Latest video, experimental sequel to the MXP mods:
The Huawei MateBook X Pro’s quad-core 8550u (8565u in 2019 model) CPU has tremendous potential that is held back by the its weak cooling system. Here are some steps you can take to unlock more performance from the laptop by removing thermal and power limitations (commonly known as throttling). This project is a work-in-progress, so take my advice with a grain of salt and check back often to see new developments. I encourage the experienced or adventurous to try their own methods as well.
Effects:
- Little to no CPU throttling whereas it normally power-throttles massively
- No more GPU throttling
- Be able to maintain much higher CPU frequency under sustained load
- Sustained CPU power increased from ~14W to ~36W
- 25% to 30% performance increase in real-world applications
See this score on 3DMark.com or compare PCMark with other MXPs on Reddit
A typical MXP scores around 3500. The 10408 CPUMark is about the same as a 4790K desktop i7 or a the 8.5kg Acer Predator 21X.
See this score on PassMark.com or compare PassMark with others on Reddit
See this score on Geekbench.com or compare Geekbench with others on Reddit
A typical MateBook X Pro score is a little over 800.
See this score on HWBot or compare with others on Reddit
Disclaimer: You are about to void your warranty. You are liable for any damage you inflict upon your device. While these modifications are not inherently dangerous, they may still damage your laptop, especially if you mess something up. So, read carefully.
These steps are arranged not by difficulty or effectiveness but in the order that requires the least time, effort, and risk. Read through all the steps before you begin to get a gist of what we’re doing. If you choose to omit some steps, don’t raise your power limit so much.
Do these easy software tweaks first.
I suggest familiarizing yourself with the MXP’s internals by reading my MateBook X Pro teardown. Get some kind of anti-static protection.
Add Graphite Sheets to Case
MXP already has a pyrolytic graphite sheet (PGS) underneath the keyboard, but it doesn’t extend beyond the motherboard area. The keyboard could be 66°C even when the palmrest is 35°C. That’s a lot of thermal mass and surface area usable for cooling going to waste.
Benefits: Spreads the heat across the laptop’s body and reduces the hot spot on the keyboard.
See how my graphite sheets span the entire area from top to bottom.
- Remove the bottom lid and heatsink.
- Disconnect and remove the battery and fan.
- Remove the SSD, motherboard, USB-A daughterboard, and LCD controller.
- Peel away the soft support (black square) under the SSD.
- Cut the graphite sheet into the right shape.
- Print my 1:1 scan of the laptop case to use as a cutting stencil. It has been flipped horizontally so that you can temporarily stick the smooth side of the graphite sheets to the back side and cut. Make sure to print In Actual Size.
I used 3 smaller sheets of Panasonic PGS in the video above. The more cost-efficient graphite sheet that I provide now comes in a single sheet big enough for the whole laptop.
Dampen the Fan Whine (2018 only, optional)
Benefits: Reduces the high-pitched whistle from the fan motor’s coils. When done correctly, this mod does not slow down the fan or make it less effective, only quieter.
Warning: this mod is challenging to do right and risks breaking your fan.
- Unscrew the one tiny screw on the fan. Lift the the tabs and remove the fan’s lid.
- Spin the impeller with your finger and gauge the feel of its momentum.
- Gently pull the impeller off.
- Cover the bearing with electrical tape or something to prevent the glue from getting into it.
- You can also surround the outside of the magnet ring with putty to restrict the glue from flowing out.
- Fill the coils with some kind of viscous glue or gel. I used the silicone-based thermal glue from the steps below. Wipe away any excess to make sure the impeller has enough clearance to spin as smoothly as before. Be careful not to break any wires.
- Put the fan back together. Does the fan still spin smoothly? If not, go back and clean off excess glue.
Add Keyboard-Side Cooling
Bare motherboard backside, heatsink not attached, plugged in, CPU idle, GPU inactive.
A good amount of heat conducts to the motherboard backside, which means we can try to transfer it out to cool the entire thing.
- Cools the CPU VRM to prevent thermal shutdown when we raise the CPU power in later steps.
- Cools the CPU itself to reduce thermal throttling.
- Cools the charging circuit so it’s willing to charge faster during high load.
The gray thermal pads that you see in some photos/videos here are T-Global TGX that I used to recommend. I later decided that they were unnecessary, especially considering the cost. I now recommended using Arctic thermal pads, which are extremely soft (25 Shore 00) and the most thermally conductive (6W/mK) for that softness level. See what sizes you need and links in the Shopping Cart tab.
- Peel the insulation film and rubber standoffs off the motherboard’s backside. The thermal pads will now occupy their space and do their job of electrical insulation and structural support.
- Add a layer of 0.5mm-thick thermal pad to the entire motherboard backside minus the metal CPU and GPU mounting brackets. Make sure to also cut out space for screw holes and other protrusions.
