Laptop not appliance
This time it is not about appliances! It was my Alienware laptop that needed service. I’m talking specifically of Alienware 17 R2 and 17 R3 and possibly other models as well.
My Alienware 17 R3 was giving me trouble every time when I tried to launch a game. In my case these were VR games for my HTC Vive Headset. However, in regular use it was working perfectly fine. Even with heavy applications like SolidWorks, Photoshop and Photoshop Lightroom.
Complete tear down
This laptop survived for almost five years of heavy use, with pets in the household. It was time to do some major internal cleaning and thermal paste replacement on CPU and GPU. I found some useful video on youtube on how to disassemble my 17 R3 as I have never done it before. Here is a good step by step video.
I completely disassembled it. Cleaned all the fans with small brush and some compressed air and reapplied thermal compound. While I was disassembling I have noticed that Charging Port Connector Cable (you can see it in the video from 19:13 to 19:40) looked a bit burned. I did not have a replacement part on hand and I wasn’t even sure that this part was causing problems.
After assembling everything back together I did few tests. To my big disappointment, the moment I launched VR my laptop crashed. Whenever i try to fix anything first thing first I look for simple and obvious problems. Burned cable did fit that criteria. I found that cable over here.
Voila!
Few days later after I have received the part, I went through the long and boring disassembling process once again. Replaced that Charging Port Connector Cable, tested and voila! it worked like a charm! Laptop was running strong again.
Here is the compressed air duster that I have used.
And here is the thermal compound that I used.
Most of compressed air cans and thermal compounds will do the job just fine.
I hope that helps.
Happy fixing everybody.