Jo22 wrote:

I'm surprised no one mentioned play-doh so far.. 😁

I thought that was specifically designed for the Voodoo5.

Cheap Chinese made Thermal Grease from ebay.

Shin-Etsu MicroSi

I use the white generic stuff for everything up to Skt 462/478 and Thermaltake TG-1/2 or MX-2 (whichever I have in my hands) on everything else. No use putting high-end stuff on computers I seldom turn on.

Toothpaste (the generic white) is fine. Ceramic for serious builds. I don't like degradation with time, so no silver.

I heard you can just dose down your cpu on cold water every now and then if it come beeping for being to hot. Of course you have to press the pause-break key before and then.

I've used some cheap noname white stuff for anything up to Coppermine, but at some point I switched to MX-2 I think?
I really disliked AS5 as it makes a mess out of things with virtually no benefit whatsoever, not worth the hassle imo.

I even used those very tiny bags of white goo that sometimes comes with a CPU HS without much problems.

And +1 for using toothpaste-sized tubes of TIM 😁

I just tried this stuff from Coolaboratories that goes on like liquid metal. It's only been on for a day so no progress to report yet. I'm worried because it's liquid it might ooze out somehow. 🤣

I'm guessing the heat generated by the CPU hardens it??

CPU temps are staying in the normal range so far, though, so it seems to be working.

Jo22 wrote:

I'm surprised no one mentioned play-doh so far.. 😁

the guy who used play-doh cannot post, his computers broke, dunno why 😁

I have been using NOX TG10 for a while, it worked well in my computers

mrau wrote:

Jo22 wrote:

I'm surprised no one mentioned play-doh so far.. 😁

the guy who used play-doh cannot post, his computers broke, dunno why 😁

🤣

Put me down on the MX-4 list too. Although really, I just use whatever tubes I have around (tubes that came with by Noctua/Be Quiet CPU coolers, etc).

sliderider wrote:

I just tried this stuff from Coolaboratories that goes on like liquid metal. It's only been on for a day so no progress to report yet. I'm worried because it's liquid it might ooze out somehow. 🤣

I'm guessing the heat generated by the CPU hardens it??

CPU temps are staying in the normal range so far, though, so it seems to be working.

It's a gallium alloy IIRC and is liquid metal indeed. It's not going to harden unless you chill it. Keep anything aluminum away from it.

When I first built my Core i7-860 PC 6 years ago, I bought a small tube of Arctic Silver 5. Swore up and down by it...but I never really noticed or cared if it was giving me 1-2C difference in temps. And I don't think it's any different than some other pastes I've used at the office. I only recently used up what was left of that AS5 tube on redoing my Pentium II processor assembly. That was just to replace the 15 year old TIM that was dry and caked.

swaaye wrote:

It's a gallium alloy IIRC and is liquid metal indeed. It's not going to harden unless you chill it. Keep anything aluminum away from it.

All liquid metal TIM's harden after the first thermal cycle. I use several makes and types (some are sold in a solid leaf that melts and reflows to fill in gaps then solidify again), but all are a pain in the butt to clean up. They should only be used on high performance chips and cooling blocks, and if the cooling method is left in place for extended periods. All of them stain metal so you will not be able to read chip info after use. Make sure you write all the details down.

It's great stuff and worth the price and effort if you know what you're doing, but its not for every situation. All liquid metal TIM's melt aluminum on contact, but are safe of nickel and copper. They are best used on liquid cooling setups for CPU's and pure copper GPU fansinks.

As for my vintage or generic (or work related) rigs, I use MX2 or MX4 that I get in 60+ gram tubes. I go through about 7-8 tubes a year and grab which ever is cheaper at the time. It's great performance for cost, lasts for many years before needing to be replaced, and easy to clean and apply.

When I used to do extreme overclocking, I used dry ice and mounted with a super hefty glob of ceramique as it doesn't freeze up at those temps. It just becomes a sort of super goo.

+1 for MX-4. Been using it for years in all of my builds.

Kodai wrote:

All liquid metal TIM's harden after the first thermal cycle.

Interesting.

At first you think "Cool, this'll be a quick clean up!" as the now hard liquid metal TIM starts to just peel off. Then the reality of pressed metal that's like 1/8th the thickness of a human hair sets in, and you see it starts to break apart and parts refuse to "un-cling" to either the CPU or waterblock taunt you. You can't use anything hard or you will scratch the surface. Quite often it means you'll have to Lapp both the block and CPU to remove all if the TIM. Otherwise it will cause a gap on reseat that will effect cooling. I still think it's worth it on high end CPU's and GPU's. Been using it for 7-8 years now.

Is MX-4 sticky enough? is it anything like Ceramique 2?

Neither are glue, MX-4 has a lot less tendency to cling to stuff for sure.
Ceramique on the other hand is legendarily hard to work with and clean, people only really use it for LN2/dry ice cooling shenanigans anymore.

AS5 hasn't been the top dog for a really long time yet people can't get away from it, old habits die hard i guess. There's just cheaper, non-conductive pastes that have better thermal conductivity and are easier to clean.

The one exceptional point to make about Arctic Silver is its longevity. I've seen 24 hour a day servers run with good temps for over a decade when I used AS3. When I took the server down and apart, the TIM was stiff, but100% functional, and still pretty close to original consistency (little waxy). AS5 is supposed to have a longer working life compared to AS3 so that's a good thing.

But to be totally honest it's overall performance has been pretty crap since about '04/'05 as many other brands have come and gone that are superior in almost every way. Arctic Silver requires a very long cure to reach a performance level that generic junk reached nearly a decade ago. It's only advantage is its longevity. The stuff never seems to go bad once it's used. Still, I vote to avoid it.

Arctic Clean on the other hand, is something that a law should be written that requires everybody to use it. It has got to be the best cleaning solution for working with TIM ever created.