[MOD] A700 Heat & a Viable Solution!!!

[Bek]

UPDATE:

I wish I'd done some temperature benchmarking beforehand, but instead sourced the community to help out. Check out the various results on XDA... there are also results from two TF700 owners (in Europe) who were gracious enough to help me out.

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?p=28051518

First, it seems clear that my mod really didn't mitigate the heat issue enough... so don't bother.

Second, comparing the numbers between other A700's and the TF700... well, I'll let you draw your own conclusion on that one. :-(

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Hi all,


As many of you have experienced, the A700 can get very hot under certain conditions. Mine got extremely hot to the touch after just an hour of gaming (Heavy Gunner, NFL Flick QB, and Cut the Rope), and crashed 2 or 3 times.


Well I decided to do something about it. Reading through the Service Guide (thank you paugustin!!!) & A700 teardown photos from another site, I came to some conclusions. First, from the looks of things, the back panel has some kind of metal plate lining, and 3 "pads" that closed the gap between the metal plate and several surfaces of the mainboard. My hope was that these pads were not simply foam pads but were actual thermal pads. I guessed that a bit of thermal paste might help the efficiency of those thermal pads... and if I got really ambitious, I could replace the thermal pads with larger ones (and paste those too).


Service Guide:
Acer A700 Service Guide - xda-developers


I followed the instructions in the Service Guide & opened up my A700 earlier tonight. I'm pleased to report that as long as you take your time, it's super easy to open up.


And lo and behold, my conclusions were accurate... the back plate is copper and the pads were thermal pads!


Back Plate:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/um556g6vtl7y99e/C360_2012-06-26-20-14-30.jpg


MainBoard:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/jka8gooiyqn9r2d/C360_2012-06-26-20-14-46.jpg


Closer Look @ the Thermal Pads:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/0j4e7wjfodwryk9/C360_2012-06-26-20-15-06.jpg




I took some CPU thermal paste I had lying around & dabbed some on:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/kvv99k3ghx73a00/C360_2012-06-26-20-17-24.jpg




Afterwards, I slapped everything back together, fired up NFL Flick QB and played for a half hour. I'm pleased to report that the A700 got warm but nowhere near as hot as it did in my prior gaming session. The "level of warmth" was what I'd consider mildly warm, comparable to my fiancee's iPad3, so definitely within reasonable tolerances.


I still intend to put the A700 through some more intense gaming tomorrow, but I wanted to write this post up and share it with everyone first. Hope folks find this useful and insightful!

 

[Greg_E]

That makes me think that somehow yours missed a step in manufacturing... Why would a company put heat sinks on a device and not add a little goop to carry the heat from chip to sink? If they don't want the mess there are plenty of non-goop transfer solutions used to conduct heat from chips and not ground them to the sink material. They cut efficiency a little but are still better than nothing, the rubber ones are probably best for this job. But goop reigns supreme and it's cheap.

 

[Bek]

That makes me think that somehow yours missed a step in manufacturing... Why would a company put heat sinks on a device and not add a little goop to carry the heat from chip to sink? If they don't want the mess there are plenty of non-goop transfer solutions used to conduct heat from chips and not ground them to the sink material. They cut efficiency a little but are still better than nothing, the rubber ones are probably best for this job. But goop reigns supreme and it's cheap.

One might think that, but looking at photos from both the Service Guide & another site's independent A510 teardown, neither showed any trace of thermal paste. The Service Guide also made no mention to their techs of using thermal paste when reassembling the A700. That leads me to believe that it was Acer's oversight as a whole.

 

[Angus66]

Be sure to update this thread with info as to how this mod is working!

 

[Icebike]

One might think that, but looking at photos from both the Service Guide & another site's independent A510 teardown, neither showed any trace of thermal paste. The Service Guide also made no mention to their techs of using thermal paste when reassembling the A700. That leads me to believe that it was Acer's oversight as a whole.

I doubt it is an oversight.

Thermal paste is old technology, left over from the 90s. I've never seen it in any modern tablet or phone. And I've opened more than a few and carefully read a zillion iFixit teardown articles. Most places are using fluxless solder for this purpose because it doesn't dry out. But nothing at all is is needed if the heat spreader plate is held in position by the case itself.





Sent from my HOX

 

[CalifRailroadGuy]

I doubt it is an oversight.

Thermal paste is old technology, left over from the 90s.

It's FAR from old or left over in the desktop world, where did you hear it was old and out of date? Try cooling a CPU or GPU without it.

 

[Icebike]

Not only have i tried, but I've done it quite successfully. Thermal paste is a kluge, a fix for poorly manufactured heat sinks that didn't fit well.

It's being engineered out of modern designs because it dries out, and becomes brittle and then things start mysteriously overheating. And it's just about the last thing anyone would think about in a service call.

Its just not used much anymore, and never in portable devices.



Sent from my HOX

 

[diiorio]

CHeap thermal paste becomes brittle, not good paste.

My pc runs at 24-27c in idle and is liquid cooled, without thermal, even with buffing, you are going to run hot.

THermal paste should be a thin, sheer layer, not goopy in any way.

If in a year or so you pull off your cpu cooler and the paste is ddry and seprates, time to spend the extra money on decent paste that will stay soft and pliable.

 

[diiorio]

THen again half oof us pc nuts never have a pc more then a year becuase it is outdated hardware lol.