This ThinkPad X1 Carbon 2017 of mine has been in service for over a year now, and honestly I’m pretty happy with it. No plans to replace it — maybe next year, if the X1 Carbon still doesn’t have a 4K screen or any big leap forward, there’ll be no reason to upgrade. But it’s been a year, and lately some weird shit has started happening. Just watching YouTube makes it heat up… like, really hot. Weird, right? Shouldn’t be doing that. Then again, the thing is a year old, so my guess is the thermal paste is dead… no wait, dried out.

Recently I hooked my ThinkPad up to a dock and ran dual monitors, and the thing kept spiking to 90°C at the drop of a hat. I couldn’t take it anymore, so I decided to do something about it. The mod went two ways: repaste the thermal compound, and add external cooling.