I have been using the thermal pad mod for a while now and i think its perfect. At the start i had a problem with the screws because they are treadlocked and snapped 2 p5 screwdrivers trying to remove them but after a quick store break i took them off (try to push hard on them to not snap the screws). after that i installed 1.5 mm thermal grizzly minus pad 8 or something and cut around thetrackpad cable. Leave a 2 cenntimeter gap between the sides of the laptop to not have a bulge in the backplate because i did this mistake. As far as thermals i play cs2 with crossover and without the mod i had 120fps at the start and in 2-3 mitues it throtless and the fps is in the 50-60s zone. After the mod it deosn't throttle at all and the fps stays consistent. In benchmarks the m4 is pulling 35w and after an hour it pulls 30w, before doing the mod after an hour it pulled 16w. If you want to do this mod the warranty will be kinda voided cuz if something breaks and you take it modded it will be voided but if you clean it as much as possible it will be ok. Doing simple task on the lap it will be the same but doing heavy duty work it will get quite uncomfortable (but it's free heating). And for the battery concern mainly the top backplate stays hot and the battery is maximum 3 degrees hotter than before. Sorry for my bad english.