How to clean the cooling module in Acer Extensa 5230
In this post I will try to explain how to clean the cooling fan and heat sink in Acer Extensa 5230 series laptop, but it should also work for other similar models like 5630/5330z/5630z. The cooling fan can be accessed from the bottom of the laptop and cleaning procedure takes only about 15 minutes. As you will see below I will also use the opportunity to apply fresh thermal paste on the CPU.
CAUTION: Before you begin any of the following procedures, turn off the laptop , unplug the power adapter and remove the battery. Note that computer parts are very sensitive to static electricity so ground yourself before touching anything inside you computer by using grounding strap or touch a metal faucet pipe.
1. First you’ll have to remove 6 screws securing the plastic cover that covers some of the main components such as CPU, RAM module and WLAN card. See the picture below.
2. Disconnect the fan cable and remove 2 screws securing the cooling fan to the motherboard.
3. If the inside of the fan also needs to be cleaned, just remove 4 screws securing the metal cover to its body.
4. Now you can remove the heat sink, which is atached to the motherboard with 5 screws. Remove them and carefully lift the heeat sink up.
5. The next picture shows that heat sink is clogged with dust, stopping the air flow and causing overheating. As a result the laptop shuts down by itself when hot. To clean the heat ink you can use compressed air.
6. It is also important to check the thermal paste and if it looks dry to replace it with new.
7. If necessary remove old paste from the heat sink and CPU using a swab moistened with alcohol. Important: There are many very small chips located on the upper side of video chip, so be careful not to damage them when cleaning the chip. Here’s how they should look.
The following picture shows, that a thermal pad is used for conducting heat between the VGA chip and heat sink, but in my case, it looks old and easily breaks into pieces, which means that it also needs to be replaced.
Important: Do not remove thermal pad if it’s not really necessary. In most caces it can be reused.
If you currently do not have a thermal pad, you can replace it with a metal one. As you may have noticed thermal pads are made of soft thermal-conductive material intended to compensate the distance between the heat sink and the video chip in the cooling modules on some models of computers. Unfortunately thermal pads are harder to find on the market and if you need emergency replacement, then most likely you will have to look for alternative materials (as happened in my case ). Let’s see.
As mentioned earlier here I will show you how to replace the thermal pad with a metal one in oeder to restore the cooling process of your PC. Important: if you are not completely sure what to do, it would be better contact a specialist who can perform the repair. Otherwise the consequences could be fatal to your computer.
The first thing you need is a metal plate with an approximate size as the chip surface where the heatsink fits. The most important thing here is its thickness. To determine what thickness you need, take a sharp knife and carefully cut small part of the old thermal pad before you remove it from the heatsink. I missed that part because, as shown in the picture below, there is missing part of the thermal pad, which helps to easily determine its thickness.
Then apply a thin layer of thermal paste and carefully put the metal plate on the chip. It must be placed very precisely in order to avoid any contact with the microchips located around. Otherwise the video chip will most likely be damaged.
Apply another layer of thermal paste, but this time on top of the metal plate. Now you are ready to mount the heatsink back.
Finally, if everything is passed normally, start the computer and check the temperatures, using programs like Speedfan. In addition I can say that after the operation described above, I tested the computer and in normal operating mode (surfing the internet and watching movies) the temperatures did not exceeded 55 degrees.