- Cover the fan’s backside with 0.5mm pad so that the fan can pull heat from the motherboard via this area of the case, which is very close to the CPU and gets very hot. (Thanks to Adrian Pflugshaupt for coming up with this!)
- Not recommended for the 2019 X Pro because its fan is too thick already.
- Reinstall the motherboard. Remember to reinstall all the screws and reconnect all the connectors.
Replace the dGPU Thermal Pad with a Copper Shim
Benefits: Allows the GPU to sustain about 300MHz higher frequency. The MX150 thermal-throttles above 80°C. This mod helped me shave 15°C off the GPU temperature, so now the GPU bottleneck is never temperature but only the 10W power limit of the MX150 1D12 variant.
I probably put more thermal glue around the edges than necessary, but that doesn’t matter.
- Remove the GPU’s thermal pad and clean the GPU and heatsink base plate.
- Put a pea-sized amount of thermal paste on the heatsink base plate.
- Firmly press a 0.3mm copper shim onto the base plate.
- Put a bit of thermal glue around the corners of the shim to keep it from sliding. Wait for it to cure.
- Apply a rice-sized amount of thermal paste to the GPU.
Add Heatsink-Side Cooling
To identify the overheating VRM components, I removed the laptop’s heatsink and put a small heatsink block on the CPU to expose the surrounding VRM for thermal imagery. These components get very hot even when the CPU is under little load.
Benefits: Prevents the CPU power-delivery components from overheating and causing the laptop to shut down when we lift power limits in the subsequent steps.
- Add thermal pads according to the heights in the picture. Here’s my technique:
- Cut out and put on the biggest pads first.
- Press the heatsink against the components so they make imprints on the thermal pad. Now you see where the cutouts need to be.
- Use a paper knife to cut out the squares for the components.
- Cut the small pads for the components and put them in.
Caution: if your heatsink now rests significantly higher above the motherboard and cannot be squashed down to its usual level, that means you haven’t given one or more components enough room with your cutouts. Check for a pressure imprint and use a thinner pad at that spot.
Your cutouts may be different depending on the model year of your MXP.
Increase Heatsink Mounting Pressure
Benefits: Increasing mounting pressure between the CPU and heatsink improves their thermal conduction. A lot of laptops suffer from insufficient mounting pressure, and increasing it often helps performance. Desktop chips are usually under much higher pressure. This mod is especially useful when heatsink-side thermal pads have been added, since the pads tend to prop up the heatsink away from the CPU.
- Use tweezers to bend the heatsink’s mounting arms upward, until they naturally stay ~2mm above their threaded posts.
Add Thermal Pads to the SSD
The SSD gets very hot and throttles when writing large files.
Benefits: Eliminates SSD throttling. This increased my PassMark Disk Mark score from 18,159 to 26,826.
- Put 0.5mm thermal pad on the SSD’s backside.
- Peel away the plastic insulator on the heatsink. We don’t need it anymore because the thermal pad’s thickness will electrically insulate the SSD from the heatsink.
- Put 0.5mm pad over the SSD controller. (2019 X Pro already has this.)
- Reinstall the SSD.
Replace the CPU Thermal Paste
Benefits: The CPU’s heat will dissipate to the heatsink at a higher rate, so it will run cooler. This is crucial for reducing thermal throttling in the later steps.
- Clean the thermal paste off the CPU and heatsink.
- Reapply better thermal paste.
- Reconnect and reinstall the battery and make sure everything else is back in place.
- Reinstall the fan and heatsink.
Run Heatpipes to the Fan
The Honor Magicbook has an better cooler design, and part of that is because the fan casing is copper and thermally coupled to the heatpipes. In other words, the fan casing IS a heatsink.
Benefits: Turns the fan casing into a small but efficient heatsink, as the fan blades are right there to scoop away the heat. This increases the cooling capacity by about 8W.
You don’t need the electrical tape there if you don’t peel away the foam seal. Disregard the marker lines; they are for my emissivity tests.
- The heatpipes cannot be more than 1mm thick to fit inside the laptop.
- Put the heatpipes in place to see how they fit. Bend them slightly to accommodate the height difference between the fan casing and heatsink.
- Lay down thermal paste along the heatpipe’s path.
- Press the heatpipe over the thermal paste.
- Put thermal glue around the edges. You can use a hairdryer to accelerate its curing.
Streamline the Fan Exhaust
Benefits: Reduces the whistling wind noise and improves airflow.
- Use thermal glue to seal the crevices along the fan exhaust. I used putty in this picture but that turned out to be a bad idea because the top-left chunk drooped down.
- Make sure the thermal glue doesn’t droop down the crevices and block airflow.
