and its a pain in the ass to remove them and solder a new one even though they cost almost nothing, it needs to be done with a heat gun which I'm not comfortable, I only have the soldering iron), add thermal pads on the ram, remove the copper sheet and use direct contact from the die to the cooler using Kryonaut thermal paste, add a huge amount of Artic MX-4 all above the heatpipe for max heat transfer to the backplate and maybe even later I will think if I will order a custom back plastic transparent case and make a big hole near the fan for maximum airflow...

Since I don't use my switch I still haven't modded it, only modded the controller quite a few time ago with a ON\OFF button on the joy-con for RCM...

Removing the copper heat spreader is probably a bad idea. It's there to make sure the entire surface of the chip is being cooled.

 

[guily6669]

Removing the copper heat spreader is probably a bad idea. It's there to make sure the entire surface of the chip is being cooled.

Yeah but bad idea is who designed that, it's just stupid going from die, thermal paste to a copper sheet that does nothing then another layer of thermal paste until it goes to the most efficient heat transfer point which is the part that will actually cool it... It only loses heating transfer efficiency...

By removing the copper sheet as long as the whole die makes perfect contact with the cooling plate it should always be a lot more efficient in cooling it, just like when intel decided to stop soldering the IC place above the die after their 2nd gen I3\I5\I7 lineup and then the 3rd and any newer gen after some point would loose like 20Cº by just removing the crap thermal paste and going liquid metal, but for extreme OC nothing goes as efficient as completely exposing the die and make direct contact from it to a proper cooler, however in Desktop CPU's they probably all now come with the cover so that ppl don't make too much force attaching coolers and cracking the die like it used to happen a damn long time ago when PC CPU's had the exposed die like in laptops...

Even by just sanding a bit a Desktop CPU copper cover the temps drop a bit since the most efficient cooling is a proper cooler and not the copper cover, so the thinner the cover the more efficient will be the heat transference to the cooler and the thicker the cover is, the more heat will be trapped there and the top of the cover will never have as much heat to transfer to the cooler than the part inside that makes contact with the die...

 

[Msebastian]

I have ended up putting back on the IR plate, artic paste on the SoC, direct contact to the copper pipe/heatsink. .5 thermal pad on top of the copper pipe. Also added 1.5 mm on the IR shield above the RAM. I tried 1.0 mm and it didn't touch the shield cover. Overclocked it and tried Witcher 3 60fps mod. Fans screams and lots of heat in the exhaust. Unplugged, everything quiets down, and plays cool at 30fps. I'm happy with the results.