Issues after replacing thermal paste

[directorguy7]

Been doing this stuff on PCs and Laptops for decades with never an issue.

After putting battery in shipping mode I cleaned off APU and heatsink and applied Thermal Grizzly. Temps where in the mid 80c once a game gets up and running and the temps settle. Temps are now in high 70c to low 80c, so its running cooler.

Problem is after about 10 minutes in Sekiro, Deck suddenly shuts down, kept fan running for a little bit before turning off. Could turn it on, but nothing would show on screen, but fan and touchpads would work. A disconnect of battery fixed this.

Tried Sekiro again, same crash. This time waited a while after hitting power button and Deck did start. I think it knows it crashed hard and is doing something different from its "normal" startup. Deck does verify installation when it boots back up after these crashes as well. Confirmed no need to disconnect battery.

Tried Kingdom Come Deliverance to really push the hardware. Temps stayed in the high 70s low 80s. This time deck crashes and get checkerboard green square artifacts. Held power down to shut down, and was able to start back up. These artifacts really make me think the APUs GPU is actually overheating. Have not reapplied thermal paste yet, want to get opinions. Is it possible there could be a spot that just didn't set right when heatsink was reapplied that's overheating that the temp sensor is not catching?

Also, these don't feel like memory overheating, though I am curious about that. From what I can tell when I took the heatsink off is memory has no pads or anything to help with heat, and are just open air (technically relying on the fan to pull cool air over them, but still.)

I dont see how putting in battery shipping, and applying thermal paste could cause a software issue, so I dont think a total reimage to factory would do anything productive?

Also, any one know how to setup hardware logs to confirm temps or possibly deck is logging an error at crash?

[SpudzMackenzie]

you get what you deserve

[directorguy7]

Update. Turned it off and plugged in and walked away from like 30 minutes. Sekiro seems fine and have been running around kingdom come for 20 minutes at low end of 80c on CPU and GPU.

Maybe deck is more sensitive to paste having to "settle"? But not even sure that's a thing?

Covered fan to get things into 90c and still no issues.

Curious other experts opinions on this. Also reset bios but don't see how what I did would cause an issue a bios reset would fix, unless putting battery in ship mode makes the deck expect the bios to be set a certain way when it leaves that mode and was causing some weird hard crash issue.

[directorguy7]

Originally posted by SpudzMackenzie:

you get what you deserve

How so?

[PopinFRESH]

It sounds like you didn't get the battery out of storage mode originally.

[directorguy7]

Originally posted by PopinFRESH:

It sounds like you didn't get the battery out of storage mode originally.

Possibly? I did plug it in after putting it together and it started up. Maybe it had a blip on getting fully out of storage? Who knows. Will play around with it later night on a full battery and update post. Hope this resolved itself.

[Poison Dart Frag]

Originally posted by PopinFRESH:

It sounds like you didn't get the battery out of storage mode originally.

What does that mean?

[PopinFRESH]

Originally posted by Poison Dart Frag:

Originally posted by PopinFRESH:

It sounds like you didn't get the battery out of storage mode originally.

What does that mean?

It means exactly what I said? The OP put the battery into storage mode before replacing the thermal paste. Then had issues with it unexpectedly powering off after a short period of time,
https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/69E3-14AF-9764-4C28

[Poison Dart Frag]

Originally posted by PopinFRESH:

Originally posted by Poison Dart Frag:

What does that mean?

It means exactly what I said? The OP put the battery into storage mode before replacing the thermal paste. Then had issues with it unexpectedly powering off after a short period of time,
https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/69E3-14AF-9764-4C28

Oh, I didn't know that was a thing; I see...

[Rick]

I probably wouldn't have bothered messing with the thermal compound that early in the products life. Don't get me wrong, I use aftermarket compound when installing a new CPU on a new motherboard, rather than using the included stuff. It may indeed work a bit better, but its a marginal difference and the system is still working within its expected temperature. It seems like a risky procedure for something pre-built like the steam deck, and the existing compound would not have dried out already in the few months since it was assembled. Its a handheld gaming device, not a high end machine you want to push the limits of to gain a few measly points in a benchmark. I wouldn't recommend anyone else try this unless its a few years old and your sure its suffering from a dried out thermal interface medium.

