yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Nexus 4 General] undercover:
Thanks for this OP, I've been long considering opening it up and trying to adapt some sort of heatsink, you just saved me a lot of grey matter wasted :D :good:

Few points though.

1. PCB, as noted by OP, is well insulated from the frame. This leads me to thinking that they tried to keep it away from LCD heat, or to prevent heat from transferring TO LCD. Yellow spots anyone? I mean there is clearly a lot of effort has been put in to insulate it. If it was to insulate battery, well, it would have been a lot easier to insulate battery by raising it on non heat conductive material.

2. leads to point 1. Pocket is there not for heatsink that was dismissed, but to insulate cpu from the frame (LCD). Air is a pretty bad heat conductor.

3. Is your concern CPU temp or actual throttling by the battery temp? If former, it would have been easier to pull off battery and stick it on to small bits of foamy double sided tape. I'm worried about CPU temp more than about battery one tbh, since mine is in the repair now due to constantly running hotter and decreased battery life since overheating (58c).

So. Disregarding LCD panel from point 1, probably best results would be achieved by insulating battery from housing and "grounding" ram chip as much as pos (you've done a great job at that) to the frame + some UV, -100mV should be enough. Wanna try that since the hardest part is done?
[Nexus 4 General] republicano:
nice finding, so they wouldnt want the heat to transfer to the screen so you would want a larger copper plate or better frame so the heat would spread out evenly,

that copper piece would be too small over long term?
[Nexus 4 General] simms22:
never mind, i get it now. i must have read the thread to fast :)
[Nexus 4 General] Jayrod1980:
Re: Nexus 4; Investigating thermal throttling [HardMod]

I still want to do this... Anyone know what parts available in the us would be best? Never purchased a tiny .5mm copper plate nor stand alone thermal pad. If you are using metal would thermal paste be better or a pad?
[Nexus 4 General] meangreenie:
You can buy 0.5mm pads off of ebay for next to peanuts.
[Nexus 4 General] el_charlie:
Re: Nexus 4; Investigating thermal throttling [HardMod]

The Galaxy S3 has a thermal pad attached to the frame and it can heat a lot, too
[Nexus 4 General] Rusty!:
The Optimus G has shielding over the SoC:

Maybe that mottled stuff is a thermal pad, I don't know. Perhaps that shielding insulates it a bit and that's what caused it to fail at benchmarks rather than just throttle back like the N4 does.
[Nexus 4 General] Sturdy_99:
I have thermal paste......bt can someone help me with thermal pad.....can i use aluminum foil as an alternative..... Coz i cant buy copper shim n graphite foil n aluminum sheet.....bt can i make the aluminum sheet out of the foil n use it....:thumbup:
[Nexus 4 General] vollmilch:
Yes u can.

Honestly even a piece of wood would be better than nothing :D

Gesendet von meinem Nexus 4 mit Tapatalk
[Nexus 4 General] lovesingh25:
Yup i think u can go ahead but just add thermal paste between each layer u fold.

Just be careful about it's thickness (.5~.6 mm at max).

sent from Nexus 4
[Nexus 4 General] Sturdy_99:
OK..thanks ill try it out...:)
[Nexus 4 General] Sturdy_99:
can i just fill the gap with thermal paste
[Nexus 4 General] vollmilch:
Won't do much but a huge mess inside your phone since thermal paste turns into fluid before it wears in.

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[Nexus 4 General] Sturdy_99:
my phone is heating more than before........did i do something wrong.....i had used alluminium foil...i put thermel paste inside the foil and above and below the foil.....but now when i had played dead trigger the heat was feeling like it would burst.(50c)...my startup temp was 31c.....

Alluminium is a metal so good conductor of heat...i also noticed that it cooled down to 42c much soon......bt im afraid the way it got heated while i was playing...

should i remove the aluminuim foil
[Nexus 4 General] vollmilch:
CPU temp of 50C is normal. Did you fold the foil several times? No need to put paste between each layer. Just press it tightly together.

Gesendet von meinem Nexus 4 mit Tapatalk
[Nexus 4 General] Sturdy_99:
no what did was i made a box like thing with the foil and then put the paste in it.....then i put the paste in the gap and some on the processor......i didnt put any pressure to press it.....
[Nexus 4 General] Milamber33:
You'd be better off folding a bunch of foil into a solid block. The thermal paste isn't going to do a good job of dissipating the heat, its job is to transfer the heat to a block of metal.

