Acer Swift 3 SF314-52 Thermal Paste

Hello, I have an Acer Swift 3 SF314-52. It's been a while since I have this laptop and lately I've seen it's getting hotter than usual. I have some technical expertise, so I disassembled the machine and found what looks like an aluminum plate over where the CPU and RAM chips are. I removed a couple of screws and the metal clips and removed the plate. Under it is the CPU heatsink over a i3-7100u and the RAM chips. I have two questions:

1. The thermal paste only covers the big die on the right. Does it have to cover both die (there is a smaller one on the left, I suppose it's the iGPU)??

2. And, as for the RAM chips, could I use thermal pads to better their heat dissipation and reduce wear?? (There is a black material on the bottom of the aluminum plate and a thin type of metal glued to the top if the plate, maybe that helps with the heat, I really don't know.)

Thread was edited to add model name to the title

Accepted answers

StevenGen

GasparB123 said:

Hello, I have an Acer Swift 3 SF314-52. It's been a while since I have this laptop and lately I've seen it's getting hotter than usual. I have some technical expertise, so I disassembled the machine and found what looks like an aluminum plate over where the CPU and RAM chips are. I removed a couple of screws and the metal clips and removed the plate. Under it is the CPU heatsink over a i3-7100u and the RAM chips. I have two questions:

1. The thermal paste only covers the big die on the right. Does it have to cover both die (there is a smaller one on the left, I suppose it's the iGPU)??

2. And, as for the RAM chips, could I use thermal pads to better their heat dissipation and reduce wear?? (There is a black material on the bottom of the aluminum plate and a thin type of metal glued to the top if the plate, maybe that helps with the heat, I really don't know.)

With the thermal paste get a good high grade paste like the "Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut Extreme" and use the "Pea Dot Method" in the centre (see caption below of what the CPU looks like after this application is done) as there should not be anymore paste than shown (even the shown paste amount is too much) in the caption on the CPU, as once you apply a minimal amount of paste 'the pea dot amount) the paste will spread once you secure the thermal module with its screws. With the memory don't add any thermal pads as the designed of the thermal materials used by Acer are adequate to cool the fixed and soldered memory onto the mobo, adding thermal pads will destroy this thermal design and cooling efficiency.

Swift 3 SF314-52 OEM CPU and paste amount once the thermal module is removed.

Image: https://us.v-cdn.net/6029997/uploads/editor/g2/d9gk4qhtjvqm.png

All comments

StevenGen

GasparB123 said:

Hello, I have an Acer Swift 3 SF314-52. It's been a while since I have this laptop and lately I've seen it's getting hotter than usual. I have some technical expertise, so I disassembled the machine and found what looks like an aluminum plate over where the CPU and RAM chips are. I removed a couple of screws and the metal clips and removed the plate. Under it is the CPU heatsink over a i3-7100u and the RAM chips. I have two questions:

1. The thermal paste only covers the big die on the right. Does it have to cover both die (there is a smaller one on the left, I suppose it's the iGPU)??

2. And, as for the RAM chips, could I use thermal pads to better their heat dissipation and reduce wear?? (There is a black material on the bottom of the aluminum plate and a thin type of metal glued to the top if the plate, maybe that helps with the heat, I really don't know.)

With the thermal paste get a good high grade paste like the "Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut Extreme" and use the "Pea Dot Method" in the centre (see caption below of what the CPU looks like after this application is done) as there should not be anymore paste than shown (even the shown paste amount is too much) in the caption on the CPU, as once you apply a minimal amount of paste 'the pea dot amount) the paste will spread once you secure the thermal module with its screws. With the memory don't add any thermal pads as the designed of the thermal materials used by Acer are adequate to cool the fixed and soldered memory onto the mobo, adding thermal pads will destroy this thermal design and cooling efficiency.

Swift 3 SF314-52 OEM CPU and paste amount once the thermal module is removed.

GasparB123

Thanks for the input, in the end I used some Artic MX-4 and was able to remove the tape and aluminum plate over the CPU and RAM chips. I was kinda scared beacause I thought it could be soldered to the board as well. Luckily that wasn't the case, and the maintenence went smoothly

Obviously I put the plate and tape back into place afterwards. Thanks for the help

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