Hardware Exchanging thermal paste?
- Thread starter Clydefrosch
- Start date
- Views 118,572
- Replies 343
- Likes 3
But the best is really the SOC built-in temperature sensor, hope with CFW later we can access temps.
I have a PC very thin thermal probe too, but there's a video on YouTube with that and shows a huge difference but I don't know if they even changed the thermal compound, I think it was other cooling mod like modifying a piece of plastic and he had a thermal probe attached to switch cooler inside.
I also have a laser thermometer, but can only use it for exiting air temps max was around 40 something C° portable but the weather was a lot cooler than now.
I have a PC very thin thermal probe too, but there's a video on YouTube with that and shows a huge difference but I don't know if they even changed the thermal compound, I think it was other cooling mod like modifying a piece of plastic and he had a thermal probe attached to switch cooler inside.
I also have a laser thermometer, but can only use it for exiting air temps max was around 40 something C° portable but the weather was a lot cooler than now.
Last edited by guily6669,
your right its not metal its actually a liquid alloy is called "galinstan" - the mix used for "liquid metal" thermal paste's is a proprietary ratio of gallium, indium, tin, and other metals.
but its alot easier to market Liquid Metal ™ compaired to galinstan or liquid alloy containing gallium, indium, tin, and other metals.
that said most plebs will watch youtube videos on its application and know how quickly it will come out.
i typically put some in a dish and then toothpick a bead over to where its needed.
that said, it is a bad idea to use it for the switch, its best used on desktops as they dont move around alot and there is less likely to be a containment breach causing a short, that is what i would worry about the plebs having happen especially considering a switch moves around a lot more then even a laptop it feels like unnessary risk.
if any of you are still not conviced to avoid Liquid Metal for the switch at least buy a proper Conformal Coating for the barrier rather then using clear nail polish or heaven forbid electrical tape.
Ok reopened her:
No apparent damage to the sink at all. At first I was concerned about some dicoloration you may notice if you look close. I thought it may be the start of some damage. However I compared it to pictures I took of the sink pre-mod (you can see it in an earlier post) and the exact same discoloration is there.
You can see in the second image that there was some migration of the liquid metal. My family of five children went on vacation this week and the Switch had a lot of heavy, rough usage; so the migration is not a surprise. When I did the mod I was liberal with acrylic conformal coating and am not worried about the migration, though I think it is important to note.
Everything put together again and works great. I did put a little more liquid metal and thermal paste.
I was concerned that maybe I hadn't given the liquid metal long enough to damage the sink if it was going to. So I conducted a small experiment. After I cleaned off the sink from my re-open and saw no damage, I got a small peace of aluminum foil and put the same liquid metal I used in the Switch on the foil:
When I finished closing the Switch and had taken the pictures for this post I checked it:
I was stunned at how quickly the reaction happened how how badly damaged the aluminum was. Emphasizing that I am just an user and not an expert, and that my experiments on cooling effect and damage are far from scientific, I am quite confident with this mod.
It does not appear that the liquid metal damages the sink (which would mean it isn't aluminum) and the cooling effect is drastic enough to warrant the mod, in my opinion.
No apparent damage to the sink at all. At first I was concerned about some dicoloration you may notice if you look close. I thought it may be the start of some damage. However I compared it to pictures I took of the sink pre-mod (you can see it in an earlier post) and the exact same discoloration is there.
You can see in the second image that there was some migration of the liquid metal. My family of five children went on vacation this week and the Switch had a lot of heavy, rough usage; so the migration is not a surprise. When I did the mod I was liberal with acrylic conformal coating and am not worried about the migration, though I think it is important to note.
Everything put together again and works great. I did put a little more liquid metal and thermal paste.
I was concerned that maybe I hadn't given the liquid metal long enough to damage the sink if it was going to. So I conducted a small experiment. After I cleaned off the sink from my re-open and saw no damage, I got a small peace of aluminum foil and put the same liquid metal I used in the Switch on the foil:
When I finished closing the Switch and had taken the pictures for this post I checked it:
I was stunned at how quickly the reaction happened how how badly damaged the aluminum was. Emphasizing that I am just an user and not an expert, and that my experiments on cooling effect and damage are far from scientific, I am quite confident with this mod.