Raise Power & Current Limits
Benefits: Allows the CPU to boost with more power and for longer (indefinitely!).
- Follow this guide.
- Watch the Limits window while running TS Bench (size=1024M to run longer). Towards the end of the test, is the limit reason “THERMAL” or “PL1“?
- If “THERMAL“, then you probably omitted some of the mods and your cooling capacity is lower than mine.
- If “PL1“, then raise the Long Power Max by 2W and test again until you get “THERMAL“.
- Your Long Power Max should be set just under where thermal throttling begins. That means you should be seeing PL1 but you know that any higher you’d get THERMAL.
- We have previously been observing the latter periods during the TS Bench. Now watch the beginning. Does THERMAL kick in before PL1 takes over?
- If yes, lower the Turbo Time Limit until it no longer does.
- If no: raise the Turbo Time Limit until THERMAL kicks in before PL1. Then back off a little bit.
- Your Turbo Time Limit should be just short enough that thermal throttling doesn’t activate before PL1.
A sensible Power Limit is better than letting the CPU thermal throttle because the 2018 X Pro’s thermal throttling has a dumb control algorithm and makes the CPU frequency fluctuate too much, resulting in lower average frequency. For the 2019 X Pro, you can just set a really high power limit and let thermal throttling handle it, because the throttling algorithm is much better on that one.
The materials for the complete project total around 80USD. Shipping costs will vary.
Brad’s store
- (1×) graphite sheet (0.025mm×300mm×300mm)
- (1×) copper shim (20×20×0.3mm)
- (2×) heat pipes (1mm×9mm×100mm)
I used to point readers toward DigiKey until I started importing these myself to make them available for much less. If you don’t feel comfortable buying from me, then here are alternatives for graphite sheet (need 3 because smaller) and heat pipes, which I used to recommend. Keep in mind that my 9mm heat pipes have a width advantage.
Amazon
- Arctic thermal pads
- (1×) Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut thermal paste (to put between heatsink and copper shim, if applicable)
- (1×) Honeywell PTM7950 phase-change thermal pad (use on CPU/GPU die, better than any nonconductive thermal paste)
- (1×) thermal glue
Disclaimer: I do get a small kickback through these Amazon affiliate links. Thank you for using them to support my work.
Tools
Are the graphite sheets conductive?
No. The ones I sell have an insulation layer on both sides.
Can I use a different thickness thermal pad?
No, incorrect thickness would prevent the pad from making proper contact, making it ineffective.
I just want to make the laptop cooler, quieter, and more comfortable to use—no performance boost needed. Which mods do I do?
- Software tweaks – use a high Speed Shift number.
- Add Graphite Sheets to Case
- Replace the dGPU Thermal Pad with a Copper Shim
- Add Heatsink-Side Cooling
- Replace the CPU Thermal Paste
- Run Heatpipes to the Fan
- Streamline the fan exhaust
Notice we are omitting keyboard-side thermal pads, which would conduct more heat to the chassis.
How can I save some money and get the most performance per buck?
- I used to recommend T-Global thermal pads, Panasonic graphite sheets, and Wakefield-Vette heat pipes. The mods used to cost quite a lot. Later, I found Arctic thermal pads to work well enough, and I’ve imported my own graphite sheets and heat pipes from China to sell to you guys at 25% and 50% price, respectively. The mods are already much more cost-effective than they used to be.
- You can omit the graphite sheets, which are mostly for reducing hot spots on the keyboard.
Can I pay you to do these for me?
- No, sorry. I’m really busy with college so I can only spend time on spreading the information instead of helping one person at a time.
May 10, 2018
I replaced the CPU thermal paste with Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut and the GPU thermal pad with 0.5mm Fujipoly XR-m. These should give me more thermal headroom, but I didn’t check the temperatures in stock form beforehand, so I have no comparison.
May 15, 2018
The MateBook X Pro’s CPU throttles to ~10W under sustained load. Intel XTU and HWiNFO report that this is Power Limit throttling, specifically PL1, which is set to 10W by default.
May 20, 2018
I followed this guide to disable DPTF in Windows, and now the package TDP can stay at 30W as long as Turbo Boost Power Max in XTU is set to 30 or above.
With the Power Limit unlocked, XTU’s CPU stress test caused the laptop to shut off. The CPU at that time was 92°C, which leads me to believe that something else, such as a MOSFET, is overheating.
I was on a -100mV undervolt, so I reverted to normal voltage but it shut off even quicker. Therefore, CPU instability is probably not the cause either.
I gave the MX150 a Base Clock Offset of +200MHz and a Memory Clock Offset of +400MHz. They have been stable for me.
June 2, 2018
I removed the heatsink, put a little heatsink on the CPU, ran a stress test and measured the temperatures of the components surrounding the CPU. The inductors, MOSFETs, and resistors right above the CPU are the hottest, exceeding 60°C.