[Falkentyne]

Originally posted by directorguy7:

Been doing this stuff on PCs and Laptops for decades with never an issue.

After putting battery in shipping mode I cleaned off APU and heatsink and applied Thermal Grizzly. Temps where in the mid 80c once a game gets up and running and the temps settle. Temps are now in high 70c to low 80c, so its running cooler.

Problem is after about 10 minutes in Sekiro, Deck suddenly shuts down, kept fan running for a little bit before turning off. Could turn it on, but nothing would show on screen, but fan and touchpads would work. A disconnect of battery fixed this.

Tried Sekiro again, same crash. This time waited a while after hitting power button and Deck did start. I think it knows it crashed hard and is doing something different from its "normal" startup. Deck does verify installation when it boots back up after these crashes as well. Confirmed no need to disconnect battery.

Tried Kingdom Come Deliverance to really push the hardware. Temps stayed in the high 70s low 80s. This time deck crashes and get checkerboard green square artifacts. Held power down to shut down, and was able to start back up. These artifacts really make me think the APUs GPU is actually overheating. Have not reapplied thermal paste yet, want to get opinions. Is it possible there could be a spot that just didn't set right when heatsink was reapplied that's overheating that the temp sensor is not catching?

Also, these don't feel like memory overheating, though I am curious about that. From what I can tell when I took the heatsink off is memory has no pads or anything to help with heat, and are just open air (technically relying on the fan to pull cool air over them, but still.)

I dont see how putting in battery shipping, and applying thermal paste could cause a software issue, so I dont think a total reimage to factory would do anything productive?

Also, any one know how to setup hardware logs to confirm temps or possibly deck is logging an error at crash?

Can you please explain *WHAT* Thermal grizzly *PRODUCT* you used?
Thermal grizzly is NOT a thermal paste! It's a company. you don't put a company on an APU chip.

Please clarify EXACTLY what you used. Because thermal grizzly makes several products. Some which are NOT safe to use unless you know EXACTLY what you're doing!

Please don't tell me you used Conductonaut and then you called that a "thermal paste"...

[Poison Dart Frag]

Is that the metal based one that can cause shorts if it drips or smears in the wrong spot?

[MJ711]

Originally posted by Falkentyne:

Originally posted by directorguy7:

Been doing this stuff on PCs and Laptops for decades with never an issue.

After putting battery in shipping mode I cleaned off APU and heatsink and applied Thermal Grizzly. Temps where in the mid 80c once a game gets up and running and the temps settle. Temps are now in high 70c to low 80c, so its running cooler.

Problem is after about 10 minutes in Sekiro, Deck suddenly shuts down, kept fan running for a little bit before turning off. Could turn it on, but nothing would show on screen, but fan and touchpads would work. A disconnect of battery fixed this.

Tried Sekiro again, same crash. This time waited a while after hitting power button and Deck did start. I think it knows it crashed hard and is doing something different from its "normal" startup. Deck does verify installation when it boots back up after these crashes as well. Confirmed no need to disconnect battery.

Tried Kingdom Come Deliverance to really push the hardware. Temps stayed in the high 70s low 80s. This time deck crashes and get checkerboard green square artifacts. Held power down to shut down, and was able to start back up. These artifacts really make me think the APUs GPU is actually overheating. Have not reapplied thermal paste yet, want to get opinions. Is it possible there could be a spot that just didn't set right when heatsink was reapplied that's overheating that the temp sensor is not catching?

Also, these don't feel like memory overheating, though I am curious about that. From what I can tell when I took the heatsink off is memory has no pads or anything to help with heat, and are just open air (technically relying on the fan to pull cool air over them, but still.)

I dont see how putting in battery shipping, and applying thermal paste could cause a software issue, so I dont think a total reimage to factory would do anything productive?

