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Thermal paste life span

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14 Apr 2007
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346
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I want to try the e2140 in my dads pc in my main pc with good cooling and a good board.

the e2140 and my cooler have artic silver on them, the artic silver on my cooler is 2 months old and the artic silver on the cpu is 2 weeks old. Do I need to re apply the paste everytime I change a component or can I just use the paste already on there since it isnt that old?
 
Yea you need to reapply the compound every time you take the HS/F off. I’ve done it a few times without reapplying and the temps rose quite a bit but no harm was done.

Give it a try but your temps will rise :)

Edit/ I wouldnt mix 2 lots of compound together you will need to clean the cooler and the cpu.
 
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I would have thought it would have made no difference if you just took the the heatsink of then put the same one on again! I was more thinking of the swapping of them causing problems. Oh well looks like I might have to re apply it then :( not sure how much I have left, I only got a 3.5gram tube
 
Yeah I will, I just thought because it was that new (especially the 2 week old stuff) that i might be able to keep it on there with no problems.
 
dan1987 said:
Yeah I will, I just thought because it was that new (especially the 2 week old stuff) that i might be able to keep it on there with no problems.

I have tried this before and has already mentioned my temps increased has well. Much better to clean of the old stuff and put some new paste on it.

This should ensure similar temps.
 
Yup, always change the compound if you remove the heatsink. Silver based compounds are suspended in oils, and the oils dry out during the 'curing' process that takes place over the first few days.

Without those oils, the compound wont 'flow' into all the little nooks and crannies between your cpu and heatsink. So its pretty much the same as going with no compound. (Ok if your at stock speed, but pretty poor for overclocking)

Some people claim you should change compound every few years regardless.. well apart from the fact I rarely keep a machine that long without doing some upgrades.... its the silver content thats important in the best compounds like AS3 or AS5. They conduct heat better after the oils have evaporated some, so honestly cant see why they would suddenly go 'bad' after a time had elapsed.
 
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