July 7, 2018
I peeled off the plastic insulator film on the keyboard side of the motherboard and put thermal pads on the CPU area to cool the aforementioned components. I used 0.5mm on the metal bracket and 1mm everywhere else. I want their heat to go to the keyboard-area unibody. It won’t burn my hands because the heat doesn’t transfer to the keys much.
I am no longer using Fujipoly XR-m thermal pads because their tendency to dry makes me worry that their conductivity might degrade over time. Instead, I switched to Thermal Grizzly Minus Pad 8 across the board. Its theoretical thermal conductivity is lower, but its softness allows it to possibly work better in practice.
I also taped up the gaps along the hot air exhaust passage to make sure hot air doesn’t escape back into the laptop.
July 8, 2018
I took off the MX150 core overclock to let GPU Boost 3.0 do its own thing.
I suspect that recent BIOS updates have reduced CPU power behavior. The package power hasn’t been boosting beyond 20W.
July 9, 2018
Breakthrough! I am now able to sustain well over 20W indefinitely by combining XTU and ThrottleStop. XTU has the ability to set PL1 and PL2 to unlimited, which I haven’t been able to replicate in ThrottleStop. Meanwhile, ThrottleStop can disable Speed Shift and enforce a high Multiplier. I think both programs have a apply-once behavior rather than regularly checking, so they don’t seem with fight with each other. This has completely counteracted any possible behavior changes done by the BIOS update.
July 28, 2018
This method of disabling Intel DPTF no longer works for me, but I found a new method and have updated the guide accordingly.
July 31, 2018
Plugged in, CPU idle.
I found why the MXPro charges slowly, doesn’t charge, or even discharges under high load. The charging rate is thermal throttling. The inductor and its surrounding transistors are thermal-padded to the heatsink, but that doesn’t seem to be enough.
August 5, 2018
- Added heatpipe hack and SSD cooling.
- Updated copper shim, keyboard-side and heatsink-side instructions.
- I’m now able to hit 42W and sustain over 30W.
- Added PassMark result.
October 5, 2018
- Eliminated the need for XTU, since ThrottleStop 8.70 can disable power limits now.
November 14, 2018
- Added Adrian’s method of putting thermal pads under the fan and the step to make undervolt stick after reboot.
- Changed the force highest frequency method from Set Multiplier to tweaking the Speed Shift number.
November 23, 2018
- Added the fan whine damping trick.
December 5, 2018
- Put the GPU copper shim step before heatsink-side pads.
- Switched from 0.5mm to 0.3mm copper shim after realizing the original GPU thermal pad, being pressed down, was closer to 0.3mm effective thickness.
- Decreased GPU area heatsink-side pads’ thickness by 0.5mm.
December 25, 2018
- Added the step to streamline the fan exhaust, after realizing that sealing the exhaust with electrical tape was insufficient and caused fan whistle.
December 26, 2018
- Added registry file to one-click disable DPTF.
January 18, 2019
- Added method for granular control over power limits in XTU instead of completely disabling PL.
- Moved step to make ThrottleStop launch on Startup to the Undervolting stage.
January 22, 2019
- Replaced XTU method with newly learned method of tuning power limits in ThrottleStop.
- DPTF removal is no longer necessary because ThrottleStop can prevent DPTF from applying power limits.
- Clarified undervolting instructions.
- Refined Speed Shift instructions.
January 23, 2019
- Deleted mounting putty from shopping cart.
April 7, 2019
- Turned “Tweak Performance-Battery Balance” step into “Use SpeedShift instead of SpeedStep” and moved it to the beginning since it is independent of the hardware mods.
April 9, 2019
- Added FAQ section.
April 27, 2019
- Migrated the initial software tweaks, such as undervolting and SpeedShift, to a separate guide called “Actually Hardcore Tweaks“.
May 28, 2019
- Added instruction to raise PP0 Current Limit in “Raise Current & Power Limits”.
July 7, 2019
- Changed copper shim link from 15mm to 20mm.
- Added option for cheaper graphite sheet I procured from China. It’s been verified to perform just as well as the Panasonic ones, but at a fraction of the price.
July 10, 2019
- Added options for cheaper heat pipes I procured from China. They are wider than the Wakefield-Vette ones and should therefore transfer more heat.
August 24, 2019
- Made the eBay options for graphite sheet and heat pipe default/recommended.
August 25, 2019
- Changed keyboard-side thermal pad thickness from 1mm to 0.5mm. I realized 1mm made the motherboard bulge up too much.
- Changed keyboard-side SSD thermal pad from 1.5mm to 1mm for the same reason. Now we don’t need ANY 1.5mm pads!
