does thermal paste...

tomanders91

tomanders91

tomanders91

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When i first got my new motherboard and cooler etc, and put it on my e6400 and overclocked it, i was getting temps of about 40 idle, then the next day it went down to about 30 (35-38 when the heating was on :p), now today, its gone down even more, does it need time to 'dry' or something?
 
tomanders91 said:
When i first got my new motherboard and cooler etc, and put it on my e6400 and overclocked it, i was getting temps of about 40 idle, then the next day it went down to about 30 (35-38 when the heating was on :p), now today, its gone down even more, does it need time to 'dry' or something?
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not 'dry' just 'settle'. It's a thermal compound which takes time to settle in with temperatures e.t.c to form its area of cooling.
 
actually its the preapllied stuff on the arctic cooler 7, which is mx1 compound? So this is pretty normal? (a good thing i guess :p)
 
the compound needs to reach maximum thermal viscosity (i seem to recall from reading the arctic silver site many moons ago)

so yes, it does take time to settle in
 
The Arctic Cooling MX2 is supposed to be better than AS5, I havn't done enough tests on it yet to know, the VERY best is Coolaboratory but it's the worst TIM in the world to get off it sort of solders itself to the CPU & Heatsink.
 
tomanders91 said:
When i first got my new motherboard and cooler etc, and put it on my e6400 and overclocked it, i was getting temps of about 40 idle, then the next day it went down to about 30 (35-38 when the heating was on :p), now today, its gone down even more, does it need time to 'dry' or something?
Click to expand...

Physics lesson! :D

When you put the processor together with the heatsink you want maximum contact between the two materials, which means the largest surface area of contact as possible.

The problem is that no matter how well you machine or polish a surface there will always be tiny gaps, dents and scratches down to the molecular level. As a result the actual metal-to-metal contact area can be rather small. Now I should clarify that there is some heat transfer in these gaps (because they are full of air), there just isn't a lot (because air is rubbish at transferring heat, about 8000 times less efficient).

So what the thermal paste does is act as an interface between the two materials. It seeps into all the gaps and lets the heat be conducted, giving the maximum possible contact between the processor and heatsink. Just not straight away.

When you first bolt down that heatsink on the thermal layer you squeeze out a lot of the trapped air, but not all of it. As long as that air is still there the grease can't fill the holes. What happens next is you power up the processor and the whole thing gets hot. When materials get hot their properties change, the air will expand slightly and the grease will become less viscous. These small changes in pressure will force the air out of the holes and let the grease in, creating better contact and better performance out of your heatsink.

It'll take a while to get the most out of this however, and while to start with you'll see a quick improvement it will gradually taper off. I can't remember the exact number, but it takes a few hundred temperature cycles (turning you computer off and on) for the highest performance.
 
btw, how many thermal paste is in the artic 5 thingy? Is there enough for only one time or can you use it more than once.
 
I bought a tube about a year ago and I've plenty left. Since I do PC repairs and reseat processors quite often, you'll have plenty for now and later. Just keep it in a cool dry place. When used again.. catch it mid-stream ;)
 
Admiral Huddy said:
I bought a tube about a year ago and I've plenty left. Since I do PC repairs and reseat processors quite often, you'll have plenty for now and later. Just keep it in a cool dry place. When used again.. catch it mid-stream ;)
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Thanks for the information (K)
 
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