Let’s assume we purchase a new laptop and naturally want to treat it to nothing but the best. And we blindly trust the suppliers’ marketing and various forum reports about how great liquid metal performs in laptops. With purchase prices around 1000 euros and more, you don’t want to splurge. The 80 euro surcharge is no longer an issue. And if you don’t dare to do it yourself, let the dealer do it right away. A barebone is thankfully flexible and the expert will know what he is doing. Really?
Buy and a sense of security and provision?
The barebone is a product from Clevo, an OEM that other companies also rely on. However, not all Clevos are the same and you always get what you pay for. But I will come back to that in a moment. Even established companies like Schenker rely on Clevo barebones, so nothing will (can) go wrong there. It’s just that a barebone from Clevo is one of those things that comes in good or cheap. We’ll have to talk about that in a moment, too, of course. But let’s get back to the (exemplary) ordering process and stick to the chronology a bit (the barebone from 2019 is no longer on offer, but the direct successor).
What the customer sees is a nice, commercially available surcharge list, which is nothing to object to in principle, even if the prices of the components are rather a matter of taste. But that is none of my business and therefore does not interest me for the time being. Only the paragraph with “thermal modding” certainly jumped out at the buyer of this notebook three years ago. Thermal paste has to be applied to the barebone anyway, so the work would have to be done in any case. Only the 40 Euros for the offered thermal paste as surcharge are already the hammer. If you calculate the usual 33 gram can down to the actual consumption for the single barebone (GPU and CPU), then you would still be well under 4 Euros here. On the other hand, they demand more than 10 times as much, so kudos to them.
Especially since the Kryonaut Extreme only really adds value for LN2 overclockers because it doesn’t tear as quickly at the lowest temperatures. Otherwise, the advantage over a paste for 2 euros in the required amount is exactly zero. But why spill the beans with thermal paste when you can get the (supposed) advantage of liquid metal for twice the price “ex works”? In order to do this properly, you need a few manual skills and, more importantly, a basic knowledge of chemistry. So it’s better to have this done in advance by a “specialist” for the whopping 80 euros (also in the surcharge of 1:10). This also clarifies the chronology of the purchase and the customer’s thought processes before going to the checkout. If expensive purchases are not made so often, then at least once properly. Well…
Creeping flat tire
The initial performance was also quite solid, at least the cooling ran comparatively well. If you use such a notebook daily and over a long period of time, you won’t even notice certain deteriorations, which only happen very slowly. This goes well until the day when you finally notice that the GPU and CPU are throttling so much (and the fans play the funeral march as a brass band) that something can’t be right.
After all, the solution acquired in this way lasted almost 3 years, but at least one year with performance losses. This is the moment when the customer gives up in exasperation, or grabs the screwdriver himself and submits the seemingly dead patient for another autopsy. Three years is too long for any warranty claims and it can’t get any worse with an intervention. The picture shows the exposed interior of the damaged Clevo barebone and those who look carefully will already have noticed that there is a serious contradiction here as the primary cause. Well, are you one of them?
Actually, I could already abbreviate here, but I don’t want to spoil anything yet. And so there is the actual slaughter plate just on the next page. So please turn the page quickly!
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