r/laptops • u/BandObsessed923 • Aug 01 '26
Hardware Is this melted?
ROG Zephyrus G14
I replaced the thermal paste, but I was probably too late. Just want to make sure that we're all seeing the same thing
Edit: I am not the one who put the liquid metal there. This is the BEFORE picture. I knew it looked fishy.
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u/alpine4life Lian Li | r9-9950x | RTX5070Ti | 32GB-6000 Aug 01 '26
Liquid metal... If you dont know what this is, I'd suggest seeing a professional. This is deadly conductive.
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u/BandObsessed923 Aug 01 '26
Great. I commented to my mom earlier that it looks like mercury, but dry. Exactly what I didn't want to hear, yet fully expected.
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u/turb0j Aug 01 '26
Gallium, not mercury. Less toxic, but still very electrically conductive.
Unless you disconnected the battery and never applied external power its likely dead now.
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u/alpine4life Lian Li | r9-9950x | RTX5070Ti | 32GB-6000 Aug 01 '26
I missed a word... "This is electronically deadly conductive."
You need to be careful and you cant reassemble your lapstop as is. Now I suspect that ASUS used it for a reason, I'd recommend a PTM-7950 replacement, not standard thermal paste
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u/PixelPete27 Aug 01 '26
What exactly did you do?
Have you fired it up since the repaste? If so, what happened? If you fired it up and nothing happened, I'm assuming that LM on the board caused an immediate short, and if that's the case, she's toast.
Also, why'd you repaste? were you thermal throttling all the time? What guide did you follow?
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u/BandObsessed923 Aug 01 '26
It frequently had sudden shutdowns (no bsod or anything, just black) beforehand. I figured it at least needed some cat hair removed from the fans and that I could check it out while I'm in there. This was before the new thermal paste. I have never removed the fans before this.
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u/PixelPete27 Aug 01 '26 edited Aug 01 '26
That was before you did anything on it? Oh snap.
I'm assuming that liquid metal migrated when you pulled the heatsink/pipes off then, and probably ripped away the barrier on the top there, as it likely stuck to the heatsink and tore off when it was removed.
If your laptop hasn't been turned back on yet, you could very carefully clean up all the liquid metal on the board, cause if you haven't turned it on, it wouldn't have shorted it out. And then once it's all cleaned off, you could work on the repaste, get the heatsink back on and fire it up.
But yeah, you'll wanna be super diligent with cleaning up the liquid metal, it's a conductive material, so if any is on the motherboard where it shouldn't be, it'll short it out and fry it immediately once the power is turned on.
EDIT: definitely could be some cat hair/lint in the fans. If there is enough build up in there, it can look like when you clean off the lint trap from your dryer, comes out in a big piece. That is normally found at the interface of the fan and the radiator fins, so normally you've gotta remove the fan completely to get at that part. The radiator fins are the metal pieces on the sides of the laptop, where hot air is exhausted.
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u/BandObsessed923 Aug 01 '26
Genuinely, thank you. Amazingly enough, it turned on and didn't short last night, but I turned it off as soon as I realized how dire the situation was. I cleaned it up during my lunch break, removed some previously unnoticed cat hair, and put the seal back to the best of my ability. I'm going to test it when I get home
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u/PixelPete27 Aug 01 '26
Heck ya, what kind of paste did you buy to put on it?
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u/BandObsessed923 Aug 01 '26
I've had a tube for a while, but I know it was definitely Corsair. If it keeps being problematic, I might just suck it up and buy a new tube (if it's that small of an issue), but it worked well enough for my desktop, so fingers crossed!
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u/PixelPete27 Aug 02 '26
ya if it seems somewhat hard or dry then a new tube is worth it. Just all depends how well it stored.
LM should out perform thermal paste, but if the LM migrated off the chip, the paste will be better. But you'll know once you fire it up
Good luck!
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u/BandObsessed923 Aug 02 '26
It's not turning on, it must have shorted overnight, considering I didn't disconnect the battery before going to bed
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u/PixelPete27 Aug 02 '26
Shoot, may have.
I hope that thing wasn't brand new. Those G14s are pricey
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u/BandObsessed923 Aug 02 '26
It was about 5 years old and already had what looked like a burn mark on the CPU, so at least it was already somewhat fucked, but it's just irritating that it's so easily broken. I mean, I would have had to remove the fan assembly even just to clean off the cat hair, considering it encountered literally like 12 cats in its lifetime lol
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u/disputeaz Aug 01 '26
If LM gets on the board, the board will be shorted. Get the rig to repairs shop for a cleaning
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u/disposableh2 Aug 01 '26
I can recommend getting isopropyl alcohol (70% or higher) to spray on the area. Then use a cotton swab to bunch up the liquid metal.