- Changed recommended thermal pad from TGX to Arctic. Arctic’s performance comes close at a much lower price. Now we can use a single sheet of 0.5mm Arctic for both keyboard-side and heatsink-side. Super cost effective. It is also less dense, so less weight added to laptop.
- Removed instruction to turn off BD PROCHOT to prioritize GPU performance.
- Changed thermal glue link to cheaper but equally performing brand.
August 27, 2019
- Replaced picture of motherboard backside with updated 0.5mm thermal pad.
August 31, 2019
- Indicated “2018 only” for heatsink-side thermal pads. I tested this mod on the 2019 today and saw a ~1.5W decrease in cooling capacity. This makes sense because the 2019 already has the perforations to cool the VRM, and not stuffing this space with thermal pads leaves more surface area for convection.
January 25, 2020
- Added SSD thermal imagery.
March 3, 2020
- No longer recommending heatsink-side thermal pads for the GPU area in particular. New testing showed statistically insignificant gains from connecting the GPU VRM to the heatsink. This makes sense because the GPU area is not surrounded by a “fence” on the heatsink like the CPU area is. Therefore, it already receives sufficient airflow.
July 4, 2020
- Changed SSD thermal pad from 1mm to 0.5mm. Both thicknesses were fine but 0.5mm is enough to bridge the gap.
October 10, 2020
- Changed the main heatsink-side thermal pad from 1mm to 1.5mm. This improves contact with the motherboard and lower components like small resistors.
July 23, 2021
- Added new mod: increase heatsink mounting pressure.
- Removed “2018 only” tag from “heatsink-side thermal pads” after finding that it does help on a 2020 model.
November 27, 2022
- Added recommendation to use PTM7950 phase-change thermal pad instead of thermal paste, in the Shopping List.
It cost me several hundred dollars (thermal camera, materials etc.) and countless hours to figure this out, so please consider donating to support this project!
If you have a question, please leave a comment instead of emailing me, so that everyone can see the answer. Thanks!
Had current throttling, now after reinstalling intel thermal framework i get power limit, no matter the watts in xtu.
I suspect it’s some mosfets or something though, just got that feeling running benches and monitoring clocks, throttling ect.
I bought some thermal pads, will try it out tomorrow.
Btw, any updates? 🙂
Does the i7 CPU hit 4 Ghz? I work a lot with data, but I’m considering getting the i5 versions if the difference in speeds isn’t that great, though the lack of RAM upgradeability gives me pause…
Are there any cooling solutions for the MOSFET? Thermal pads or something that can be applied?
You can apply thermal pads
@Brad Is there a reason you went for a 0.5mm thick thermal pad? Can a thicker one be used? Also I was looking into Graphite Thermal Pads which have thermal conductivity of 35W/m-k, versus the 17 of the Fujipoly XR-m, do you know anything about these?
On the July 7th update, did you use the same 0.5 thermal pads again? Or did you get something thicker? Also, after doing that and taping up the fan area, did you notice decent temp changes?
If you remove the plastic film, is that permanent? Or can it be put back if needed? Also, how do the thermal pads stay in place on the back side of the motherboard? I thought they generally don’t stick, or are they thick enough to sit against the body without… Read more »
Why did you pad the backside and not the frontside? Wouldnt that make more sense to get contact to the heatpipes?
I see that you changed your thermal pad. Is the TGX series worth it over the grizzly one you were using earlier? It’s more expensive/a little more difficult to obtain. With the removal of the plastic film from the motherboard, I’m going to take a wild guess that’s not only… Read more »
Hi. In using the processor graphics voltage offset I have reached -1.00V and run stress tests with no issue. This number seems much higher than yours and I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t missing something or if I should not have it that low. Let me know what… Read more »
Hey Brad,
Can you let me know which graphite sheet you ordered and if you can provide some images of how you implemented them when you get them.
Have you measured the CPU and GPU speed? Did the modification make any difference? This is quite some change to the hardware, so I would not consider anything like this if it does not give you dramatically gain performance wise.
I just ran a CPU stress test (i7/16GB/512GB/MX150) with Intel Extreme Tuning Utility (the [SW] Undervolt mod applied) but the CPU still hit 85°C. Even when I’m just surfing the web I can’t place it on my lap unless I wanna have my balls hard boiled… How hot does your… Read more »
Hey Brad, you think i could use the fujipoly pads and add some kryonaut paste to make contact better, I already bought them, dont want my money to be wasted. Thank you for your work.
Hey Brad, do you run into the issue of your Matebook not charging when running intensive applications?
How much room is there between the heat-spreader and the lid?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhT4uz6OwNQ
The video got me thinking whether bridging the heat-spreader with the fan would help further reduce temps? ebay has some 90x5x1mm heat-pipes that would be right up to the task.
Hey do you happen to have any benchmark results for before after your mods in terms of performance
If possible the temperature delta those mods make?