Also, any one know how to setup hardware logs to confirm temps or possibly deck is logging an error at crash?

Can you please explain *WHAT* Thermal grizzly *PRODUCT* you used?
Thermal grizzly is NOT a thermal paste! It's a company. you don't put a company on an APU chip.

Please clarify EXACTLY what you used. Because thermal grizzly makes several products. Some which are NOT safe to use unless you know EXACTLY what you're doing!

Please don't tell me you used Conductonaut and then you called that a "thermal paste"...

this!
What did you use???

[directorguy7]

Originally posted by Rick:

I probably wouldn't have bothered messing with the thermal compound that early in the products life. Don't get me wrong, I use aftermarket compound when installing a new CPU on a new motherboard, rather than using the included stuff. It may indeed work a bit better, but its a marginal difference and the system is still working within its expected temperature. It seems like a risky procedure for something pre-built like the steam deck, and the existing compound would not have dried out already in the few months since it was assembled. Its a handheld gaming device, not a high end machine you want to push the limits of to gain a few measly points in a benchmark. I wouldn't recommend anyone else try this unless its a few years old and your sure its suffering from a dried out thermal interface medium.

True. On a normal PC, I'll be thermal pasting that ♥♥♥♥♥ all night. Consoles like these though my stress level goes way up. I never would have done it if not for the great vids and really just how easy it actually is to take apart. I did my Xbox One X a few years ago and that took way longer just from how hard it is to take apart.

I will say after doing this battery life on the same game (Sekiro) is about 30 mins longer give or take.

[directorguy7]

Originally posted by Falkentyne:

Originally posted by directorguy7:

Been doing this stuff on PCs and Laptops for decades with never an issue.

After putting battery in shipping mode I cleaned off APU and heatsink and applied Thermal Grizzly. Temps where in the mid 80c once a game gets up and running and the temps settle. Temps are now in high 70c to low 80c, so its running cooler.

Problem is after about 10 minutes in Sekiro, Deck suddenly shuts down, kept fan running for a little bit before turning off. Could turn it on, but nothing would show on screen, but fan and touchpads would work. A disconnect of battery fixed this.

Tried Sekiro again, same crash. This time waited a while after hitting power button and Deck did start. I think it knows it crashed hard and is doing something different from its "normal" startup. Deck does verify installation when it boots back up after these crashes as well. Confirmed no need to disconnect battery.

Tried Kingdom Come Deliverance to really push the hardware. Temps stayed in the high 70s low 80s. This time deck crashes and get checkerboard green square artifacts. Held power down to shut down, and was able to start back up. These artifacts really make me think the APUs GPU is actually overheating. Have not reapplied thermal paste yet, want to get opinions. Is it possible there could be a spot that just didn't set right when heatsink was reapplied that's overheating that the temp sensor is not catching?

Also, these don't feel like memory overheating, though I am curious about that. From what I can tell when I took the heatsink off is memory has no pads or anything to help with heat, and are just open air (technically relying on the fan to pull cool air over them, but still.)

I dont see how putting in battery shipping, and applying thermal paste could cause a software issue, so I dont think a total reimage to factory would do anything productive?

Also, any one know how to setup hardware logs to confirm temps or possibly deck is logging an error at crash?

Can you please explain *WHAT* Thermal grizzly *PRODUCT* you used?
Thermal grizzly is NOT a thermal paste! It's a company. you don't put a company on an APU chip.

Please clarify EXACTLY what you used. Because thermal grizzly makes several products. Some which are NOT safe to use unless you know EXACTLY what you're doing!

Please don't tell me you used Conductonaut and then you called that a "thermal paste"...

Lol good questions and good point. Its their Kryonaut product. Hell naw am I messing with liquid metal conductive stuff on a console still in warranty on a chip the size of a fingernail.

Another update, no issues at all still after resetting BIOS.

[IronicLyricist]

Id used a graphite pad when i built my pc.. its 11$ on amazon for a 30mm² pad n it works rather well