Second X98 Pro doing well (heat sink modded)

[Steve]

Hey guys!

After my first X98 Pro died after an hours use, I have been eagerly awaiting another chance to play with one of these tablets. This is not the replacement from Banggood (which I am expecting next week) but just the second one I ordered. I’ve always planned to have one vanilla tablet and one that I can experiment with.

So anyways, the tablet arrived from Banggood (K9C6, international with a Samsung eMMC)

Seemed to be behaving so I left it charging for a few hours then attempted the heat sink mod.

I used arctic silver thermal paste on the cpu and storage chip, then a 1mm copper shim on each, followed by more arctic silver for the contact between the copper and the protective plate. For the RAM and the tiny graphics chip I used 1mm Fujipoly Extreme Plus 14W/mK thermal pad.

Then on top of the protective plate I used a 0.5mm Fujipoly Extreme Plus 14W/mK thermal pad over where the cpu and storage chip are.

Got the tablet back together and although there is a slight buldge on the back everything is working fine. The back of the tablet gets red hot now (which is what we are aiming for here).

I’ve done some testing (40 minutes of Hearthstone and 15 minutes of World of Warcraft, as well as having lots of things open at once, HD videos etc) the max the CPU temps went up to was 71. That was just one of the cores (2) with the rest of the cores reaching 68 max.

I’m very happy with these results, although to be fair I haven’t properly benchmarked this yet due to limited time so this can’t be considered a full test yet, but looking good so far

Oh and no throttling at all 🙂

I will try and put the thing through some more tests later on today (when I get back from work).

Now for the one slight downside, I managed to damage the power/volume button. There is a tiny little bit that sticks out on where you press each of the three areas. The power button bit completely broke off. Was very worrying when I put it back together and the tablet seemed unresponsive. It was strange as I tested it before putting it back together and everything was fine. To be honest, it was a great relief to discover that this was the issue.

Thankfully aliexpress sell replacement buttons, so I am saved!

Definately something to be aware of if you are considering this mod.

[Chris G]

Thanks for the post, glad your second one is good. Yes the mod makes a massive difference and lowered temps a good 20 degrees for me without throttling.

If I do it again on my new X98 Pro I will use thinner copper heat sinks I think and change the thermal paste to a better one like MX4 or another ceramic one that isn’t conductive.

Chris | Admin
Please support us and help keep TechTablets online. Affiliate revenue is used to pay for the server, studio apartment (Techtablets HQ) and buy new tech to review. Without it, this site would be dead.
Next up for review:
Ordered and waiting for my: BMAX S15 & Teclast F6 Plus
Currently testing: LG G8X & Redmi K30

[Steve]

Can’t thank you enough for posting that video up, you’re right makes a massive difference.

[Spanna Hanz]

Steve; Do you think this will improve battery life?

[Steve]

To be honest by removing the throttling I imagine batter life would be worse!

In Android I use DS Battery Saver. If you use this in Slumber mode I have got days and days out of it in standby mode. I read for a few hours 2 nights in a row and on the 3rd night the battery was at 79%. This obviously doesn’t help when you want to mainly use Windows (which I do)

[Steve]

A quick update for you all, I have been getting some pretty impressive performance results from this thing. I experienced the first black screen crash yesterday (the battery was around 38%). I’m going to update the bios later and am hoping this fixes it.

I managed to get it to throttle earlier in the week. I was purposefully trying to make it throttle though. I had Prime95 and chrome running in the background and played Bioshock for between 30-40 minutes. Only 1 core got throttled and it reached a maximum heat of 83 so I was very happy with this.

[Spanna Hanz]

Oh so it’s not really a win/win situation.

Did your first X98 pro die due to the thermal issue? (tooo much gaming??)       you got me worried now….  😉

looks like ill be sticking to solitaire!! lol.. when I want to play BF4  :'(

[Steve]

I’m not sure what was wrong with the first one, it lasted an hour and had a serious issue with the eMMC. I believe the chip iteself died.

The way I use mine is:

In the hand – Android

On a desk stand plugged in – Windows

This way the battery never really bothers me. I am looking into how I can get a better USB hub and possibly a 3A charging plug, that kinda thing. I’m hoping the bios update sorts out the black screen crashing (which is happening more and more now).

I have to be honest they can release all the updates they want, I believe that one thing that we will never escape is that the battery they used on these things wasn’t really up to the task. Still, for the price is an absolute bargain.

[Steve]

….and its dead 🙁

Blue screened on my last night and now won’t power on at all. I left it charging for 8 hours, have tried pushing the power button repeatedly and holding it down for 10 seconds many, many times.

For information I haven’t done any extensive gaming on this device, I’ve not played any game for more than 30-40 minutes.

Guess I am just lucky!

Thankfully the replacement for the first one that broke has arrived already, so fingers crossed for tablet number 3!

I will be returning this one but might opt for another model, 2 (potentially 3) faulty units is enough.

I’m still a fan of this machine, just wish they would stop dying on me 😀

[Chris]

unlucky, hope your next one is better. It would be great if they upped the quality and charged a bit more. Would happily pay £200 if it had better stability, battery life and a 5g wifi

[Steve]

Yeah agreed mate. The first thing I’ve done on the 3rd one is update the bios to 1.13. It took ages to come back on after that so I actually thought it was going to beat the first ones record (1 hour of use).

It’s working fine at the moment. Going to hold off heat sink modding this one as those parts are going to start getting expensive if I have to keep doing it. Plus it will be nice to be able to compare performance etc

[Chris]

Yea mine took a while to come back on after the bios update, probably normal. I’ve also not done the heatsink mod and not noticed any performance drops yet. Although the most I’ve pushed it is about 30 mins of legend of grimrock and half life 2 (only going to install low demanding/old games)

[Ankur]

My tablet should be arriving this weekend. I hope to have better luck, but I am keeping my expectations in check.

Were you able to do anything to recover the 2nd tablet or do you think that will have to go back?

Side question – where do you guys get all these games from to try out? I’m not big into gaming but wouldn’t mind trying out just to see how it looks on this tablet.

[Chris]

For games, buy from steam. Usually older games sell for -75% during the sales or can be picked up really cheap in humble bundles.

What type of games do you like, could give some recommendations and if I have it try it out first

[Steve]

Exactly what Chris just said. Install Steam and you will find some bargains, plus lots of free games! I’ve had some bargins from the Humble Bundles too

[Author]

Posts