Thanks heaps, appreciate your work!
Hey Brad! I would be curious to know what kind of changes you have seen in performance/temperature as well after doing all of these mods to your rig. Just bought an MBXP myself and would love to get a little more out of it, especially with the games I have… Read more »
Hi Brad, Could you please share the amount of performance gains you’ve achieved after your mods with a little bit more detail? I’m not sure what to choose between the MBXP with mx150 or the Thinkpad t480s with the same specs. The Thinkpad seems to have the best thermal performance… Read more »
Very interesting guide! I was wondering why did you go for dissipating extra heat via keyboard instead of the back of the computer. After all they keyboard mod is harder to implement and plastic air filled keys will provide natural insulation limiting the effectiveness. I also noticed that the DPTF… Read more »
I got a question regarding the thermal glue. Any reason not to just apply the kryonaut thermal paste on both sides with the copper shim, instead of using the glue?
hey Brad,I think you could replace the top heatpipe with a 45 degree bend so it would be more paralel with the bottom one on the cpu
Love the guide, it gets better by the day.
I see the shopping list now, do I need everything in that list or can I use just Arctic thermal pads in the various sizes. The stuff on Digikey is very expensive ($138 for thermal pads?).
Hi Brad, Impressive cooling mods, thanks for sharing the detailed guide with us. I’m quite interested in seeing the CPU + CPU temps behavior as well as GPU+CPU behaviors under combined load. Would you please share the XTU curves with which you got the 1093 score ? Mind doing a… Read more »
Hi Brad. Awesome guide! I did some of the mods now, the GPU shim and some thermal pads. I used arctic everywhere because the high-end stuff is just too expensive. I only padded the hot parts because I think some airflow should remain and I’m scared parts that would be… Read more »
The shopping list mentions 2.0 mm thermal pads, but I cannot find anywhere in the guide where you used them. Did I miss something?
I’ve undervolted the “processor graphics voltage offset” to -0.100V already and I’m scared to go any further because you had to stop at -0.050V. Am I doing something wrong or is my unit somehow different from yours? 5min stress test ran fine and I don’t see anything unstable. Should the… Read more »
Brad, I now got all the parts, but a question arises.. on the backside of the motherboard, did you remove that foil that is there by default before padding everything with thermal pads?
Ok got it.. shield needs to be removed. I did all the hw mods now, but using arctic everywhere. I only used two PGS sheets as it felt like the middle one would just move heat to the underside of the touchpad where it has nowhere to go. Additionally I… Read more »
Hi Brad. Could you do a Youtube video including a step by step manual for the hw and sw changes? I am a beginner in things like this.
Just a comment – many of these thermal pads are electrically conductive.Typically everything with graphite inside. This may cause EMI issues or completely ruin the system if applied directly on the motherboard. Consider adding warnings to the article for the young players which may not have a clue of what… Read more »
Hey Brad, Will get my MXP i7 in 2 weeks, just wanted to maybe get some updates on how it’s doing. Im not sure about the first mod that brings the heat to the keyboard since the sheet is like 60 dols or so for 1 but most else i… Read more »
I looked at the fan, and it seems to be possible to install metal plates between upper and lower metal parts of fan (something like regular laptop heatsink),this will give more cooling surface and lead to better heat removal (with heatpipes mod, of course). What’s your opinion, guys? Will this… Read more »
Do you think i would need to do any this if i just play games like league of legends, watch some movies, general browsing?
Hey Brad, thanks for all the tips. I wanted to ask about the gpu shim, I bought 0.5mm shims and they arrived a few days ago, I was going to do the mod, but i just realized that you updated the thickness to 0.3mm in your guide. Do you think… Read more »
Is all that massive headpipery thermally connected to laptop lower part? It doesn’t seem to be, because when you insert additional heatpipes over stock one, it must ruin thermal connection due to additional space you’v introduced (about 1 mm). If I’m correct here, why dont we connect it (i.e. using… Read more »
Hello. Because I have not yet opened my Matebook Pro, but looking at what you did, I am considering it, I am not sure by looking at the photos how the GPU is connected to the heatsink. Reading your account I think you mention some kind of pad. Is that… Read more »
Hi Brad,
really amazing piece of work over here, thanks mate!
Have you already had a look at controlling the fan speed with SW? I just tried SpeedFan but that didn’t recognize any fan.
This would be interesting for those who want to get their MXP quieter without HW-modding.
Thanks!
My only question is, would you use liquid metal at all? why and why not.
Hi! I was wondering, would the laptop still work if I removed the battery and kept it plugged in? I’ve done it on older laptops in order to extend the life of the battery and it’s worked without any change in performance. What do you think?
Any way to get replacement screws, I’m missing some screws from the heatsink.