So yeah, as others suggested, fold a bunch of foil into a block, possibly with a bit of paste between the layers, and then use paste between the block and the CPU.
[Nexus 4 General] Sturdy_99:
ohh...i thought that it make the processor cool...thats why i did so......is it ok what i have done.....or i will reopen it and correct my mistake...
[Nexus 4 General] vollmilch:
Well the way you did it wont help much. I would open it again. Clean the paste off before applying new one.

Gesendet von meinem Nexus 4 mit Tapatalk
[Nexus 4 General] Sturdy_99:
ok ill do the same...:good:
[Nexus 4 General] ads.underground:
Hi,

I've recently had my Nexus 4 battery replaced and ever since then I feel that the phone has gotten hotter than it used to. So I'm planning on doing this mod to possibly reduce the heat.

I have a couple of questions before I do this.

1. Copper and Graphoil shims are hard to come by here but I think I might have a couple of Copper Shims from old motherboards/video cards laying around. Can I still use those? And if the size is bigger or thicker, can I use sand paper to it slim it? Does it need to be smooth? No side effects on doing this?

2. Is using copper better than aluminum foil? I'm planning on using copper as long as I find one but if not, maybe I'll try aluminum foil if the results are that much different.

3. I've read that someone put on Thermal Paste on the battery which reduced the heating of the battery. For those that did this, are there any side effects so far?

4. Is it safe to use AS5 (To be honest I don't really have much of a choice as this is the only available so far)? I think some have been having GPS issues due to this but I'm curious as to how serious the effect is.

Thanks.
[Nexus 4 General] Milamber33:
I can only answer the first point. Yes, you can still use old shims, metal is metal, its ability to dissipate heat won't have changed. I'm no expert, but I think you should be able to trim something down. I'd just make sure the smooth side is towards the CPU to make sure the contact is as good as possible. A rough surface away from the CPU will actually improve its dissipation capabilities, though. :)
[Nexus 4 General] lovesingh25:
[MENTION=4819218]ads.underground[/MENTION]

Putting thermal paste on battery is totally optional.. I didn't do it so it wouldn't recommend it as i don't think it will help a lot considering that even battery is not directly with contact of metal on back cover (as far as i remembered). U will notice it once u will open ur back cover.

I used normal thermal paste which u can buy from ebay(any chinese brand will do) with aluminium foil at first and then copper shim and I am not finding and problem with gps!!!!

But people who had used arctic silver faced some problems(arctic silver may not be the only reason) so u can try with that but just tighten the screws well before packing everything up so that all metal contact points are in place and tightly packed!!!

Just be patient and report ur results!!!! :good:
[Nexus 4 General] thenobol:
sorry, but you are using ALUMINIUM as heat pipe? you know that the thermal conductivity of aluminum is really low?
[Nexus 4 General] el_charlie:
Actually Aluminum is a good thermal conductor. Not as good as copper, but really good. In fact, many heatsinks for CPUs are made of aluminum. The enthusiast grade heatsinks are made of copper, but many times the fins are of aluminum.

In order of conductivity: Diamond > Silver > Copper > gold > aluminum and then, by a huge difference, comes iron and then steel.

Of course copper is much better, but, not by any means, aluminum is a bad thermal conductor.

Cheers!
[Nexus 4 General] devinr501:
Question about this certain copper shim

I found this on eBay: www(dot)ebay(dot)com/itm/220838655713 <-- sorry about this, can't post links without 10 posts.

It is 14x15x.5mm but the description states:

Would this be the correct shim to buy?

What about thermal pads? Is that a better(safer) solution?

Thanks, guys.
[Nexus 4 General] lovesingh25:
This will do, and regarding comparison between thermal pad and copper obviously copper is better heat conductor and copper shim method is more efficient than thermal pad methods.

Now regarding safety I think someone else had to explain this because I haven't had any hands-on experience with thermal pads

But I modded my phone with copper and it is working fine!!!

:good:
[Nexus 4 General] aavvaallooss:
Hello, nice work!!!

Do you know if anything similar to your Mod is possible/useful in Nexus 5?

Thank you.

iFixit Teardown (SoC in step #11): http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Nexus+5+Teardown/19016
[Nexus 4 General] bertgau:
Carefully done, about one hour work and easier than expected. With scissors I cut a 0.5mm fin on an old PC heat sink, but it was not absolutely flat and alloy copper anodized, so I ordered an exact dimensions real copper shim, from ebay H-K for a mere 2 bucks + paste. According to Trickster: CPU is 8°C cooler at idle in my room, battery about the same, and no more hotspot on the phone back. Worth it!
[Nexus 4 General] mpdt:
It's the Arctic Silver 5 that is causing the GPS issue.

I cleaned the graphic foil and and the battery terminal yesterday AS5's cleaning solution. This morning I had no loss of GPS in Waze.

