Breathing Life into 12″ Touchscreen Laptop

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I used to use an HP tx2500 laptop. I gave that up to my husband to use after about a year, he used it for awhile, it promptly gave him trouble (while I had no trouble with it per se, mostly the trouble I had was VISTA, in my humble opinion.)

When I handed it off to my husband I fresh installed Windows 7 onto it. It seemed much better, in fact, the things I hated were gone. All new things cropped up over some time. BSOD’s and running hot … so it went on, I cautioned him about over-using it when he didn’t HAVE to, and such things to do to keep it cooler, blah, blah, blah.

At some point he got something else and the little laptop was now an extra one, and so I used it some, and put accounts on it for two of my children. It started getting worse at times, but not always. Eventually though, it had a graphics problem which was quick fix-able by pressing down on the keys all together above where the graphics on the motherboard is. It took the right touch, then would work after a re-start for days to hours, depending on ?.

I retired it, waiting to get more Artic Silver 5 and to think through what I could do and to basically FEEL like opening the laptop up.

I did do so last week. I took it all apart, looked at the motherboard, took the all in one assembled processor & heatsink and the graphic cover off, cleaned up the area with rubbing alcohol  then applied the AS5 and put the processor back on, and the soft sticky pad that goes over the graphic area. Screwed the whole thing down really tight. Put the laptop back together and the power was charging the battery, but the computer wouldn’t boot on at all. Realized that I hadn’t connected that one little thing … and had to unscrew and open up and connect … tried the boot up right then and there, and yes, it does work after all!

I have had to press on the graphic area a few times since, but hardly ever compared to before, and it’s not as “bad” of a messed up problem most of the time either.

It seems that others with similar laptops have “baked” the motherboard to re-glue the graphics to the motherboard. I couldn’t see any problem with that per-say, I mean, it needing that, if it’s evident from looking at it or not. All I know is that the laptop was so hot all the time before. It was so hot. The stuff that was on the processor before was really dry and flaky, so I’m sure it’s in a better state right now, good AS5 in there, not too much, not too little. It wasn’t dirty in there either. It was just old thermal grease and that’s it.

The graphics covered with the pad and then the heatsink, I just figured that having it as well press around it as possible plus the heatsink screwed in just tight enough was going to help.

The heat from the processor is so right next door to the graphics. I hate laptop design, in so many ways. Anyhow, just getting 5 years out of one is a feat, and I have done so with more than I want to count.

Sometime I may get a copper sheet to put over the processor, as in the penny fix, but with a sheet of copper instead. As it is, temps for the cores are in the high 30’s up to 42°c idle, going up higher with browsing, video skyrockets it, but that is steady into the 60’s at most. It hasn’t gone higher.

The processor is rated to go to 115°c … the laptop is performing alright for basic use in schooling for my children and usually the graphics problem crops up when turning the laptop on from on off state. So it’s not a problem that forces a shutdown really.

Time will tell.




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