The Cube i7 gets pretty darn hot, opening it up I discovered the lack of a thermal pad on between the heatsink and outer metal rear housing. Odd because the X3 Pro, Cube i7 stylus and Cube i9 have this, which helps transfer heat away from the SoC and through the rear alloy housing. But Cube opted to not do it this time around to keep the outer metal cooler? And odd choice if you ask me. Well, I decided to create whole new heatsink out of copper. Now I don’t recommend following this path, it was a huge hassle. But the simple approach I used on the Cube i9 should be more than enough.
This video was recorded as I went along with my mod, it contains plenty of info for would-be modders, but it’s a bit long and drawn out. Raw unscripted vids can be like this… Remember if you open your own tablet, it’s at your risk. You could short something out and kill it completely to never boot again. So make sure you are aware of the risks involved. TechTablets isn’t liable for any damaged Cube i7 Books! 🙂
My recommended mod: (Much easier, still gives good results)
This larger copper plate mod in the video does lower temps more, but not worth the hassle.
Steps for the recommend mod:
- Open it as seen in the video above.
- Unplug the battery, we don’t want it to power on!
- Remove the stock heat sink.
- Remove the stock thermal pad.
- Clean the CPU (only if needed)
- Add a 20 mm x 20 mm x 1 mm copper shim with thermal adhesive to the stock heat sink underside,
- Add a tiny bit of thermal paste to the CPU (half a grain of rice, my paste job was too much).
- Install the stock heat sink with copper.
- Add a large ( The larger the better) thermal pad to the top where the CPU is (1 mm thick or 2mm if you just use the recess area for the CPU)
- Put it all back together.
- First boot takes longer, don’t freak as it resets the bios removing the power cable it seems.
- Enjoy a cooler, faster Core M3.
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