Need advice on replacing the Battery and Thermal Paste on my Switch

Cyber Akuma · May 4, 2026

My launch-era switch's battery is starting to bulge a bit, so before it becomes a huge problem I decided to order a replacement battery kit from IFixIt, I was told though that since I am going to have to open it up to replace the battery I might as well replace the thermal paste too. (Also, to avoid confusing, my Switch isn't hacked)

My Switch has been running hot lately, and it's something I had been considering doing someday even before my battery went bad, so I figured might as well. I was just going to get some Noctua NT-H1 paste as that is my go-to "budget for good performance" paste since I am not looking to spend a lot on this, also I highly doubt the Switch would see any performance improvement from some crazy $50 tube of paste, but then I noticed that the Arctic Cooling MX-7 is pretty much the same price but performs better by a bit, so that's what I am planning to use (Assuming nobody here is aware of any reason I should not). However, when looking into how to do it there are two main things that I am unsure about after seeing several guides and videos.

First is the compound between the heatsink/pipe and the rear heat spreader/shield. When I looked at guides I saw it mentioned

"When you remove the shield plate, you’ll need to replace the thermal compound between the plate and the heatsink. Normal thermal paste isn't designed to bridge large gaps, so you'll need thermal putty or viscous thermal paste."

since apparently the material in that part is much thicker, I tried to look into this and got mixed results. Many people seemed to just use the same paste as every other part there, others were putting not pastes but a pad there. I am not sure what to do. Especially since that same guide that mentioned the issue also recommended K5 Pro, which when I looked it up on top of being expensive was apparently designed as a paste to replace thermal pads on GPU's RAM, and I have seen complaints from people that it leaves a greasy residue, is very hard to clean, made their temps go up, and in one instance boiled and made a mess all over the place. I really don't want to use this stuff if I don't have to, but I don't know if I should use something thicker than normal paste or if normal paste would be fine there too. Anyone have any experience with this one?

Second is the SoC's heat spreader. Half the guides I saw just ignored this step and didn't replace the paste there, the other half did, and I am very very nervous about doing it. You need to sort of bend the tabs on it to get it off, and it exposes the bare SoC, they even mentioned that you have to be very careful cleaning around it since there are very tiny surface mount components around it and if you tear one off your console is likely done. Can I just clean the paste off the actual die and not bother with the paste around it? Or would that be a bad idea? How would I even get it back ON if I have to bend it off? How important is it to replace the paste here or can I avoid this step?

zxr750j · May 4, 2026

I installed a few pico's and replaced it with artic mx4, Just clean it as good as you can, be a bit gentle around the little caps but if there's some left between the caps: don't bother, top of dye is the most important.. Do bend the tabs but you can just bend the tabs back no problems (they are tiny). It's definitely doable.

impeeza · 2026-08-06T16:53:57+0100

Mates, necrobumping here. I am getting a very hot erista console, so thinking on replace the thermal paste on my console.

I am going to buy some, which one do you recommend, MX 4 or MX 7? or another brand?

Thanks fellow tempers

BigOnYa · 2026-08-06T17:00:36+0100

impeeza said:
Mates, necrobumping here. I am getting a very hot erista console, so thinking on replace the thermal paste on my console.

I am going to buy some, which one do you recommend, MX 4 or MX 7? or another brand?

Thanks fellow tempers

I used MX 4 on my Erista last summer and it still working fine, staying cool, but MX 7 in theory would be better. If you decide to also replace the battery, the battery is glued down, so a tip I found that helped remove the battery without damage is running dental floss behind the battery to break the glue bond. Good luck.

impeeza · 2026-08-06T17:05:25+0100

BigOnYa said:
I used MX 4 on my Erista last summer and it still working fine, staying cool, but MX 7 in theory would be better. If you decide to also replace the battery, the battery is glued down, so a tip I found that helped remove the battery without damage is running dental floss behind the battery to break the glue bond. Good luck.

