What a garbage thermal paste is Acer using?

Daedronus

No, you do not loose the warranty, there are no warranty void stickers and even if there are in some parts of the world they mean nothing.

I'm willing to bet there was 99.9% nothing wrong with the motherboard, they just did not know what to do, so, let's shotgun it, change the whole thin. Can they even tell what exactly was wrong? A voltage regulator failed?

CPU heat dosn't care what the motherboad does, there are only 3 variables, the cpu voltage the load and the heatsink.

 

If something failed on the motherboard 99.999% of the time you won't see a hot cpu, you will see a dead computer/laptop.

ven98

Don't forget CPU and GPU are soldered to the mother board. And I am sure I had some other issue because I also had a buzzing noise coming out of somewhere and I doupt it was a loose transformer. Never mind I gave my laptop to Acer and now I am paying for my mistake(but who alse can fix it if not acer). 1 month without a laptop, 3rd time sending it back to them as they didn't fix the overheating problem. Actually it is worse than before and my laptop model is gx791 but what windows shows is g9791 and predator sense looks like the first g9 models. I don't understand how can Acer hire such uncompetent people calling themselves 'technicians',

Daedronus

There are no transformars but there are a lot of inductor coils, and they will buzzz if they are a bit loose, but that will not overheat the cpu, buzzz or no buzzz they will work the same.

A cpu that overheats has only 2 reasons, too much voltage or a bad heatsink.

ven98

They don't buzz but produce a high pitched noise. My problem was a buzzing noise that I could hear even when fans on max speed, meaning quite loud. Transformers, chokes(ballasts), they work on the same principal. But I am not sure what the problem was and it could be from anything.

Voidsteper

I doubt that this thread is still active but yikes I can not seem to find a definitive answer XD. Are some models free of warranty stickers, and therefore legally friendly to re-pasting, and some not? I live in the USA if that makes a difference. Thank you if anybody still follows this thread.

Red-Sand

I Voidsteper said:

I doubt that this thread is still active but yikes I can not seem to find a definitive answer XD. Are some models free of warranty stickers, and therefore legally friendly to re-pasting, and some not? I live in the USA if that makes a difference. Thank you if anybody still follows this thread.

I believe the first laptops released had the void sticker on them but after a large release and it was found that a lot of the laptops shipped without a HDD wire and bracket, Acer started releasing without the sticker so users could install it themselves. 
After they removed the sticker there is nothing to prevent *properly* opening the system to re paste since the warranty T&C only specifies warranty violations due to misuse or direct damage from opening the laptop. 

I got all of this information from the Level 2 department (Acers super sayian squad) in the USA. 

So as long as you damage NOTHING (even a stripped screw can be considered damage) and no harm comes from your actions then no warranty is void. 

As others have said it's better to let Acer do it if you have the means available to allow them to work on it. 

But if your in a bind and care is taken that will be fine as well (self paste).

Acers actually got a pretty reasonable team and I've found that asking/scheduling a meeting with the Level 2 department answers technical questions much better then contacting basic support. 

Hope this helps. 

ven98

There are no void stickers preventing you to open the laptop, as well as void stickers preventing you from swapping RAM and storage, but in some devices there are void stickers that prevent you from removing the heatsink.

Red-Sand

ven98 said:

There are no void stickers preventing you to open the laptop, as well as void stickers preventing you from swapping RAM and storage, but in some devices there are void stickers that prevent you from removing the heatsink.

Thats odd... I have a FB Helios group with about 1900 Helios owners and have never seen a sticker on the heatsink, only on the bottom of the laptop to prevent opening. 

ven98

It might depend on the country or the device itself. My predator(not helios 300) doesn't have void stickers preventing me from opening it, but there are void stickers on the heatsink's screws.

Red-Sand

ven98 said:

It might depend on the country or the device itself. My predator(not helios 300) doesn't have void stickers preventing me from opening it, but there are void stickers on the heatsink's screws.

Gotcha.. 

I have a G9-793 and a PH317-51 and neither have any stickers. 

ven98

I assume that if the laptop is from the US, it most likely won't have stickers, because of the customer protection law that they have(i think that is how it was called), which doesn't allow void stickers in electronics and even if there are void stickers they mean nothing. This law allows the customer to repair the product himself without voiding the warranty, but of course if the unit is damaged during the process or if a liquid metal paste is used, then this will most likely void the warranty.

Red-Sand

ven98 said:

I assume that if the laptop is from the US, it most likely won't have stickers, because of the customer protection law that they have(i think that is how it was called), which doesn't allow void stickers in electronics and even if there are void stickers they mean nothing. This law allows the customer to repair the product himself without voiding the warranty, but of course if the unit is damaged during the process or if a liquid metal paste is used, then this will most likely void the warranty.

