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Arctic Silver 5 Drying Out


jago_lfn

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It's been well over the 200 hours mentioned on the site before you start to notice temps dropping. My idle temps went from 27-30C to 21-23C and i'd like to keep it that way and I'm just wondering will the paste eventually dry out and have to be reapplied again or will it be fine as it is?

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It's been well over the 200 hours mentioned on the site before you start to notice temps dropping. My idle temps went from 27-30C to 21-23C and i'd like to keep it that way and I'm just wondering will the paste eventually dry out and have to be reapplied again or will it be fine as it is?

You're good for a very very long time, this stuff rocks. ;)

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Woah, very cool! :) are You using heatsink-fan solution to achieve that idle temperature?

and did You use ArctiClean before applying ArcticSilver?

Didnt use the cleaner. Bought a thermaltake silent heatpipe solution and thats the temps that are reported in speedfan with an athlon64 3400+ & abit fatal1ty a8n. By looking at the temps you'll probably say that the cpu temp isnt right because of the other temps being higher. I tested it with a full load and the cpu temp is the only one that rises up to around 30c. The other temps only rise by 1 or 2 degrees. I checked the heatsink and it's cold to the touch, wish i could say the same for the nforce chip, it's rather warm as is my geforce. I always just thought the temp reports were off but it says the same in the uguru and bios so i dunno. Running the latest bios.

post-17758-1144695047_thumb.jpg

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Per the Arctic Silver website:
Caution:

Arctic Silver is a grease and does not have any adhesive qualities. It will never dry or set and cannot be used to glue a heatsink to a chip.

Source :thumbup

Sales sh*t dude, don´t beleve everthing they say ;).

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I saw paste dripping of CPUs :P. Tweaked s*** to much to see how far it could go :sneaky: but that was a few years ago, when I was still manager of a RMA department ;). I had to test new stuff, burning or not. OW YEAH! :D

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Hah.. this happened to me with my old P4 (mounted with Arctic Silver 5)

I came to take the fan off to Ebay the CPU and the fan had glued itself to the top of the chip to the extent that when I pulled the fan off, the chip came with it despite the locking lever being down. Luckily no pins came off and I was able to sell it.

It had been on there about 2 years.

Edited by CrashGate3
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So basicly it'd probably be good to change it out say every six months? I really dont want it to dry cause i killed a celeron by pulling it out with a stuck sink on it broke pins off the cpu not that it was a big loss it was a celery chip afterall but this is my athlon64 we talking about.

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IMO, quality thermal paste, shouldn't need to be checked more than once per year. AS Ceramique (which is safer for beginners) doesn't need to be checked for 2+ years due to the addition of silicone which acts as a binding agent.

Just remember...Less is More.

Any basic Physics book will tell you the greatest amount of energy can be transferred between two objects by insuring the two objects have as much surface area in contact with each other as possible.

Thermal paste is used to fill in the ultra-fine imperfections between CPU and heatsink by eliminating any air pockets between the two, so use as little as possible. (The instructions are not lying when they suggest using a small rice grain sized amount). In this ideal air-tight situation, the paste will not dry out. It can't. However, case vibrations, people bumping the computer, etc cause the heatsink to shift around ever so slightly and leads to exposure.

This is not a sandwich!!! Do not dump an ample amount of goo on your CPU before you plop the heatsink on top!.

When the heatsink is 'sticking' to a CPU, more often than not it's a suction and means it has been applied correctly.

Usually, it's the thermal pads that will melt, burn, and cause CPU and heatsink to stick together. This is because they usually contain wax.

Also, taking off your heatsink to 'inspect' your thermal paste is somewhat asinine. If the heatsink is ever detached from the CPU, both must be cleaned and fresh thermal compound must be reapplied otherwise it will lose it's effectiveness. It is sort of like using a small piece of tape to try to remove lint off an entire sweater.

Too often people can't leave well enough alone and fiddle with the heatsink (without properly re-prepping it) and/or continue to OC their system and blame the thermal paste when their system becomes unstable.

If anything should be inspected, it should be the tension between the heatsink and CPU/mobo. No amount of paste can fill a huge gap that shouldn't be there and a big, over-sized heatsink, usually is more of a challenge to mount correctly.

Of course ambient air temp,dust build up, and possible 'dead air' spots should be looked into as well as a possible cause for higher temps.

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As noted above, the "stick" that occurs is due to a good fit between the CPU and the HS surface, not because of any adhesive qualities of the thermal compound itself. It is viscous but not sticky.

The correct way to remove a heatsink is with a rotating motion, NOT lifting it straight up.

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  • 2 weeks later...
In this ideal air-tight situation, the paste will not dry out. It can't. However, case vibrations, people bumping the computer, etc cause the heatsink to shift around ever so slightly and leads to exposure.

Yes, that’s correct, but coolers always have vibrations of fans and other environment vibrations. Also edges of the applied thermal past have contact with air so it will dry out always on the edges.

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