Perfect, I am wondering if the MX 7 worth the double of value.

also I need to pen the CPU cover to replace the internal paste? or replacing only the one between the exterior of the CPU case and the pipe is enough?

BigOnYa · 2026-08-06T17:10:08+0100

impeeza said:
Perfect, I am wondering if the MX 7 worth the double of value.

also I need to pen the CPU cover to replace the internal paste? or replacing only the one between the exterior of the CPU case and the pipe is enough?

I'd recommend doing both, once you get it apart, its not much more work to remove the heat pipe also, and will be better cooling in the long run. Its not that hard, just tedious. Take your time.
Edit: now I remember I used MX4 on the cpu, and I used K5 Pro thermal putty in between the heat shield and heat pipes. Sorry took me a minute to remember what I used. Good luck my friend. :grog:

impeeza · 2026-08-06T17:26:32+0100

BigOnYa said:
I'd recommend doing both, once you get it apart, its not much more work to remove the heat pipe also, and will be better cooling in the long run. Its not that hard, just tedious. Take your time.
Edit: now I remember I used MX4 on the cpu, and I used K5 Pro thermal putty in between the heat shield and heat pipes. Sorry took me a minute to remember what I used. Good luck my friend.

damn now the plot thickens! ha ha ha

Bigdrago · 2026-08-06T17:33:07+0100

I have had good experience with thermal Grizzly Duronaut, used it on pc, switch etc

impeeza · 2026-08-06T17:33:14+0100

The k5 is expensive!!!

but well, both K5 and MX 7 will be.

the K5 will work on my Radeon RX 580? so far is working cool but It will be old soon and never changed the thermal pads nor paste.

Cyber Akuma · 2026-08-06T18:31:45+0100

impeeza said:
Mates, necrobumping here. I am getting a very hot erista console, so thinking on replace the thermal paste on my console.

I am going to buy some, which one do you recommend, MX 4 or MX 7? or another brand?

Thanks fellow tempers

I used MX7 on mine, it's overkill honestly but it was like 1 dollar more than the MX4 so why not.

Just note that the paste that goes between the heatpipe and the metal back cover is a little different, it's more like thermal putty than paste. I just simply used MX7 on it anyway, and my Switch is working fine, but note that I screwed up a bit because if you get the Switch battery replacement KIT from iFixIt like I did instead of just the bare battery alone (Which is like a $4 difference) on top of coming with all the tools needed to open it and replace the battery, it also comes with a tube of that thermal putty (but not thermal PASTE to do a full repasting).

So if you are replacing the battery too, I would recommend getting iFixIt's battery kit and MX7, use the MX7 for the SoC (If you are willing to go that deep, I did, but I can get how some people might be nervous about it) and the part that goes below the heatpipe, and the thermal putty that comes with the battery kit for the location between the heatpipe and the metal backplate. (Also make good use of that alcohol eyedropper the kit also comes with to remove the old battery, really, removing the old battery was the hardest part of everything that I did, as well as the part that took 90% of my time. The alcohol helps.)

Don't bother with exotic super-expensive pastes, like I said, even the X7 I got was likely overkill and I only got it because it was about a dollar more than the Mx4 at the time, the Switch isn't some 12-core Super high-end 300 watt desktop CPU, you don't need insane high-thermal-conductivity paste for it. (And for the love of god, DO NOT USE LIQUID METAL if you are considering it)

IMO, DO NOT bother with that K5 thermal putty in place of what iFixIt would give you either, it's not only yet again overkill, AND expensive, but it's rather infamous for melting over and making an absolute MESS over everything that is impossible to clean. It's intended as a mod for high-end desktop GPUs anyway, it's yet again, massive overkill for a Switch. If you aren't getting the iFixIt battery kit then just use the same thermal paste for that area as you would use in the other two locations, you don't need to go all out with the paste or putty, and I would actively recommend against using K5 at all.

Need advice on replacing the Battery and Thermal Paste on my Switch

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