My Experience - Full Thermal Overhaul & Fan Replacement
Hi! a month ago I made a post where I asked for advice on buying replacement fans (two broke) and removing liquid metal and using thermal pads like PTM7950. I'd like to share my experience in case anyone wants to do something similar. I've owned the laptop since 2022, and got the GPU repasted once in 2025.
Also disclaimer, this isn't a guide, else I would've included things like disconnecting the battery and so on.
From AliExpress I ordered the following, which took about 1-2 weeks to arrive to Europe:
- 3 non-OEM replacement fans from aliexpress (like 40 euro, great quality imo)
- Thermal putty UPSIREN UTP-X 20g (about 7 euro)
- Thermal Grizzly PhaseSheet PTM (13 euro, amazon.de)
For preparation I also bought an electrical fan blower and 2 syringes for the LM. I had some q tips laying around and 99% isopropyl alcohol.
The operation went quite smoothly in the beginning, it wasn't my first time opening the case to clean dust and fans; as I once accidentally broke parts of the fan casing, thankfully it still worked. Continuing, upon removal of the heatsink, I quickly noticed the bone dry thermal paste on the GPU, which was repasted about 10 months ago. Even worse, the LM on the CPU severely degraded with a burn-like dark grey spot in the middle. This is just oxidation though, so no worries.
I watched like a dozen of videos on removing LM and thought I was ready, well I was, but damn you need patience and time. After what seemed like hours, I proceeded with cleaning the thermal paste on the rest of the GPU and VRAM. That went quite easy. Eventually I cut the thermal pads to size and put them on both the CPU and GPU, along with the thermal putty on the other components. Replacing the half broken middle fan was super easy as you can imagine.
Eventually everything was put back together and the laptop started normally. Immediately noticed the temps are lower and fans don't have to spin as hard to maintain the same temps. I didn't stress test it immediately as I know it takes about 10+ cycles for the pads to settle and give more accurate readings, but those were just my initial observations.
Here's things you need to be aware of and what I would've done differently:
- THE CPU HAS A LITTLE GAP BETWEEN THE PROTECTIVE FILM AND DIE. This initially discouraged me a lot upon seeing, because there was LM inside the tiny gap which seriously took a long time to clean. I had the mold q-tips to get some cotton between it and pick up tiny LM beads.
- The plastic syringe I got from the pharmacy had too big of an opening to be useful. Fortunately I did manage to get 2 blobs inside it, but I had to make the blobs quite big.
- Don't use regular q-tips/cotton swabs, I know some people don't care but sometimes fibers did get loose, especially at the square foam part on the heatsink. It helped to submerge it in alcohol first.
- When opening the back cover or fidgeting with the battery, you have a small possibility of messing with the connection of the hall sensor. Which if even slightly moved, can cause black screen issues that will make you want to pull the hair out of your head. Another user posted about this 2 years ago and I want to refer to it just in case. This didn't happen to me now, but happened a year ago and took me a day to solve.
Feel free to ask about anything in detail. I hope this helps anyone considering doing this themselves, whether with the flow x16 or other laptops of similar magnitude.