It does not appear that the liquid metal damages the sink (which would mean it isn't aluminum) and the cooling effect is drastic enough to warrant the mod, in my opinion.
Last edited by Michael Morsette,
While I was at it today I also did a quick dock mod. Bought this off eBay (picture is from the eBay post)
Here a couple shots of me dropping it in:
This drastically lowers the temp of the airflow going into the back right vent. There are some YouTube vids you can find with a simple search on it if you want for info.
My only concern with this mod is that it directs airflow away from the dock's electronics (that is how it makes the air cooler). I assume that Nintendo designed it this way on purpose to cool the dock electronics. I prefer to keep the Switch cooler even if it risks overheating the dock's board. Just be aware if you also want to try it.
Here a couple shots of me dropping it in:
This drastically lowers the temp of the airflow going into the back right vent. There are some YouTube vids you can find with a simple search on it if you want for info.
My only concern with this mod is that it directs airflow away from the dock's electronics (that is how it makes the air cooler). I assume that Nintendo designed it this way on purpose to cool the dock electronics. I prefer to keep the Switch cooler even if it risks overheating the dock's board. Just be aware if you also want to try it.
Last edited by Michael Morsette,
i redid the thermal paste today. theres a HUGE difference in temperature change. it doest get warm at all in handheld mode and the fan is basically silent. the only thing that bothered me was how weak the screws are, they felt like they were almost gonna get stripped immediately BUT DIDNT.
Screws were a big pain the first time. In fact I stripped the head on two of the screws pretty bad. I replaced them with screws from my other Switch. Part of my problem was I was using low quality drivers, use good quality tools and you'll have fewer issues.
Nice, thank you for the info, so its not aluminum... If it was aluminum it would completely be destroyed in just a few hours or so...
There's a nice video on youtube of someone pouring liquid metal on the crap intel stock cooler and then breaking all the metal with the fingers without even doing any strength.
There's a nice video on youtube of someone pouring liquid metal on the crap intel stock cooler and then breaking all the metal with the fingers without even doing any strength.
Mine gets warm with Mario kart, warmer with Odyssey, and then with Rocket league (playing handheld) it turns into a nuclear reactor.
Awesome, I'm gonna pop mine open soon to do this when I get a chance.
[After replacing the paste and adding some thermal pads here and there around the heat pipe, I notice that heat is MUCH more spread across the silver backplate, and it doesn't reach that "hot to the touch" feel I used to get. But still doesn't remove framedrops in BOTW.
[After replacing the paste and adding some thermal pads here and there around the heat pipe, I notice that heat is MUCH more spread across the silver backplate, and it doesn't reach that "hot to the touch" feel I used to get. But still doesn't remove framedrops in BOTW.
Last edited by RayD97,
I bought a switch a couple days ago, and with games such as mario kart 8 deluxe + online, or warframe (since it goes online by default), it becomes quite hot when docked. Easily over 60 ℃
it is a Nintendo Switch with grey joycons.
So I also replaced the thermal paste, in my opinion the default one was quite low quality. I used Arctic Silver as well. (the one that goes through cure period).
Good thing Warframe allows some GPU settings to be tweaked so it indeed causes the switch to become quite hot.
And yeah it was so easy, it took me like 25 minutes overall
Last edited by Coto,
Used some Thermal Grizzly pads + Kryonaut paste with some pretty stellar results.
I removed the copper sheet from the IR shield covering the SoC and then pasted the die with the copper plate on the pipe. I padded the RAM with 0.5mm thick pads to the IR shield, then pasted the pipe to the outer shield, and padded the area where the RAM was to the shield with 1mm (I actually stacked 2 0.5mm together, because I only had 0.5mm)
You could probably remove the IR shield that goes over the SoC with no noticable adverse effect, but I decided not to for religious reasons.