I was wondering on the thickness of the oem thermal pads in the system. I just purchased the matebook pro x i7/16gb/mx150 version and am planning on changing out the thermal paste and pads as I change the ssd. Are the mx150 pads 0.5mm? How about any others? Mainly I… Read more »
Thanks for the great input. I will modify my matebook according to your suggestions. Is it possible to use Thermal Conductive Double Side Adhesive Tape like this one: https://www.amazon.com/10mmX25M-Conductive-Adhesive-Heatsink-Kaifa/dp/B01MZ3T26C/ref=sr_1_2
instead of thermal paste and glue for the heatpipes for instance?
Or would that affect thermal properties?
Just completed the mod and everything came out great! A massive improvement. I was curious to see if anyone had tuned the GPU after performing the mod. My understanding is that the version of MX150 in MXP is downrated. Is it possible to boost the performance now that the cooling… Read more »
So with the 2019 verison coming and that new fan, I saw the picture of the inside and everything looks exactly the same except the fan is a bit larger taking up all the space. I would love to be able to buy that fan and just strap it to… Read more »
I was wondering what kind of performance improvements I can expect if I were only to do the throttlestop undervolt & adding the heatpipes? To me these seem like the easiest mods to do. Do you have any benchmark results of just those mods?
Hi Brad. Firstly your step by step guide is excellent. My objective is not to enhance performance but to simply make the matebook bit more comfortable to use. I find the keyboard gets too hot to the point where I can’t even rest my fingertips on the keyboard. Therefore: 1)… Read more »
Hi Brad,
Awesome methods for boosting the performance! I followed some software tweak and they worked really well.
I’m planning to modify the hardware next, and do you recommend applying liquid metal for this PC for cooling?
Great guide and work 🙂
Any thoughts of drilling ventilation holes in the bottom plate?
Hi Brad, truly appreciate your help and all and you taking the time to create this guide. I did almost everything on this guide apart from the graphite sheets as the company sent me some without the adhesive layer. Im starting to think i have caused major damage to my… Read more »
Where is video on adding graphite sheets?
The donate button brings me to my PayPal home page, not donating
Hi Brad,
Have you ever encountered the limit “EDP other” when using the throttlestop? Mine has constantly reported this issue when running the TS bench, and the power limit seemed to be fixed at 25W, no matter how I change the setting in TPL. Thanks.
Hi Brad： I’d like to know what’s the function of the original isolation sheeting in the backside of the motherboard, and is it safe to reinstall the board without it? I did the keyboard side Collings but found out that it wasn’t quite effective, and the keyboard wasn’t functioning either,… Read more »
Hey Brad, for the copper shims you linked on Amazon they seem to be much smaller then the one you’re using on your videos. Do you have the dimensions for the ones you used?
@Brad331 : do you think I can go with the copper shims and thermal paste update without thermal glue?
cheers!
PS: great website mate!
EDIT: just saw that you already replied to a similar question.
I repasted and put thermal pads on different parts of the heatsink but didn’t do the keyboard side mods for the VRM, unfortunately. What should I be setting my Turbo Boost Long Power Max to? With 30 my computer occasionally crashes while playing CSGO
HI Brad, i have a Artic Silver Quick Cure Silver Epoxy (2parts) can i use this for the 0.3mm copper shim instead of kyronaut and then thermal glue. Link: https://www.amazon.com/Arctic-Silver-Premium-Adhesive-ASTA-7G/dp/B0087X7262 http://www.arcticsilver.com/arctic_silver_thermal_adhesive.htm I actually wrongly purchased it as i thought it was a normal thermal glue ( like yours) but its… Read more »
Is it just me or is the shim linked in the shopping list a 1.2mm thick shim? Pretty sure that is way too thick based on the guide.
So I just did the copper shim hack and noticed a bit of a bulge on the heatsink. Here you say to use 0.3mm copper shim yet you linked to a 1.2mm copper shim on Amazon. That’s 4x times the size!! Which one am I supposed to be using here?!… Read more »
Hi Brad:
Does the 2019 version’s keyboard get really hot when plugged in? Mine 2018 one has this issue and it’s a nightmare. Do you have any solution for this either on the older one or the newer one? Thanks a lot.
Hi Brad, I have a Logitech Lapdesk with an upward fan so I don’t need to worry about heating my particulars. I had a couple of ideas, graphite sheet on the bottom cover, carry out the heat pipes mod as you detail, but also adding square pads above the GPU… Read more »
Ha! Got 10629.3 CPU Mark’s with Passmark by doing these mods + some of my custom ones (but skipped Brad’s heatpipes mod). Even more interestingly, fans are idle or turning quite slow during Passmark testing, ambient 22C. Thanks Brad for all the info!
