Just discovered a thermal pad trick from a Dell repair guide

I was working on a Dell Precision 7520 last night that kept thermal throttling even after fresh paste. Found a service bulletin that said to stack two 1mm thermal pads on the VRM instead of one 2mm pad. Tried it and the temps dropped 12C under load. Has anyone else run into this weird pad stacking fix?

2 comments

2 Comments

hall.quinn9h ago

Man that trick about stacking the 1mm pads instead of the single 2mm one is something I swear by now. I had a Dell 5520 that would hit 98C on the VRMs during renders and stacking two pads brought it down to around 82C after a few runs. The key is making sure the pads are squished evenly so you don't get air pockets between them. Did you notice any improvement in the memory temps too or was it just the VRM side that settled down?

jennifer_west4h ago

Gotta push back on this one a little. I tried stacking pads on an old HP and it actually made things worse for me, the heat had nowhere to go and it just baked the top pad until it turned into goo. Single thicker pads seem to transfer heat better in my experience, stacking just adds too many layers for the heat to fight through unless your clamping pressure is perfect.