Anyone know if the thermal compound sent with Cooler Master's heat sink would have the same effect as Arctic Silver 5?
[Nexus 4 General] undercover:
I used ceramique, which is non capacitive nor is inductive, same problem.
[Nexus 4 General] mpdt:
I'm going to try Cooler Mater's compound. They claim it is dielectric.
[Nexus 4 General] FuPete:
Does someone know the

exact

dimenions?

Maybe I can make something for the other chips on the board?

BTW: What is the backplate for? Cant we remove it, and fill the gap with a thermal pad or so? I know we need it for the screws, but you can make the screws smaller for example ;)
[Nexus 4 General] wesleyrpg:
I'm also curious to know if this is possible on the nexus 5 as the Snapdragon 800 in the Nexus 5 Throttles hardcore!!!!
[Nexus 4 General] pyj08178:
The Nexus 5 doesn't need the copper pad. Only the thermal paste. I have made the full guide for the Nexus 5 here http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=2627714
[Nexus 4 General] Cydras:
Thanks i've used the mod successfully! It was really funny to open my Nexus 4 :D
[Nexus 4 General] kafkaesque1978:
Did this today. Took about an hour. Seems to have worked perfectly. Excellent. Thanks.
[Nexus 4 General] morrislee:
I was having GPS issues before too until I wash down the excess AS5 on the motherboard (and cleaned it off with tissue lol)

still using arctic silver 5, but conservatively and GPS is working just fine ;)
[Nexus 4 General] costin85:
[MENTION=4923312]troun2000[/MENTION] If i were to put a thermal pad, what thicknes do you recomend?

Will 1 mm sufice?

Thank you.
[Nexus 4 General] DZeros:
I am doing -200 to -250mV undervolt. This is another quick option to the heat problem.
[Nexus 4 General] costin85:
From what i have seen in quite a few dissasembly videos it seems that the more expesive brother of the nexus 4, LG Optimus G, does have a thermal pad in the same spot where the nexus doesn't.

Please see this. http://youtu.be/-XCAsHJ6t4Y?t=4m26s

Also many other dissasembly videos show the same layout.

So maybe a thermal pad was suposed to be instaled in the Nexus 4 after all.
[Nexus 4 General] the_duck:
Sorry for being so late to the party, but did you end up with 0.5mm pad AND use thermal paste or just the pad alone? I'm on the verge of doing this mod myself and wanted to know if I should add paste or not since I've read not to use a pad and paste, either the pad alone or just paste w/a conductive shim since it's meant to "fill the gaps" between the chip & the sink (which makes sense since I've put together enough computers in my time and I've always read the same thing.
[Nexus 4 General] masternothing:
Reply

I used pad and thermal paste, used copper. In my opinion using thermal paste is essential, same when using in computers. You'll get better results - lower CPU temps, but what is important is to use paste properly. You should put it on 2 sides of pad( CPU one and frame one)

youtube

here you have some advise how to do it properly, don't use too little because it won't have any impact, and try not to use too much because it could cause some problems. Good luck :)

I'm new so i can't add outside links, so pls search on youtube how to apply thermal paste :)
[Nexus 4 General] aegidios2:
Hi,

I've used thermal paste and thermal pad ...

Good luck !!!
[Nexus 4 General] slybunda:
safer to use thermal pad, its not electrically conductive, and it wont mess with the signal in the phone causing issues.
[Nexus 4 General] slybunda:
my 1mm thick pad arrived and its perfect to use, It compresses down to half its thickness so its going to be a good option to use.
[Nexus 4 General] fr3quency:
I'm tempted.... :x
[Nexus 4 General] lzamora159:
hello i am a newbie, and i am going to buy this : www,uk,rs-online,com/web/p/thermal-gap-pads/8127982/ (replace comma by dot)

Is it good ? :)
[Nexus 4 General] Sillik:
Pad dimensions

Hello,

I'm planning on opening my phone to replace the battery and thought it would be a good occasion to apply this mod.

I ordered this copper shim as it seemed to fit the dimensions:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007PPEVX0/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

But then I read better and saw that a proper fit would be 14.5 mm * 14.5 mm, not 15 mm * 15 mm.

Would the item above still fit?

Or should I cut it? If so, how? I can't see myself cutting half a milimeter without breaking/bending the whole thing...