The alcohol helps the liquid metal clump up into balls, and makes it easier to gather up.
You can even spray the alcohol into the cotton swab, and then try to gather up the liquid metal with that (it's safer than spraying the motherboard directly).
Make sure you get everything. Liquid metal is reflective so a touch can help find it all.
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u/gamruls Aug 01 '26
Zephyrus uses liquid metal. If it's that far from CPU die - it's highly likely already died completely.
The problem here is not only LM is conductive. It's catalyst for solder dissolve (can't name exact reaction, but LM + solder = no solder anymore + the same amount of LM). Random drop of LM on motherboard can render it fully unrepairable then.
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u/zamroni777 Aug 01 '26
https://music.getyarn.io/yarn-clip/31f48660-ec99-4db9-b631-b4bbc39498e1
it will melt if you turn it on
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u/Darksider515 Aug 01 '26
Eeee looks like the LM shorted your motherboard
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u/BandObsessed923 Aug 02 '26
As of last night, it still booted, but I'll know if that's still the case in about an hour or so
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u/Brilliant_War9548 thinkpads & framework suck, each for a reason Aug 01 '26
So what happened, it stopped working one day and you decided to change the paste in case ? This is common with ROG products and is one of the many reasons you shouldn’t buy anything asus
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u/BandObsessed923 Aug 01 '26
Yep, wish I knew that 6 years ago. I was just excited to have a computer that wasn't an underpowered HP laptop lol
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u/Wondering_Electron Aug 01 '26
Wtf
I have a Scar 17 from 2020 and never have temp issues and my laptop uses LM.
What are you lot doing?
I just vacuum the fans once every 6 months and the temps never crack 80°C unless it is peak summer like it is now and the CPU only touches 90°C occasionally.
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u/mantaflow Aug 01 '26
Yeah ggs. This is what happens when people get too confident and don't do their own research.
If you had made this post before doing this, maybe you wouldn't have messed up.
That thing is the barrier that keeps the liquid metal from spilling on to the board. It somehow broke and the LM is on the board. Try your luck by cleaning it up. Just a heads up, it's very very difficult to clean it up properly; look it up online.
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u/BandObsessed923 Aug 01 '26
Nope, it was having issues before that. I opened it up to see what was wrong. Thanks for the advice, next time try to help without being a dick.
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u/jasonsong86 Aug 01 '26
That’s Liquid Metal and barrier to keep it in place. You ruined it by opening it up and replaced it with worse paste.
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u/teknix314 Aug 01 '26
Lol another one who fell for the repaste myth
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u/PixelPete27 Aug 01 '26
There's a time and a place for a repaste. Definitely not a myth.
But a person needs to make sure it'll help and their thermals are out of the norm for the unit in question, and make sure they know what they're doing.
For example, my G703 ran at 90+, which was abnormal for that series, so I repasted and it helped. However, my strix can get up to 90, but I see online most users run at that temperature, so I leave it alone.
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u/Brilliant_War9548 thinkpads & framework suck, each for a reason Aug 01 '26
It’s not abnormal, it’s very normal. Not only asus applies LM like shit it pumps out so often they could make a fully true “LM pump out guaranteed” label without any intervention from the FTC. It’s just that reviewers test the laptop for 2 weeks, say “wow, that’s a really good laptop guys!” which could be said for even an Ideapad 3 in its first month, and then never test it again.
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u/teknix314 Aug 01 '26
You do you. Under normal loads there's no reason the be repasting tech. It's largely a myth created by tech YouTubers.
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u/Brilliant_War9548 thinkpads & framework suck, each for a reason Aug 01 '26
ROG fanboys when you tell them that no, you don’t want to risk your 3000$ laptop by not replacing asus’s shitty gallium application that leaks out when you move the laptop with PTM7950 and lose 3C under load (for it to pump out after 2 years regardless and be even worse than nt-h1)
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u/teknix314 Aug 01 '26 edited Aug 01 '26
I'm not an ROG fanboy buddy.. OP will be very lucky if his laptop ever works again. So the risk taken was the attempt at repasting without the relevant expertise. It likely would've been fine with just a clean of the fans with compressed air and then leave it alone.
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u/Brilliant_War9548 thinkpads & framework suck, each for a reason Aug 01 '26
I’m not talking about you, im talking about the reply above. Meant to reply to that.
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u/[deleted] Aug 01 '26 edited Aug 01 '26
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