With the heatsink removed you will see the thermal pad that was installed at the factory.

If you plan to reuse this thermal pad with the new DLP chip be sure to keep it protected while you complete this guide.

There is some suggestion that inadequate thermal paste leads to the premature failure of the DLP chips on these TV's, so you may also consider removing the factory thermal pad and putting a better thermal paste like Arctic Silver on the chip itself, like you would with a computer processor.

If you decide to do this, at this time you can follow the manufacturer's instructions for cleaning the heatsink of the old thermal paste and, if applicable, tinting the heatsink.

Looking through the hole where the heatsink sits you can see the top of the DLP chip. Almost there!