Poll of the Day > Thermal paste recommendations?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Apparently my desktop's CPU fan got dislodged in the process of moving (bumpy truck), and even after reattaching it, my CPU's still consistently running at 80+C without load and getting throttled to the point of significantly slowing down regular use, so I'm guessing new thermal paste is in order (the old stuff looked like it was messed up by the fan coming loose). Any suggestions for brands to seek out/avoid? The local Best Buy has a Corsair one in stock that I'm leaning toward for the convenience factor, but I'm open to other ideas.

confirmed the fan is actually spinning? when my fan when bad/broke it would spin for just a little bit but then needed human interference to get going anymore. if it does turn out to be the fan just buy a new one that your heatsink supports

if paste... then nah no recs its all the same

I haven't visually confirmed it, which I suppose I should do, but Hardware Monitor was saying it was consistently hovering around 2000 RPM. Unless the sensor is busted (which I have no immediate reason to suspect, other than it being ~9 years old), I think it should be good. The computer was working fine before the move, and hadn't been knocked far enough out of place to suspect impact damage (it was at a bit of an angle), so I'm not really suspecting fan failure. I will check that, though.

Yep, fan's spinning. I'm half tempted to treat this as an opportunity to upgrade to something other than the stock Intel fan anyway, but I'm also kind of broke because I just moved and don't get a proper paycheque for another 3 weeks, so it's probably not the best time for unnecessary upgrades.

I've got some thermal paste for you ;)
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I'd just get whatever's most convenient. You probably don't need it to last another 5+years anyway.

Alright, thanks all. I'll just go for the Corsair stuff, then, since it's readily available.

GanonsSpirit posted...

I've got some thermal paste for you ;)

Sweet, just leave it on the doorstep and I'll pick it up later.

dedbus posted...

I'd just get whatever's most convenient. You probably don't need it to last another 5+years anyway.

Gonna echo this, unless you built it recently. AMD has new cpus releasing this year and Nvidia just announced their new line of gpus today. AMD is also supposed to release new gpus this year, so later this year and early next year looking to be a good time to build a new pc.

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I just use rubber cement and my CPU doesn't even know the difference!

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dragon504 posted...

Gonna echo this, unless you built it recently. AMD has new cpus releasing this year and Nvidia just announced their new line of gpus today. AMD is also supposed to release new gpus this year, so later this year and early next year looking to be a good time to build a new pc.

Eh, I'm in no rush. The CPU in question is an i5 2500K still running at stock speeds (with the stock HSF), and I haven't felt the need to upgrade that yet. One of these days, I might upgrade the cooler and try overclocking it to get some more oomph out of it, but I'm fine for now. Presumably, my R9 280X will start showing its age when the next console generation comes around, so maybe I'll upgrade accordingly once there have been a couple rounds of new cards at that tier to let me get one relatively cheaply, but again, no rush. Most of what I'm playing isn't exactly demanding.

When you do end up wanting to upgrade, make sure to check out AMD's offerings. Intel got complacent and greedy and they're floundering pretty hard right now. Meanwhile, AMD's been steadily working their butt off to make up ground on Intel and their cpus are the go to as of right now. With a new gen of processors releasing later this year, they're looking to pound on Intel even more. Hopefully Intel gets their shit together in a few years, but for the forseeable future AMD seems like the way to go.

I hope AMD can be competitive in the gpu market as well, but Nvidia is looking to be in a pretty good spot after their presentation today. Their next gpu line is supposed to come out this year too.

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https://youtu.be/HRyKWF-nuGg

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That was my last cpu. I remember the clamps being kind of finnicky. Lots of people say its overclocks pretty well on just the stock cooler but I never bothered.

So I went from idling at 87C to idling at 25-30C and not going higher than ~47. Who knew that 9-year-old thermal paste doesn't take kindly to having the HSF dislodged? Makes me wonder what my temps were like before the move, since I haven't exactly been keeping track of them, and I feel like the computer is running a bit faster overall now, but I guess I'll never know.

dragon504 posted...

When you do end up wanting to upgrade, make sure to check out AMD's offerings. Intel got complacent and greedy and they're floundering pretty hard right now. Meanwhile, AMD's been steadily working their butt off to make up ground on Intel and their cpus are the go to as of right now. With a new gen of processors releasing later this year, they're looking to pound on Intel even more. Hopefully Intel gets their s*** together in a few years, but for the forseeable future AMD seems like the way to go.

I'll keep that in mind. Because Intel is Intel, I'll need a new motherboard regardless of who I go with for processor, so AMD is definitely an option (an option that makes upgrades slightly easier in the future, though evidently I don't change CPU's very often).

dedbus posted...

That was my last cpu. I remember the clamps being kind of finnicky. Lots of people say its overclocks pretty well on just the stock cooler but I never bothered.

I vaguely remember the clamps being slightly troublesome, but I've got nothing to compare it to (this was my first build) and 2011 was a long time ago, so I couldn't say for sure. I went for the K version under the rationale that I could squeeze more longevity out of it by overclocking (they're apparently very stable up to like 4.5 GHz, from the stock 3.4), but I just haven't felt the need to do so yet.

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fuck you

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Dont put it on you junk, thats my recommendation

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also, i recently had to replace an entire cooling system in my PC, i tried new thermal paste, it didnt do much, next was the cooling system. And that worked went from running at 100c to 30c and hasnt have passed 40c since.
I believe, there was air bubbles forming in the tubbing blocking the liquid circulation

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Ogurisama posted...

also, i recently had to replace an entire cooling system in my PC, i tried new thermal paste, it didnt do much, next was the cooling system. And that worked went from running at 100c to 30c and hasnt have passed 40c since.
I believe, there was air bubbles forming in the tubbing blocking the liquid circulation

Yeah, this just seems to have been the fan coming loose, then the paste being too old to squish back into place once the fan was replaced. My "cooling system" is just the stock Intel HSF, so there's not a lot of elements to worry about so long as the fan keeps spinning.

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I use Prolimatech PK-3.

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