I finally got myself a ‘new’ laptop – Lenovo Ideapad 5, model 14ARE05. I immediately noticed that under any load fans ramped up to nearly max, so it likely was overheating. Surely enough Tctl of the R7 4800U was 107°C! Now, this isn’t the temperature of the core, as the “Tctl” stands for T Control and has a positive offset from the actual core temperature. This is mainly used as a drive control for the fan. Still, core temperature was at ~80°C, so inspection was still in order. Without further ado, let’s jump right into it.
Disassembly was really easy – a few T5 screws and a few ribbon cables. I have one compain though – no RAM slots for easy upgradability or repairability.
Dirty, isn’t it?
While I was at it I noticed that the thermopads were unusually dry, so I decited to replace them with this Upsiren thermal putty. I have ordered it for a non-standard thermopad thicknesses, such as 0.7-0.8mm ones on 8800GTX (originally there were very, VERY squishy 1mm pads, but I haven’t found a suitable 1mm replacement so far), but since this stuff, in reviews, performs better than pads I decided to use it.
Noticed something wrong?
No?
Look at the antena cables.
Much better. Also, it’s not the cleanest ever, but it’s miles ahead of what it was before. How about temps though?
40°C difference on the Tctl. 40°C.
Core temperatures are also way better – about 10°C colder than before. If that doesn’t sound like much then keep in mind that the colder the CPU runs the less power it uses. It basically is free battery runtime extension.
Last thing – update the BIOS and use it for years to come.
Thanks for reading!