Thank you.
[Nexus 4 General] slybunda:
make sure you got the correct tools to open up the phone, mine were all worn out so i had to give up on opening up the back cover. will order a guitar pluck or something since a credit card for mangled up easy and is not thin enough for the job
[Nexus 4 General] skezza:
Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but was there an agreed optimal solution for this? A dollop of arctic silver? Or a tiny pad cut from this ? http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/100mm-x-1...010?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_3&hash=item2c667589aa

Cheers
[Nexus 4 General] wesleyrpg:
arctic silver is too thin on its own, use the pad in conjunction with the arctic silver!
[Nexus 4 General] Xdatester:
test
[Nexus 4 General] copong:
I have to open up the phone to change the battery, might just attempt to do this as I reckon I have some thermal pad and arctic silver in a box somewhere.
[Nexus 4 General] Mashed_Potatoes:
Why not simply undervolt it? It has proven to be an effective heat killer. -100mV is enough
[Nexus 4 General] codebam:
like others, I want to replace my battery and think this is cool if I can get better performance by applying this quick mod. I'm fairly new to DIY things like this. Any simple tips or things that I should remember? Should I even try attempting this?
[Nexus 4 General] undercover:
I found benefits to be negligible and GPS performance was affected. So I'd say avoid it.
[Nexus 4 General] codebam:
ah okay, well I'll still replace my battery I think. seems easy enough, no?
[Nexus 4 General] undercover:
Yup. Open up phone, run loads of benchmarks t warm up frame and battery, this will soften the glue. then careflly pry it off, make sure you don't pierce it or it'll go boom!!!!

As a disclaimer, I recommend you take it to the professional repair, but it is DIYable.
[Nexus 4 General] codebam:
how exactly would I accidentally pierce it? lol but yea I'll be careful. thanks for the tip, I wouldn't have thought of that. I'll up my thermal throttling, and leave it in performance mode for a while until I see the battery get to about 40 (no need for a benchmark lol). do I need to replace the glue? should I buy some thermal paste as well?
[Nexus 4 General] undercover:
By prying it off the aluminium base. Battery is soft pack and is glued down. Old glue residue should be enough. What would you need thermal paste for?
[Nexus 4 General] TigTex:
Hello

I had problems with the power button of my nexus 4 so I decided to open it and also do this mod.

If you have the tools, you can apply this mod without any problem. Just take your time, don't overtight the screews.

I've used one thin thermal pad that I've removed from an old notebook. It fits perfectly inside the gap between the SoC and the frame.

With thermal pads, avoid using thermal paste. It isn't needed!

Using antutu and cpu temp, I noticed that the max temperature decreased 8ºC and the hot spot on the back cover is gone. Now the heat is spreaded across the back, lcd and top frame. You will feel more heat coming from the phone because of the increased thermal performance. I haven't noticed any throttling yet under normal usage! (Tmax < 55ºC) and the battery is much colder :D

So, is it worth it? Not really... but if you have to disassemble your nexus for some reason, give it a try!

I recommend using a thermal pad and undervolt at the same time.

Oh, and the power button was fixed just by cleaning it...

Thank you for this thread!

EDIT: Some tests after this mod (stock cm12.1 kernel) using stabilitytest

Starting cputemp: 31C | Starting bat temp: 28.5ºC

Throttling to 1242mhz: cpu 60ºC, battery 36.6ºC after 4 min

Throttling to 1134mhz: cpu 60ºC, battery 39ºC after 8min

After 10min, cpu: 56ºC, battery 39,5ºC still at 1134mhz.

It's an hot day today...
[Nexus 4 General] cbpneuma:
Hi all,

Oddly enough, after applying the mod (I only used thermal paste), I couldn't switch on the phone anymore. Plugging the usb in yields a solid red light for about 5 seconds and then nothing happens.

After a lot of digging, I was able to boot the phone up by forcing it to start in bootloader (power+volume down) and boot up from there. The phone itself operates normally; however the battery refuses to charge.

Further experiments and research shows that the phone is reporting a wrong battery temperature at a solid -30C (negative 30 degrees Celsius) which might be why the phone refuses to charge the battery.

I have since reversed all the modding but to no avail. I have also tried installing a spare battery and charge port but the problem persists so that's not where the defect is.

Can anybody shed some light as to how it maybe fixed?

I'm suspecting it could be the battery sensor that is somehow damaged. Where would it be located and can it be easily replaced?

Thanks
[Nexus 4 General] wenchien:
GPS performance

I managed to add a thermal pad and found that GPS was affected. It's weird since that thermal pad should be the safest material to use. Then I found this thread:

http://xdaforums.com/nexus-4/general/nexus-4-gps-fixing-screen-replacement-t2895111

and realized that the thermal pad creates a small gap between PCB and the metal frame, which kills grounding...

