I thought thermal paste was mostly hype until a bad job cost me a motherboard

For years I figured any old thermal paste would work fine. Then last month I rebuilt a gaming PC for a client in Redmond and used a cheap tube I had sitting around for too long. The CPU hit 95 degrees within 10 minutes of booting up and the board shut down for good. Now I only use Arctic MX-6 and check the coverage pattern every time. Anyone else have a bad paste experience ruin a build?

3 comments

3 Comments

martin.felix12d ago

Honestly the real hidden danger is old paste that's been sitting in a hot garage or car trunk. Heat cycles degrade the compounds way faster than people realize. Half those cheap tubes are cooked before they even hit your CPU.

holly_walker7612d agoProlific Poster

Oh man, I feel your pain. I did something similar with a build for my nephew's birthday last year (big mistake, I know). I used some old paste that came with a cooler I had lying around, and it was all crusty and weird. The CPU ran hot for like a week before it just gave up and started throwing blue screens left and right. I ended up replacing the whole motherboard because the socket looked scorched when I pulled the CPU out. Now I'm super paranoid about it, I always spread a thin layer with a card to make sure it's even across the whole chip. That Arctic stuff is pretty solid though, I switched to it after that disaster and haven't had a problem since.

wright.lisa12d ago

Honestly @holly_walker76, I once used toothpaste in a pinch and it actually worked for like two days before the PC smelled like a dentist office.