Help safely applying liquid metal to my laptop? MSI GS63VR

I’ve always been hesitant with liquid metals.

In recent years, I’ve been using either Prolimatech PK-3, or Grizzly Kryonaut - both of which work great and won out against my previously used Noctua NT-H2 and Arctic MX-4. Noctua just released an updated NT-H2, which may be worth looking into.

As a general rule, I always replace the TIM in any laptop I acquire. The improved thermals generally allow for higher boost states for longer periods, which can be the equivalent performance of spending a couple hundred extra bucks to get that next step up in performance.

My liquid metal has lasted almost 2 years in my laptop, it’s fine.

I think this is the key. What happens if you LM a chip and put a old model stock intel cooler on it ? Not a hell of a lot more.

Laptops have limited cooling. If you use good quality thermal paste. The difference in performance vs risk make liquid metal not practical.

There is only X cooling capacity in a laptop. Whereas in a desktop you can go all the way to exotic cooling.

LM is meant to remove the bottleneck in the system which is TIM. It doesnt matter if you have a stock intel cooler or a custom loop. The name of the game is ΔT. The higher the better for the cooler. So you can either make the room cooler, or you can make the cooling solution hotter. Its the same idea behind lapping but easier to pull off correctly.

There is absolutely no doubt that LM provides better transfer on a poorly finished interface, or that LM helps even with a properly finished interface.

This thread is asking for help to “Safely apply liquid metal”, and considering the number of people being informed to use LM that have little to no experience with it and do not understand the dangers should be informed that a comparable result can be had with lapping and some quality thermal paste.

  • Lapping is mechanically far safer, the process occurs outside the laptop where there is no risk of getting metal particles inside the laptop causing shorts or damage.
  • It is far cheaper, LM is stupid expensive for what little benefit it gives over lapping.
  • A mistake in the lapping process simply messes up the heatsink which can be re-finished or replaced, a mistake with LM kills the entire laptop.
  • LM remains a liquid and is very hard to inspect under the heatsink without special equipment. An excess application of LM may cause a bead to squeeze out the edge and a jolt of the portable laptop may dislodge the bead landing it somewhere it shouldn’t go.
  • Reports of LM being involved in pitting the top of the CPU die, even if not directly the cause as mentioned above, such damage compromises the CPU in the long term.
  • LM can not be removed without sanding/lapping surfaces, at which point you’re back to square one.

In short, LM is expensive, unsafe, irreversible without sanding & lapping, and can not be guaranteed to stay where it should. If you understand these risks and still wish to use it, sure, go ahead, but you have been warned.

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Do labtops even come with IHS anymore? Pretty sure lapping would be useless in that case. Or are you referring to lapping the heatsink?

confirmed

Btw, someone who aparrently knows what they are doing.

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“s-sorry, it’s been awhile.”

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I successfully applied liquid metal with good results. But still have two problems.

First problems was that I had to apply what felt like a puddle of liquid metal. I started out applying a very small amount of LM, but temperatures were shooting up to 100 C just on boot.

I kept adding more LM tell I got proper contact and my temperatures dropped below any thermal paste.

Now I’m very concerned about leaking, but I can’t find anywhere to buy a foam to put around the cpu/gpu dies like you would find on the PS5 or LM laptops.

I don’t understand the negative talk of LM, LM is on the PS5 and 90% of all next generation laptops are coming with LM.

So generally speaking LM will be on almost all future tech so we should learn and understand how to work with LM.

Here is a solution I might have for keeping the LM sealed, but I’m worried about whether or not it’s anti-static.

foam

That should solve my leaking worry as long as the foam doesn’t stop the heatsink from making proper contact.

I already have MG Chemicals 422B applied as well as captain tape. The foam adhesive will be only touching the captain tape not the cpu/gpu dies.

Sony PS5 placed vertically may cause irreparable damage. Here’s how | Technology News,The Indian Express.

Sorry, but if even a multi billion $ company can’t do it right on their flagship product, what chance do you and I have?

Also the gains for using LM when you’re in a laptop are stupidly low. Laptops do not have heat issues because of the thermal compound, they have heat issues because of the confined space for a decent heat-sink/thermal solution.

Note, this may be a nice thing we will see soon in laptops: Solid State Active Cooling Could Revolutionize Thermals - YouTube

Do also note that there is already a better solution to LQM that AMD and Intel have been using for years, it’s called indium. It is soldered using it to the silicon to perfectly and completely thermally couple it to the heat-spreader where you now have a larger surface area to use a better and cheaper way of extracting the heat. (Ie, lapping surfaces flat)

So is your suggestion to remove LM from all devices? I have a vertical PS5, a lovelace laptop coming with LM and just applied LM to an old laptop for testing.

Do you recommend I open up all the devices remove LM and add thermal compound?

Rather then find ways to contain the LM for leaking?

Nope, my suggestion is to avoid using it in the first place as the risks and long time damage it can and does cause far outweigh the exceedingly minimal benefit it produces.

Nope, because you have now contaminated your silicon with LM and you will never get it clean. When it bonds to it like solder does to copper, it’s called “wetting”, and you will never remove it entirely without mechanical buffing. Seeing as LM remains a liquid, I am not sure you could even entirely remove it using that method.

As for the PS5, I am not stating to remove it, I am however pointing out that even when it has been “sealed” using methods that have been researched in a proper laboratory with a huge budget behind it, still is not perfect.

You are likely in your attempts to seal it end up destroying equipment which I am doubtful you have the budget to just destroy.

Well I doubt my budget will be an issue if your recommending not purchasing any products with LM. Because currently the markets isn’t selling any products I want without LM already applied.

I only use modern laptops which are all coming with LM already applied in this generation.

I suppose I’ll keep an eye out for lovelace laptops with thermal compound in-case LM destroys one of my laptops and I need a backup.

I guess your only recommendation is to keep my RTX 3070 laptop with thermal compound installed. In spite the fact that my rx 6600m laptop is now cooler, quieter and providing better cpu performance with LM.

When my lovelace laptop comes with LM, they’re won’t be any upgrades coming for 2 years and I probably have to wait 4 years for a 50% performance uplift over lovelace laptop.