After adding a small amount of folded kitchen aluminum foil to the place shown by post #38 of that thread, GPS now works again. :D
[Nexus 4 General] tonypur:
Would a 0.3 mm shim with a touch more thermal paste be better than a thermal pad?

There's no 0.5 mm shims to be had in Australia and I don't want to wait for overseas postage, it takes weeks, but I can get either 15 x 15 x 0.3 copper shim or thermal pad material delivered pretty quickly.

I'm leaning towards the shim, because it's still only 0.2 mm of paste.
[Nexus 4 General] TheArt.:
Did it today, and changed battery also. Will report if GPS was affected. (used copper and thermal paste).

EDIT: after the hardmod, GPS wasn't working and the reason was the same explained in #437. So I applied alluminium foil and now it works again! Thank you [MENTION=2747551]wenchien[/MENTION]
[Nexus 4 General] tonypur:
I think that 0.5 is too thick. I used a 0.3 mm copper pad, and 2 very thin layers of Arctic Silver 3, reassembled the board, did up the screws, then pulled it down again, and the thermal paste was quite nicely spread out.

I've installed a new kernel, hellscore b83.5-L on stock 5.1.1, undervolted by 200mV, and it's a new phone. I got the best heat drop from the kernel and undervolt.
[Nexus 4 General] marcelopoipo:
i'm gonna try this
[Nexus 4 General] JimMorrison723:
failed

Today was the day, i had my new battery replacement a few weeks ago, but i waited for the little Aluminium sheet, that came in today.

I disassembled the phone (it wasn't that easy), placed thermal paste, put the motherboard, and then... One of the connectos didn't click into his place. It was the Synaptics S7020A connector ([IMG="Picture"]http://i.imgur.com/GBJV3Xj.png[/IMG]). When i checked it, it didnt look like this, it got hurt in the removal part. Looks like it shoudn't been remove just like the others, but i didn't see a writing about that.

I don't think i have to tell you, i got really sad :( I put back the screws, and booted the phone. At that point i didn't know what was the porpuse of that phone.

Booted up, and then boom.... Coudn't use the touchsreen :'(

Here is how it looks like now.... :(

edit edit: propably i should just buy a new display, it has it's connector, so i could fix it. -nope.

edit edit edit: And here is a better look at the motherboard
[Nexus 4 General] mesaj:
You could ask a service which does JTAG, BGA repairs if they could resolder this.
[Nexus 4 General] JimMorrison723:
Thanks i'll try.

/now an s6 edge owner. Damn, i miss my n4 :( /
[Nexus 4 General] anawim:
I'm writing here because I've just had a broken Nexus 4 digitizer+display+frame combo replaced and now it's experiencing screen blackouts (and other strange problems like white fading and image inversion and banding) when temp rises. Resintalling the old display it's presenting the same problems while before opening it up there was no issue, apart from not working digitizer in the lower portion of the screen. What could be?
[Nexus 4 General] moriel5:
Hi, I plan on doing this mod soon (with silver+ Arctic Silver 5), except that my source of the silver is defective keyboards.

Does anyone have any idea how many sheets I need to be able to make a 1.5x1.5x0.5cm plate?

I already have 6 sheets, with 2-4 more possibly arriving soon.
[Nexus 4 General] younix258:
Re: Nexus 4; Investigating thermal throttling [HardMod]

@OP im speculating as much as the next guy but...

I have francos kernel, and downloaded tempmonitor (which reports both battery and cpu temp for our phone) from app market. Francos kernel has the ability to set the CPU throttle temp, which in my case is set to 60C. I believe that this is the temperature that matters, and while battery temp is being reported, i dont think it gets polled for throttling purposes. I verified this by changing my cpu throttling temp, then running cpu stability test while watching the cpu temp reported by tempmonitor. The throttling did indeed happen when CPU reached its throttle temp.

I am still very interested in doing this mod for two reasons.

1. Even after a UV of ~-200mV across the board, sometimes the phone will get uncomfortably hot for some light use.

2. I'd like my battery to have the lowest temperature possible in order to preserve its life.

My only concern is like other said, maybe this is something we are not meant to do. Maybe LCD will suffer, or maybe something else will o.O who knows?
[Nexus 4 General] leader288:
troun2000, whats the size of the copper shim that you put in?
[Nexus 4 General] undercover:
OP!! Come back!!! THis it THE most interesting topic on N4 forums atm.
[Nexus 4 General] _-livio-_:
this just might be what's causing the buzzing/hissing in the earpiece :)
[Nexus 4 General] younix258:
Re: Nexus 4; Investigating thermal throttling [HardMod]

Does the optimus G have buzzing/hissing? Does the nexus 4 have the shielding