The i5 6300U features two dye types.
The i5 6300U features two dye types.
This situation isn't a big deal—just something I wanted to explore. I was changing the thermal paste on my ThinkPad during summer, and it ran smoothly overall. The temperature differences weren’t extreme, but the sound quality changed noticeably. I mistakenly thought I hadn’t connected the CPU fan, which wasn’t the case. While replacing the paste, I discovered something unusual: this was the first time I’d swapped thermal paste for a U-series chip, and it had two dyes inside. One of them was visible here: https://imgur.com/a/aGchAPI I was surprised by its appearance. Initially, I assumed the small dye was just from the integrated GPU, so I didn’t consider it important and applied paste to it as well. Now I’m concerned about doing that correctly. There must have been a reason it didn’t need paste. That’s why I thought sharing my experience would help. Here are my three questions: 1) what purpose did the extra dye serve? 2) why was there no thermal paste in the smaller one? 3) did I make a mistake by putting paste on it? Thanks ahead!
Y and U series chips include the PCH built directly onto the processor. H series models need a separate chipset. Refer to the Intel product brief at the provided link, specifically pages 5 and 13.