What's wrong with this picture

[cwalex]

I was replacing the heatsink fan assembly in a toshiba netbook today for a customer because the fan had seized and here is a picture of the one I removed from the netbook. Can anyone see what is wrong with the picture?

[GeoffS]

It's too big ?

[cwalex]

It's too big ?

LOL 

I wanted it to be big enough to easily see the details. Sorry it is too big, I can resize it if people get annoyed by it.

[HardBoot]

That's not thermal tape on that heat pad...

[cwalex]

That's not thermal tape on that heat pad...

You got it! Some poor overworked assembler forgot to remove the tape before they fitted it. The poor little netbook has been cooking since new and the fan must have been running full pelt all the time, no wonder it seized.

[nitro2k01]

I wanted it to be big enough to easily see the details. Sorry it is too big, I can resize it if people get annoyed by it.

This wouldn't be a problem if this forum handled images better.
Click the image and you get the original size displayed. But you can't scroll to the right to see the whole image. Click the link and the image is forced to download instead of being shown in the browser.
The trick is to right click the image, not the link, and choose open link in new tab. Or, depending on your browser, middle click the image. (Chrome annoyingly treats a middle click like a left click if there's Javascript code attached to the link, such as the code that zooms in the image.)

[bullet308]

<grumble><grumble>...Friggin' Toshiba...<grumble><grumble>

[HardBoot]

That's not thermal tape on that heat pad...

You got it! Some poor overworked assembler forgot to remove the tape before they fitted it. The poor little netbook has been cooking since new and the fan must have been running full pelt all the time, no wonder it seized.

Electronics are plagued with bad assembly practises, if you want someone to push through a unit every second, you have to make it physically possible to run through so many with ease.
A simple automatic goop gun would have saved countless things from tape on the heatpads, too little, or far too much thermal paste.

It's funny seeing something with soo much thermal paste that it's causing electrical problems... thermal paste is generally slightly conductive and has quite a bit of capacitance.

[grumpydoc]

This wouldn't be a problem if this forum handled images better.

There are a couple of things you can do - one is that the [img] tag does allow width and height to be set - you say [img width=xxx height=xxx] which does at least allow one to select a smaller display size for large images.

[nitro2k01]

This wouldn't be a problem if this forum handled images better.

There are a couple of things you can do - one is that the [img] tag does allow width and height to be set - you say [img width=xxx height=xxx] which does at least allow one to select a smaller display size for large images.

This problem really only applies to images uploaded to the forum. If you're using an external host, you can just paste the link below the image, and clicking it won't have the force download problem. Setting a fixed width is no real solution either, since not everybody's display size is the same.

[grumpydoc]

Setting a fixed width is no real solution either, since not everybody's display size is the same.

No, but 800-1024 wide is usually OK and better than 300-400 straight out of the camera without needing any photo editing software (not that that is especially hard to get hold of).

You need an external URL for the img tag anyway.

[nitro2k01]

You need an external URL for the img tag anyway.

Yes, but what I'm talking about is that the file attachment function in the forum software sucks. Click reply and then "Attachments and other options" below the message text box.

[baljemmett]

Click the image and you get the original size displayed. But you can't scroll to the right to see the whole image.

Yes you can; there's a scroll bar right under the image...  (The message body div is scrollable, basically.)

[nitro2k01]

Yes you can; there's a scroll bar right under the image...  (The message body div is scrollable, basically.)

You're right. But for some reason I remembered that as not working here.

[grumpydoc]

The message body div is scrollable, basically.

Yes, but nitro2k01 is right - the result sucks. You get a horizontal scroll bar which covers all images so to look at one image when there are a few in the post means scrolling down the whole page, then back up.

It would be better if each image was seperately scrollable - ideally with a vertical scroll bar as well.

Originally I thought that using the [img] tag was not much better but then I discovered that you can at least control the size using that, you can also embed in-line links with an <a> tag so you can get a small image which you can click on to get the full sized one. Not sure whether you can do much better but that, at least, is better than adding the images as an attachment if you can host them somewhere yourself.

[Monkeh]

It's funny seeing something with soo much thermal paste that it's causing electrical problems... thermal paste is generally slightly conductive and has quite a bit of capacitance.

Actually it's not typically conductive. Most OEM stuff certainly isn't. Capacitance can be a problem with silver based stuff, but again, that's not most OEM goop. The main problem is that an excess negatively impacts heat transfer.

[codeboy2k]

The biggest issue is that forgotten tape.  But it also seems like there's way too much paste on the first pad too.


As for images, yes this forum doesn't handle images well.  Perhaps there's a better image plugin Dave can try.
I also like to use imgur.com for hosting large images, that way it saves Dave's bandwidth on the server.
Simply put a link here to a thumbnail hosted on imgur

[DavidDLC]

That's not thermal tape on that heat pad...

You got it! Some poor overworked assembler forgot to remove the tape before they fitted it. The poor little netbook has been cooking since new and the fan must have been running full pelt all the time, no wonder it seized.

But the question was, what is wrong with the picture !!! I was looking at the picture features like size, color, etc. etc LOL 

The correct question should be, what is wrong with the system on the picture ? Or something similar.

David.

[Mashpriborintorg]

And the fan cable seems to be damn short, must be tricky to put back in place.

[T4P]

I've seen THAT much thermal goop on a CPU before ... it was on a BNIB E5700 
I thought it would work once i pushed the HSF pins inside but no, it was running 98C 
Then i went out to buy some sliver paste, as that's the best they promise

[G7PSK]

It looks to me as if there was uneven pressure on the heat sink the thermal tape has been squeezed right out on the top chip and the one where the cover tape was left had hardly any pressure at all.   

[nitro2k01]

But the question was, what is wrong with the picture !!! I was looking at the picture features like size, color, etc. etc LOL 

The correct question should be, what is wrong with the system on the picture ? Or something similar.

David.

"Ceci n'est pas une pipe"

[cwalex]

It looks to me as if there was uneven pressure on the heat sink the thermal tape has been squeezed right out on the top chip and the one where the cover tape was left had hardly any pressure at all.

It's probably not obvious from the picture but the top chip was using normal thermal paste type material and the bottom one a different type material that comes in sheets and you just cut out a piece of the appropriate size.

With some fresh thermal paste on the CPU and a new thermal pad (with the protective plastic removed!) on the video chipset the new heatsink/fan assembly installed and the netbook is working perfectly