Dis-assembly for application of new thermal compound is not hard to do, and the fears of some about doing it that can be found here and there seem to me to be absurdly overblown. There are some pictorial guides to doing it online. You do, however, need a modest toolkit, and especially one long, thin, specialist screwdriver that you are not likely to have in the average set of screwdrivers. It needs to be as slender as possible and long enough to reach the logic board from the top. There are, as I recall, six or possibly eight bolts to be loosened (not removed); it helps to know exactly where these are from the online guides, as there are some that you don't need to touch and that are best left as is.
A screwdriver shaft that can take a thumbwrench for cracking the bolts holding the processors down is ideal (e.g., like the hexaconal shaft on the driver I use); the extra torque helps at the beginning, not so much because the assembly is screwed down so tight as because of the particular form of bolt used. (There is a "spreader" used in the assembly, the working of which is much like a rawl plug — I don't know what they are called — and this seems to need a little "persuasion" sometimes before it moves).
On an air-cooled unit, the whole mechanical operation described takes less than an hour, followed by calibration, of course. The main difficulty I had when I did my first was in removing the cosmetic cover. That little plastic rivet just did not want to come out! The rest was straightforward.
Calibration after all is done can be shortened by selecting thermal calibration only (thus avoiding the lengthy RAM tests, etc.) in the ASD settings. Maybe doable in 90-100 mins., top to tail?
A screwdriver shaft that can take a thumbwrench for cracking the bolts holding the processors down is ideal (e.g., like the hexaconal shaft on the driver I use); the extra torque helps at the beginning, not so much because the assembly is screwed down so tight as because of the particular form of bolt used. (There is a "spreader" used in the assembly, the working of which is much like a rawl plug — I don't know what they are called — and this seems to need a little "persuasion" sometimes before it moves).
On an air-cooled unit, the whole mechanical operation described takes less than an hour, followed by calibration, of course. The main difficulty I had when I did my first was in removing the cosmetic cover. That little plastic rivet just did not want to come out! The rest was straightforward.
Calibration after all is done can be shortened by selecting thermal calibration only (thus avoiding the lengthy RAM tests, etc.) in the ASD settings. Maybe doable in 90-100 mins., top to tail?