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How often do you replace your Thermal Paste?

Never unless I happen to be removing the CPU, as I'm not particularly adept at this. I might give it a go on my 3570k perhaps, that's been in place nearly 9 years and overclock has started to get less stable but I rarely boot it anyway these days so not worth the hassle.
 
I've not changed TIM since I put a NH-D14 on top of my 3770k. I use a HAF XB case slightly modded with an external magnetic dust filter on the front, which I clean every 2-3weeks as it catches a lot of dust. Internally I use an air blower when I change a component e.g. when swapping a 1080Ti for a 3080.

Get a good case and a sensible cooler and you won't need to do much in the way of maintenance.
 
A thorough clean is usually only performed once or twice a year.

Reapplying the thermal paste on the CPU? Anything from not at all to once or twice throughout the time I'm using it.

As it happens, I'll be reseating the cooler on my 3900X quite soon so I'll clean the old paste off and apply a fresh coat then.
I love the Noctua DH-15 cooler but much prefer the more compact look of the stock cooler that came with the CPU, and although noisier it's not that bad. Nicer appearance, too.
 
Rroff said:
Pretty much never - with AS5 or MX4 it takes like 7+ years before I see temperatures increasing 1-2C beyond margin of error compared to when it was applied (that includes cleaning the case of dust, etc.) and even at 10 years generally it is minor degradation. Most of the people complaining of temperatures increasing several degrees after a couple of years and needing to reapply paste persist in poor application methods and can't seem to put the two factors together :s
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This ^^. If my heat sink is fitted and the temps look good then I don't touch it unless I have to!

I vacuum the filters whenever I remember or notice they look bad... Every 1-2 months.
 
Never changed IC Diamond, that paste was truly fit and forget. Unlike many other pastes, IC Diamond does not dry up, and instead it sort of welds the cooler to the CPU/GPU! The benefit it was always consistent, I have some old Windows Servers that are 8 or 9 years old, no change in CPU temps. It was the same on GPU's I used on, lower temps that even after years never seamed to change.

Downside can't buy any more in UK, so after over 10 years won't be using again. Shame this happened as would have used that paste forever, but if can't buy it!
 
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Using arctic cooling mx3 paste on pc thats like 10 years old and never had to change paste. Some paste like that conductonaut i hear you will have to change cpu out due to it being eaten up by paste
 
Probably change mine between 7 to 12 months on the CPU and GPU, don't need to but I feel happier doing it as I give my PC a proper dust down, may as well change it as the GPU is out and the CPU is quick do do.

One thing I always do when buying a brand new GPU though is change the paste as I've had cards with great paste applications and some really poor ones, plus for piece of mind I at least know that the paste is done correctly using a good brand.

Used many pastes over the years, IC Diamond is a really nice one though it can scratch and cause tiny pits that you can feel with a nail on the IHS and even a bare GPU core so I've stopped using it, Prolimatech PK3 is my other favourite but I find that seems to dry out pretty fast on very large GPU cores, dried out in 2 months on 2x of my 2080 Ti's twice causing my GPU fans to ramp up to 100% back down and back to 100% again every few seconds even though temps were reporting as ok.

When I opened the cards up it had ever so slight evaporated on the edge of the GPU core, though my CPU was absolutely fine and the paste was still great.

I stick with thermal grizzly kryonaut these days on my 3090 and 5950x, extremely easy to spread with the included tool, nice stable temps and hasn't dried out yet.
 
I have never replaced thermal paste. I have run over clocked CPUs for 65,000 hours and never needed to replace the paste.
 
JasonM said:
Never changed IC Diamond, that paste was truly fit and forget. Unlike many other pastes, IC Diamond does not dry up, and instead it sort of welds the cooler to the CPU/GPU! The benefit it was always consistent, I have some old Windows Servers that are 8 or 9 years old, no change in CPU temps. It was the same on GPU's I used on, lower temps that even after years never seamed to change.

Downside can't buy any more in UK, so after over 10 years won't be using again. Shame this happened as would have used that paste forever, but if can't buy it!
Click to expand...

IC Diamond always reminded me of graphite grease. Very thick and gooey.
 
Both CPU and GPU daily.

In all seriousness, only when the CPU cooler comes off for what ever reason.

Every few months I might blow out the case if there is any dust.
 
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Will only replace when changing parts otherwise every two years as part of deep clean as all builds are hardline custom loop. So at those times when loop is drained to clean everything / gunk out of blocks etc. Otherwise do not bother on some blocks had paste 5 years+ no issue
 
It’s the sort of thing, the more you mess with the more chance there is of something going wrong.
Thermal paste in the pins is a good one for a start.
 
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