Ultimately though it had some pretty impressive effects on the thermals, and I'd happily start wars over saying Thermal Grizzly is the best stuff you can get for any device.
I removed the copper sheet from the IR shield covering the SoC and then pasted the die with the copper plate on the pipe. I padded the RAM with 0.5mm thick pads to the IR shield, then pasted the pipe to the outer shield, and padded the area where the RAM was to the shield with 1mm (I actually stacked 2 0.5mm together, because I only had 0.5mm)
You could probably remove the IR shield that goes over the SoC with no noticable adverse effect, but I decided not to for religious reasons.
Ultimately though it had some pretty impressive effects on the thermals, and I'd happily start wars over saying Thermal Grizzly is the best stuff you can get for any device.
i have it now testet with kyronaut on the SOC and the temps was better,but it wasn good enough for me specially with oc.
now i have applied the conductonaut on the soc, and a pad 0,5 with kyronaut on bot sides for the ram, and i have sure used 1/4 from the big mk4 paste to get sure conductonaut do not dmg anything.
and now i can play setsuna with 1224/768/1600 in handheld with official charger and the fan spin not mutch and the switch is only a little warm.
thx
now i have applied the conductonaut on the soc, and a pad 0,5 with kyronaut on bot sides for the ram, and i have sure used 1/4 from the big mk4 paste to get sure conductonaut do not dmg anything.
and now i can play setsuna with 1224/768/1600 in handheld with official charger and the fan spin not mutch and the switch is only a little warm.
thx
Last edited by NuadaXXX,
Just an update on the liquid metal mod I did. It has been some months now and everything still works great. System stays cool with the fan not even noticeable even overclocked. If you comfortable doing this kind of thing I highly recommend it.
Good info, you were the one that risked for all of us using liquid metal without the copper sheet and found out the block is not aluminium or you would be dusted screwed .
Anyway I have a lot of Artic MX-4, but I'm going to order Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut for my PC GPU and my Nintendo Switch SOC die then just throw a huge amount of MX-4 above the copper pipe that goes to the metal plate, however since Kryonaut is a more recent thermal paste I don't really know if it will last in good condition like the Artic MX-4. I will use Artic MX-4 on my PS4 Pro as its not cracked and I can't do anything with it so MX-4 is already a HUGE improvement over the original crap...
I'm not going liquid metal on mine.
.Anyway I have a lot of Artic MX-4, but I'm going to order Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut for my PC GPU and my Nintendo Switch SOC die then just throw a huge amount of MX-4 above the copper pipe that goes to the metal plate, however since Kryonaut is a more recent thermal paste I don't really know if it will last in good condition like the Artic MX-4. I will use Artic MX-4 on my PS4 Pro as its not cracked and I can't do anything with it so MX-4 is already a HUGE improvement over the original crap...
I'm not going liquid metal on mine.
Last edited by guily6669,
There is videos on youtube for many time already showing all the mods and Michael posted pic of the liquid metal already after like days or weeks of using to see how it looked...
You can just remove the copper sheet inside and use direct thermal paste to the cooler contact plate, just make sure you put enough thermal paste, then some thermal pads above the ram chips that are below the metal plate which you can remove and then put it back, just push it up with like a knife on the sides... And then more thermal pads above that metal plate above the ram chips so it touches the back metal cover for even higher cooling efficiency. And you can throw a huge amount of thermal paste above the cooler copper pipe to make even more contact with the backplate...
Here it shows only some pics, but there are other videos showing the whole process, but this gives you an idea...
You can just remove the copper sheet inside and use direct thermal paste to the cooler contact plate, just make sure you put enough thermal paste, then some thermal pads above the ram chips that are below the metal plate which you can remove and then put it back, just push it up with like a knife on the sides... And then more thermal pads above that metal plate above the ram chips so it touches the back metal cover for even higher cooling efficiency. And you can throw a huge amount of thermal paste above the cooler copper pipe to make even more contact with the backplate...
Here it shows only some pics, but there are other videos showing the whole process, but this gives you an idea...
- No one is chatting at the moment.
