Tried a cheap thermal paste on a client rig - got weird results

I ran out of Arctic Silver last month. Grabbed a $5 tube from a local shop in Austin. Client had an old i7-4790, just needed a repaste. Did the job, temps looked fine at first. But three days later they call me saying the system shuts down under load. Opened it up and the paste had turned to liquid. Almost dripped off the CPU. Learned my lesson about cheap thermal paste. Has anyone else had a thermal paste fail like that on a job?

2 comments

2 Comments

mason.anna8d ago

$5 tube from a local shop sounds like you grabbed whatever they had behind the counter without checking the specs. I've used cheap paste plenty of times and never had it turn to liquid. Are you sure the tube was actually thermal paste and not some kind of adhesive or silicone grease? A lot of those no-name tubes are meant for something else entirely. Maybe the shop mislabeled it or you grabbed the wrong thing by accident. Did you look at what was on the label before you put it on that CPU?

riverwhite8d ago

Yeah I've melted cheap paste before too. Check the label for epoxy not thermal compound.