!!!

That is very interesting indeed... I am going to look myself but do you have a reference link to that particular national consumer right? 

If you don't have it on hand don't sweat it I can research myself.. (I'm a big boy lol)

ven98

I don't have a reference link, but I believe that if you type in google search something like this 'warranty stickers illegal in usa', something should come up.

Red-Sand

ven98 said:

I don't have a reference link, but I believe that if you type in google search something like this 'warranty stickers illegal in usa', something should come up.

Thanks brother

ven98

You are welcome

EmperorBorg

After 2 years of intense use, my Acer Predator ended up sounding like a vacuum cleaner when doing anything CPU-intensive. When I checked, CPU was at 90C+ . It took about 15 minutes to open it up to change the thermal paste and clean the main vent. I used some good quality Thermaltake paste. After that was done, CPU was at 70C instead of 90+ in the same processing conditions and most of the time the notebook was again very silent.

So I guess the original paste degrades a lot over-time.

jcontreras

I bought a predator 17 G9-793-79V5 10 months ago, I always noticed higher Temps that online benchmarks said, I undervolt the CPU and that helped to Lower 5 degrees on the CPU, yesterday I decided to repaste the laptop, and what did I find?? A terrible application, the gpu had like 3 times the ammont necessary but at least had some paste on it, the CPU basically had all the paste around the chip and on the chip itself was nothing. Not really sure about the paste quality but I don't have any high hopes. After repasting with Artic paste I went from 90-94 on the CPU and 90 on the GPU to 78 on the CPU and 76 on the GPU whyle playing Sekiro at 1080p max settings. A huge difference. 

xapim

@ven98 i dont agree with your statement that opening the laptop will void the warranty (i already opened/fixed loads of laptops/desktops most of them still on warranty and some did went after as it was hardware issues and none was voided) if so how do you plan to upgrade the ssd without opening it contact acer support to upgrade it for you or pay an extra to the shop/seller where you bought it to upgrade it ? that makes no sense to me, it will only void the warranty if you have to break any seals that might have by doing it if you dont have any seals you are not voiding anything as there is nothing to void and regarding you were afraid of repasting as they might had found out when opening it 99% of the times they dont even open it they just do some tests and assume its hardware fault and replace it (the don't have time to be fiddling around with suppositions it works exactly as if you were going to a repair shop even if you know whats the issue they decide to replace it all to make u pay more which its not the case on warranty but works the same way the quickest way its always the easiest in these cases) and even if they would get the cooling out they would appreciate that u spent your good money on a good premium thermal paste

I can say i repasted mine in the first week i got it with kryonaut and dropped down 25+ (when i opened it brand new the thermal paste was rock solid so yeah the stock thermal paste is rubbish i recommend everyone who can and are able to without voiding the warranty to do it themselves as this will save time to everyone including less wasted time for acer support and more time for them to deal with more serious cases like hardware failure) also upgraded my ram to hyperx 32gb and replaced the ssd to a wd blue 2tb never had any issues after and this was already 1 year and one month ago

xapim

EmperorBorg said:

After 2 years of intense use, my Acer Predator ended up sounding like a vacuum cleaner when doing anything CPU-intensive. When I checked, CPU was at 90C+ . It took about 15 minutes to open it up to change the thermal paste and clean the main vent. I used some good quality Thermaltake paste. After that was done, CPU was at 70C instead of 90+ in the same processing conditions and most of the time the notebook was again very silent.

So I guess the original paste degrades a lot over-time.

Gaming laptops are recommended to be repasted/cleaned once per year if they have had constant intensive usage or when the user notice the temps starting to rise without any reason

xapim

ven98 said:

I don't have a reference link, but I believe that if you type in google search something like this 'warranty stickers illegal in usa', something should come up.

Here is the result of the warranty voided issue and it all comes up to what i had said above:

Are warranty void if removed stickers legal?
As we've reported before, it is ------- and illegal under federal law for electronics manufacturers to put “Warranty Void if Removed” stickers on their gadgets, and it's also illegal for companies to void your warranty if you fix your device yourself or via a third party.

And the US law states the following:

Under the 1975 Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act, which the commission cited in its letter, companies can't put repair restrictions on their products unless they provide the parts or services for free or receive a waiver from the FTC. Thomas B. Pahl, Acting Director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, said in a statement:

"Provisions that tie warranty coverage to the use of particular products or services harm both consumers who pay more for them as well as the small businesses who offer competing products and services."