Modding the ASUS G72GX Laptop
It's been almost a month since my last update, which is a little too long. Being a full-time student, part-time worker, and husband takes a toll on you, especially towards the end of the semester. With only a month left in the semester, the finish line is almost there! In between studying I decided upon modding my new laptop I bought from Newegg.com - the ASUS G72GX laptop, which is a beast of a laptop for the price. Caution - modding the laptop will void the warranty (although if you buy the newegg version it's refurbished and doesn't have much of one).
The G72GX runs really hot with the GPU reaching temperatures up to and sometimes over 90C. The fan is extremely loud on the laptop as well, making taking notes in class a bit of an embarrassment while the Professor is lecturing. After reading about the cooling measures that were already provided with my G72GX, I decided on making a few of my own changes. I did run into a problem on the way though regarding the GPU cooling. If you do not have the tools to file down the GPU heatsink, then you will need to purchase copper shimmies to make the heatsink touch the GPU.
Starting off, there is a list of things you will need:
- Small Screwdriver
- Arctic Silver 5 (or another thermal paste - I find this one works well)
- Alcohol
- Cloth
- Something to spread the Arctic Silver 5 (I actually used a small piece of cardboard)
- Copper heatsinks for VGA memory (you can go aluminum like I did as well, but won't be as cool)
- Copper shimmies
The first thing that I did was to unscrew the back of the laptop where the GPU, CPU, and Hard drives are located. It is the largest panel, and has around eight small screws. Make sure to keep track of where your screws are! Upon taking this cover off, I then preceded to unscrew the CPU heatsink, which is connected to the fan, so both will come out together. Upon doing that I had to then remove the thermal pad that was on the heatsink using alcohol and the cloth. Do NOT use water. The picture below is the heatsink with the cooling pad removed.
At the same time I also removed the GPU heatsink and it was only held on by two screws. Place both heatsinks away from the laptop. After removing the heatsinks, it is time to put some Arctic Silver 5 on the CPU. With mobile processors, the part that conducts the heat is a lot smaller than desktop processors. What this means is use a TINY amount of AS5 and gently spread it over the entirety of the portion located on the picture.
After making sure that the top of the processor is now completely covered with AS5 you can put the CPU heatsink back on, shown here:
The next step is to put AS5 over all of the portions of the GPU that had cooling pads on them. Again, very liberally use the paste and make sure that the top is entirely covered. You can view the photo below to see where the AS5 was applied. If you cannot file off the extensions, this is also where you would put the copper shimmies in to make sure that the GPU and heatsinks are touching so that they can transfer the heat away from the GPU.
Place the GPU heatsink back on, making sure not to disturb the copper shimmies. Once the GPU is screwed in make sure that the heatsink is touching the shimmies, and the shimmies are touching the appropriate areas. After verifying that, we come to the last step.
Take your copper (or aluminum in my case) heatsinks and place them on the copper portions of the laptop that you can visually see. You can also place some on the GPU heatsink, but it is really negligible as to its effect. I just had some extras I threw on there for good measure.
After everything has been done, it is time to close up the back of the laptop. Once closed I started my computer, and here were the SpeedFan results:
While those are not indicative of actual temperatures, I have noticed a considerable cooling of both the GPU and CPU. My GPU has gone from idling at 59C to 49C, and my CPU has gone from 36C to 28C idling. Under full load my GPU has gone from 90C to 78C, and my CPU has gone from 50C to 39C. If you have any questions, please feel free to message me on twitter on the right side of the page, or leave a comment. Have a good week!






