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W230SS nasty smell and cooling


haka

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Hello,

Since the beginning my W230SS gives off a nasty chemical smell. At first I assumed that it was the new electronics smell and that it would wear off after a while. After a few months it's still here, strong as ever and it is starting to become really annoying. The smell is always present but stronger when the laptop is hot. I suspect the thermal paste, since the smell is stronger around the gpu. I ordered some supply and will try to repaste. If it doesn't work I guess I'll disassemble everything and try to clean it with isopropyl alcohool. Anyone with a similar problem?

Also I noticed a problem on the motherboard. The heat spreader on the gpu ram is slightly bent upward. So there is at least one chip of ram that do not get cooled. There is a thermal pad on the heat spreader, does anyone know the thickness of that pad according to specs ? I'd like to replace it.

Any help welcome.

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Dang. I've been using my W230SS since about 2 weeks after it came out and it's been solid as any laptop I've owned. Cooling is great and I haven't even bothered to crack it open to repaste it with better than the OEM paste yet. I did add my two SSD drives and that is all I have done so far.

If the laptop is getting hot I would definitely get in there and repaste the GPU and CPU. Mine will crank up the fan, but by no means does it get hot or even what I would call warm even after hours of gaming.

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Thanks for your answer. Well I got mine in June, so far the keyboard failed, the wifi card is starting to act flaky, and there is a strong plastic smell and a small hickup with the sound output. I didn't bother to repaste so far because the temps are ok never reaching above 80°C on full charge. There is some throttling after a couple of hours but I suspect it has to do with that gpu ram heat spreader. Also on closer inspection I noticed some fingerprints on the bottom plate, possibly made of thermal paste, I cleaned it up but the smell is still here. I guess I'll need to remove the motherboard to check everything if the repaste does not work.

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If the wifi card is the intel AC 7260 like mine came with, definitely get the newest drivers from Intel. The 7260 model in general started with lousy drivers and the computer needs to be rebooted or disable/enable the card to get it to work sometimes. That wireless chipset has been problematic on many computers since it was released.

If you only got it in June I would contact your seller and see about warranty repair since it's still quite new.

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So I received some arctic cleaner and mx4 paste. I removed the heat spreader on the gpu ram and slightly bent it downward to make it touch the last chip. The smell doesn't come from the thermal pad or oem thermal paste. Apparently its the plastic case itself that is outgassing. And it does so all the time. One option is to disassemble everything and to put all the plastic parts in the sun for a few days. I don't believe my seller would really care about that problem and I live far away so I guess it's best to try to solve this myself.

Does anyone know of a good guide to completely disassemble a W230SS or a related laptop ? Is there a service manual for clevo laptops ?

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I haven't done it personally, but one of the youtube videos on a different clevo laptop showed removing the top panel strip above the keyboard. Under that panel should reveal some screws to remove the keyboard and and possibly more access to the motherboard.

I removed all the screws, but the bottom case is still solidly attached, any advice as to how detach it without damages ?
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On the W230SS there should be an option in the BIOS settings to throttle the fan (try advanced>thermal control)

Set the throttle to 75 % and see if the chemical smell continues. If so, your board may have a short circuit somewhere and you'll need to have a technician have a look at it. Another easy way is to try speed fan and run the diagnostics.

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I disassembled everything properly and put the motherboard in a plastic bag. Apparently the motherboard is the source. It is outgassing constantly regardless of heat so I guess it is the PCB's resin. Maybe the motherboard wasn't cooked properly in order to rush the shipping.

I'm pretty much fucked I guess.

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  • Founder
I disassembled everything properly and put the motherboard in a plastic bag. Apparently the motherboard is the source. It is outgassing constantly regardless of heat so I guess it is the PCB's resin. Maybe the motherboard wasn't cooked properly in order to rush the shipping.

I'm pretty much fucked I guess.

If that's the case are you able to file a claim for warranty service? Try to get the motherboard replaced based on the fumes making you sick. If it's out of warranty then try baking it or using a heat gun. Just be careful not to melt the solder.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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  • 2 weeks later...

Plot twist, the chemical smell that was hard to locate was coming from the CR2032 battery. Never seen a smelly battery before, you learn something new every day I guess. I didn't contact the vendor since it seemed like an easy fix.

I reassembled everything and now the chemical smell is gone, but there are still fumes coming from the laptop, making it hard to use. Even after two days running some grid computing app. I took a long time fixing this so the parts are probalby dusty. Or I put too much arctic mx4 or arctic cleaner. I'll try to disassemble again and clean the motherboard and everything with 70% isopropanol.

Running at 100% CPU and GPU the peak max temps were 80°C and 63°C, running about 5°C cooler most of the time.

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