HOWTO: T2010 disassembly and applying new thermal grease

I'm also anxious to hear from thrawn. Ever since I put in the new fan I've been using the thing plugged in a lot more and 90% of the time it never bothered me.

 

been pretty busy rencently, and the noise is getting intermittent. I am somewhat hesitant to screw with it while class is in session.

sorry guys, I'll see what I can do.

 

Today I also replaced my T2010 fan with the T4220 fan, just as Zunq did and recommended.

I removed the metal plate above the T4220 fan so that it looked similar to the T2010 fan in the end.

After I've replaced it and turned the tablet PC on I noticed a difference but thought that the difference isn't that huge and the upgrade was not really that necessary.

But after I've worked a bit with it I realized how much better the new fan really is now.

While working I barely hear the fan. While stressing the CPU the fan can get also loud but the noise is quieter than before and not that aggressive.
When the old fan sounded like a hairdryer then does the new fan sound like a river or a stronger wind.

At the moment I think it is quieter, the sound is more comfortable, it looks as if it is more often turned off, with low RPM it is much quieter, with high RPM it is not that much quieter but still quieter and I think it can also keep the CPU cooler with lower RPM because the new fan has 4 fins more than the old fan

Next week, when I'm at the university again I'll see if it is really quieter, because there I stressed the CPU sometimes, fan turned on and it was hearable, let's see how it is now

But thank you again zunq for this great tip.


While replacing the fan I had two other ideas:
1. I could use a Liquid metal pad instead of the Arctic silver thermal compound. But I'm afraid of damaging the CPU or Northbridge because it needs a "burn-in" and I don't think this is that easy on the T2010 because both CPU and GPU use the same heatsink and I also don't know how it is when I place it directly on the die. Any volunteers?

2. Below the keyboard, above the fan is a pad attached to the keyboard. Maybe it's there to reduce the flex. Because I don't really use the keyboard and I also don't think that the flex gets worse when I remove it intelligent I thought about removing it partially to increase the air flow which then reduces the temperatures, noise, ...

 

Good to hear it went well. I think the fan does help more when you're on battery, when the fan is on low-medium speed it's very quiet. In a library you will not ever be concerned about it. On AC the fan could to go all out at any moment, which you notice but it's more bearable than the old one. I wouldn't blame the fan, as much as the less efficient cooling system on the T2010 as compared to the T4220. I also have to thank you Frank for the disassembly as I never would have tried without your guide.

 

I've had the T2010 for about half a year now, and I've found that the fan problem has gotten worse and worse. The reviews don't seem to do the amazing fan noise justice; it's amazingly noticeable, especially in a small class in a really acoustically-happy room.

Since I wasn't that willing to shell out fifty dollars for a fan, I figured that trying the computer fanless wouldn't be a bad idea. The only problems so far (and it's been a day, mind you, so not a great sample size) are that on bootup, the thing'll error (but you can just push f2, I think)... and that it's just about as hot as normal, at least feeling-wise.

Monitoring the thing, it might peak at around 80 degrees Celsius at really intense things, but it idles at around 60 degrees on battery. I've got it on a dock when it's not on battery, and the dock has a fan, so it typically also idles 60-65 there too. If it weren't on a dock, I'm sure it'd get to around the 80 degrees mark. I know this isn't a great temperature to be around, but if it takes one or two years off a CPU life of five years, I don't mind...

I'm returning to Asia soon, so hopefully I can find a cheapish fan that at least works better than this one. I'll report back, hopefully, with success. But! For anyone else who's planning on running fanless because it's just that unbearable, it's very much possible, especially if you rarely hibernate/shutdown--no errors whatsoever!

 

@linj:
This would be too risky for me, especially when I stress the CPU I would be worried all the time. Not only because of the high CPU temperatures but also because of the then also high chip set temperatures and also because of the maybe too high system temperatures which will reduce the lifetime of the capacitors.

That's why I preferred the fan replacement, even if it was a bit expensive

fan replacement:
I replaced it a week ago and now tested the new fan all the time.
And all I can say is that the replacement is worth it. As zunq said the biggest noticeable difference is when the tablet PC is battery powered. It's really silent, even when it's in the convertible bump case and thus can get hotter. But it stays quiet.
I'm so happy that I did the fan replacement because now I don't have to worry about noise in the classrooms any longer.

When connected to the AC adapter it's still audible but not that loud and it's now like other quieter laptops.

But one thing is a bit strange. It seems as if the tablet runs about another 2 degree cooler than before. But I used the same thermal compound and after the first thermal compound replacement the temperatures dropped about 5 degrees already. Now another 2 additional degrees, just wow, that's a difference of 7 degrees. Maybe the fan is much more efficient, because I don't think that I applied the thermal compound better this time

My tablet gets better and better

 

This is good to hear. Does the fan still come on all the time in AC mode? Does setting "Battery/Balanced Mode" while on AC help?

 

It still runs all the time on AC, but it's quieter so it does not annoy me like the old fan did.

 

Yeah the cooling system on the T2010 is pretty lame. You'd think it would run cooler with that really loud fan. I had at one point both the T2010 and the HP 2710p. My 2710p would idle at 36-38C (and never pass 44C even with over 50% CPU load and at the maximum multiplier), and the fan would rarely turn on (and when it does, it's low RPM and quiet too). But the T2010 would idle at 46C and easily go into the upper 50s and 60s with just a little load.

 

Hi, thanks for the good job from Frank and zunq.

I have T2010 and I did all the job(changing thermal compound and the fan replacement) you mentioned in this thread. However, I do not feel it is quieter, the noise is louder now. Any suggestion? Thanks in advance.

Also, I do not feel that there is big difference between AC mode and battery mode about the Fan speed(noise). I use MSN to communciate most of time and I use the Dynamic background(first one, the clock). When I chat in MSN, the Fan starts loud and lounder, it is same as 2 modes. Do you have time to have a try?

However, I changed the thermal compound to the "Silver" one. The temperature on the notebook(keyboard) is lower indeed by my feeling.

BTW, how do you know the temperature of the CPU? Is there any software to get the temperature of the CPU and show it?