Reference our thermal paste guide for cleaning and application during the next two steps.

Remove all the old thermal paste and its residue from the motherboard:

The CPU and GPU have gray thermal paste on them.

Depending on the model, your laptop may only have a CPU.

The components around the CPU and GPU have a yellow, viscous thermal compound.

If you're reusing the heatsink and fan assembly, remove all the old thermal paste and compound from the corresponding spots on its underside.

Don't remove the small blue pads from the top edge.