how long should thermal compound or grease be changed??

[heng1028]

How often should we changed new thermal grease in order to have best heat dissipation thru heatsink??

 

[Supradude]

hm... i'm pretty sure if you apply the grease/compound on correctly the first time, then you should just leave it... in general, good quality compound will not deteriorate or lose it's "performance" by usage, so just set it and leave it...

 

[heng1028]

wouldn't it dry out after few months?? i experienced once that my cpu over heated cause of the grease dried out and conduct no more heat.

 

[Tetsuo316]

the paste that came with my globalwin ran dry after a period of several months. the higher quality stuff won't deteriorate so quickly or at all in some cases. stuff like arctic silver is top quality stuff and you can buy it from online stores like 2cooltek or plycon.

 

[Big Lar]

I have Never had my thermal paste dry out, I have used copper/ silver/ stuff from Alpha, you name it/ I've tried it, I now have been back with old faithfull,( Radio Shack),and I did check it once, in the last year, ( about 4 months ago), and it never dried out. What 1 needs to remember is that thermal paste, is for filling the minute cracks and inconsistencies on the slug, not... plain old heat transfer from the slug to the cold plate heatsink or whatever. Just my .02

 

[Brian48]

Good quality thermal compound (even the Radio Shack stuff) should not dry out as long as the "seal" is good. As long as the heatsink is attached correctly and tightly onto the chip's surface or heat transfer plate and there are no air bubbles in the layer, the compound should last for years. I've taken apart heatsinks applied with the Radio Shack stuff that were in excess of 3+ years old and the goop was still good. The excess goo that's oozed off to the side may detiorate, but not the stuff under the heatsink. Same principle as keeping the cap on the tube.

 

[cowhide]

I just took apart my k6-2 350 that was 2 years old and the paste looked as good as the day I put it on.

 

[Renob]

Cowhide nice overclock...... did you ever try that fsb setting with cheap ram??????????

 

[Mikewarrior2]

The problem with RS grease on a duron/t-bird is 2 fold... The surface area is very small, so sealing it is difficult. Secondly, and this is a problem with most silicon based greases, is the high amount of heat on a duron/t-bird.

Granted, older cpu's have run as hot as t-birds/durons do now, but they never had to transfer that heat over such a small surface.

If you're using a duron/t-bird, the PCTC(thermal pad built into most socket A heatsinks) is better than RS stuff. If you do need grease(ie changing heatsinks), get a good quality grease and you'll be fine.


Mike