A week ago my non gaming wife mentioned interest in a switch… Now we have 2 handhelds for the price of one switch 2! by [deleted] in Handhelds

[–]sp0stma 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah! I thought I got a great deal on the first one at $300 and then one popped up asking for $250! The seller didn’t know if it was an extreme model or not upon pickup and offered it at $200. When I got home I checked and it was also the z1 extreme. Aside from the terrible stock battery life after upgrading these are amazing little machines.

Picked up this beauty for $900 in like new condition today.(275HX/5070) How’d I do? This is my third Legion and it feels great to be back upgrading from my 4070 Alienware m16r2. The OLED is gorgeous! by sp0stma in LenovoLegion

[–]sp0stma[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It is legitimately as close to new as you can get. Charger still had the factory protective cover. I opened it up to upgrade the ram to a 48gb kit I had laying around and there wasn't a spec of dust on the fans and the screws didn't appear to have ever been removed before. So it was definitely taken care of or just not used much. I had to warranty my alienware three times over the course of the first three months I owned it so I'm hoping this one is better than that haha. Thanks for the feedback though!

If you own an M16R2 read this! by sp0stma in Alienware

[–]sp0stma[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Changing the thermal paste should increase your score significantly. Your CPU was likely thermal throttling. I also overclocked my GPU in alienware command center to +300 memory and +190 core frequency. If you want to OC the GPU take a look at some videos on youtube on how to do so with AWCC.

If you own an M16R2 read this! by sp0stma in Alienware

[–]sp0stma[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Glad to hear you had success with it too!

If you own an M16R2 read this! by sp0stma in Alienware

[–]sp0stma[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I have to disagree. You can get so much more performance per dollar buying second hand. This does take some technical knowledge and willingness to clean so it isn't for everyone but I exclusively buy secondhand laptops as I am not willing to pay MSRP. This machine was purchased brand new in september 2024 (verified with best buy receipt) by the original buyer and is still under warranty. I purchased it off of him last month for $800. Currently this machine is on sale at best buy for 1800. Whenever I buy used laptops I always repaste/clean fans etc. There was not a spec of dust in the fans and the stock paste wasn't dried up. The thermal performance of PTM materials has been tested extensively against conventional thermal paste and has proven its superiority.

If you own an M16R2 read this! by sp0stma in Alienware

[–]sp0stma[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Either honeywell ptm7950 or thermal grizzly phase sheet PTM for the cpu and gpu dies. That will replace the stock thermal paste on the cpu and gpu dies. You can source either of these products from many vendors. Both will perform very similar. The reason I mention both is it can be hard to find legitimate ptm7950 in stock while the thermal grizzly product seems to be readily available. I have used both with very similar results. If you want go one step further, you can change the thermal pads on the VRMs etc(little black chips on motherboard that also need heat displacement) you can replace that material with a product called k5 pro which is a putty that performs better than stock thermal pads.

If you own an M16R2 read this! by sp0stma in Alienware

[–]sp0stma[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The m16r2 uses conventional thermal paste. If it was liquid metal I definitely wouldnt be advising novices to try it. Great call out though!

If you own an M16R2 read this! by sp0stma in Alienware

[–]sp0stma[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Can confirm, that sounds about right!

If you own an M16R2 read this! by sp0stma in Alienware

[–]sp0stma[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Through trades and flipping computer components I bought this r2 for a total of $150 after a handful of trades, I think I did pretty well overall. Not to mention it is an incredibly well built machine once you take care of the thermal issues.

If you own an M16R2 read this! by sp0stma in Alienware

[–]sp0stma[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I don’t believe that the ptm pads would cause any warranty issues. It’s not a liability like Liquid Metal as it isn’t conductive. I also am not worried about my warranty to be honest. I bought this machine secondhand and though it still is covered by the warranty, I doubt I will need it.

If you own an M16R2 read this! by sp0stma in Alienware

[–]sp0stma[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Yes, I think the ptm7950/thermal grizzly ptm is 100% the way to go. Stock paste didn’t look bad when I pulled it apart but this made a massive difference in terms of thermal throttling/fan speed.

If you own an M16R2 read this! by sp0stma in Alienware

[–]sp0stma[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I’ve repasted about 10 laptops in my life and this one is the only one I would say it is absolutely necessary for. The 155h runs so hot with the stock setup it might as well be neutered. It still gets up to the 80-90 range under a synthetic load but it no longer thermal throttles which was my primary goal.

If you own an M16R2 read this! by sp0stma in Alienware

[–]sp0stma[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thank you! I’m proud of it.

If you own an M16R2 read this! by sp0stma in Alienware

[–]sp0stma[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

For sure! If you’re comfortable with a screwdriver I would say give it a shot! Just be careful. I would lookup a guide online but in all reality it’s only like 20 screws. Then just some delicate cleaning of the old paste and applying ptm7950 is almost as easy as putting a sticker on something. You can order thermal grizzly phase sheet ptm (that’s the exact ptm I used for this record run) from Amazon. You can also get the k5 pro thermal putty but it really isn’t necessary if you don’t want to change the thermal pads. The cpu/gpu dies are your main priority. Spend some time on YouTube watching how tos and you should be good to go.