Brad! 2 things, do you not believe in liquid metal? Also, what do you think about the idea of getting a tiny mbp heatsink (2015 13″) and trying to fit the cooling fins in front of the fan where the antenna is? Then pasting the mbp heatsink to the mbx… Read more »
Excellent tutorial, had to donate. On the hardware part, did everything but the graphite sheets. However I’m lost in software part, specifically about this part : “Set your own, higher power limits in the TPL menu.” Where is this and what value should we start with? I’m confused. Also, should… Read more »
After partially implementing this mod, I started to doubt one thing: is this mod really helping that much? Cause the ThrottleStop Bench score was even lower than before the mod. And the throttle reason was the same: EDP other. This is when I realize that this throttle reason isn’t really… Read more »
Hi Brad 🙂 today I did all the mods, works great! But, there is one strange thing. Yesterday and today I ran several benchmarks to evaluate the increase in cpu and gpu scores. Now I realized that my MX 150 shows only 936 MHz Core (1253 MHz Memory) in PCMark… Read more »
After procastinating for many months, I finally did this. It works fine, and the processor can work at 3.9MHz as long as I like, but I have two problems, one of them major. And then I suggest that there is additionally a generic problem with the charging mechanism, as follows.… Read more »
Awesome guides, thank you so much!!!
Hey Brad,
Any update on when the ebay store will be back up?
And thanks for the guide. I’ve been looking at for months but now I think is the time to actually do the mods.
Finally did this, all hardware and software mods except graphite sheets. CPU Mark went from 7000 to 8400, Memory from 2150 to 2550, Disk from 10000 to 18000, others insignificant. Fan now has a high pitched whine even though I did the glue mod (was even louder before I did… Read more »
So I performed the mods on my laptop and had great results with it. But I’ve hit a major issue and not sure where I went wrong as went through it very thoroughly. 1. Bluetooth not working 2. Microphones not working 3. Computer repeatedly telling me a device plugged in… Read more »
Hi Brad, thanks for all the guides, I will try it out myself very soon. Studying the comments and mods an idea came to my mind: What do you think about sealing the air “inlet” at the right side (looking from the bottom). That way I would expect more air… Read more »
Quick question, is it okay if the graphite sheets are 0.017mm instead of 0.025mm?
Does it matter how big the GPU copper shim is? I’m seeing 15×15 and 20×20 mm.
Hey Brad, awesome guide man! I just picked up a used 2018 model and noticed there was some heavy throttling. Looks like the previous owner got thermal paste happy. I cleaned that up and replaced the gpu thermal pad. I realized that the fan screw towards the bottom is missing.… Read more »
I like the idea of running the heat pipe from the ‘main heat pipes’ to the fan casing. As my matebook is new, im not into the glue side of things yet, and while i have a warrenty, i want to ensure that I can – if needed – be… Read more »
Hi! I’m just wondering, if the purpose of the normal pipe to dissipator setup is to bring all the heat to the dissipator, wouldn’t it be more efficient to remove the pipes that spread the heat away from it (and make a new pipe setup from scratch? I’m not an… Read more »
Hey, Brad! Thanks for your hacks! As a new owner of 2018 MXP, this is such a nice compilation of hacks to improve this laptop further. I do have a few questions regarding thermal mods, I am hoping you can share your insight as well as some tips. for adding… Read more »
H, this guide is very well done. I have done the gpu, thermal pads and copper pipe mods and my gpu and cpu temps decreased a lot. However is still get brutal black screen during under sustained load, even with 15 – 20w limit and i suspect the vrm are… Read more »
Hey Brad, 1) under the “Add Heatsink-Side Cooling (2018 only)”, you have added “don’t do this one” on the thermal pad surrounding the GPU copper shim on the base plate. Do you mean that we should omit that whole specific rectangular thermal pad and only do the others?And 2) for… Read more »
I have a 2019 Matebook X Pro with i5. Fan is constantly spinning even at idle. Temperature sitting at 60-70C. Really annoying compared to my always silent Macbook. Where can I buy a finstack like you used in the video?
So i need a copper shim if i want to replace the thermal pad on the GPU with thermal paste, or is the thermal pad sufficient because the copper shim adds another 40 dollars
BRAD. You’ve probably been asked this 1000000 times but how do I get my board repaired? Do you have schematics?
Hi Brad, Thanks a lot for posting your experiences with the Matebook X Pro. Found your website online as I started having stability issues with mine. Was hoping you can give me some advice on any quick fixes or if I’ll need to do more extensive hacks. Some background: 1)… Read more »
Hi Brad, I’ve had this 2018 model now since it was released. I have done many mods to it over the years and have covered all the space available on the back case with thermal pads. While i was doing more mods lately, i broke the fan, so I’ve taken… Read more »
how did you get the black paint off the heat sink?