A Reddit user needs to replace his broken “All-in-One” liquid cooler. Since he doesn’t have thermal paste on hand, he opts for a poor substitute. Tinkers from the community suggest him unusual alternatives that are said to work better.
A proper cooling system is the foundation for a consistently stable setup. Processors and graphics cards in gaming PCs are becoming more and more powerful. Therefore, their high operating temperatures must be effectively dissipated.
Sometimes components intended to cool your hardware can also cause strange problems: Gaming-PC shuts constantly down, the culprit is a small component, user astonished: ‘Didn’t even know this could happen’
The thermal paste between the processor surface and the heatsink plays an important role. However, a man on Reddit is missing this crucial component. Therefore, he is looking for alternatives to keep his CPU cool. He chooses thermal pads. We will show you whether he was successful and what to pay attention to.
“Toothpaste would work better” – Thermal pads are not always the best choice
What problem does the gamer have? In a post on Reddit, the user “MFWildcat27” reports on his defective all-in-one liquid cooler for his AMD Ryzen 9 5950X processor. As a replacement, he wants to install a CPU cooler with fans from Thermalright.
However, he has no thermal paste at home. This is applied to the surface of the processor to establish better contact between the CPU and the cooler.
What does he use to replace the missing thermal paste? Since his ordered paste has not yet arrived, he decides to use several small thermal pads instead. In the photo in his post, you can see how he has more or less poorly distributed them over the surface of the processor. Some of the pads even slightly overlap.
Can he sufficiently cool his system this way? Probably not. Because after “MFWildcat27” wants to test his computer with the thermal pads in place, the system crashes with a blue screen a few seconds after starting Windows. This could also have another cause, but a too high temperature of his CPU as a reason is very likely. Unfortunately, he does not provide any further comments on the cooling of his computer afterwards. There is also no feedback on whether the ordered thermal paste has solved the problem.
What does the community say about the case? In the comments under the post, some warn the unfortunate tinkerer against attempting with the pads. Too great is the risk of overheating the processor. The system could crash or components like CPU or motherboard could be permanently damaged by excessively high temperatures.
Others, however, suggest him unusual alternatives that are said to work better. Baby cream and toothpaste are supposedly a suitable substitute for the missing thermal paste. It remains unclear whether he even tried the advice.
It’s all about thermal conductivity
Why is his idea not as effective as thermal paste itself? The thought of using thermal pads is not wrong. Such pads are frequently used in computers. Especially with components that reach significantly lower operating temperatures, thermal pads are more than sufficient. They are often used between heatsinks and memory chips on graphics cards as well as components on the motherboard.
The use of pads is generally not the worst idea and always better than using no thermal paste at all. However, pads are also disadvantaged compared to inexpensive thermal pastes due to their thickness. Paste is needed to fill the area between the processor and cooler. This allows the generated heat to be dissipated better and the CPU to be cooled more effectively. Additionally, the gap filling with irregularities on the processor and cooler is much better than with pads.
What is the advantage of paste in terms of thermal conductivity? Pastes contain metal oxides as their main component to efficiently dissipate heat. In combination with the other ingredients, they create a component that does not dry out quickly and can therefore be used long-term. Normally, only small amounts are needed to completely cover the processor surface.
Why is, for example, toothpaste a bad alternative? Toothpaste does not contain metal oxides. On the contrary, it can contain ingredients like various minerals that could damage surrounding components in the computer. Additionally, the problem of drying out comes into play. The water contained in the toothpaste evaporates over time. This relatively quickly diminishes its property as a liquid filler. Conductivity decreases continuously.
Therefore, it is recommended to always rely on a sensible thermal paste. Many manufacturers increasingly include such pastes with their CPU coolers. Brand products are usually slightly more effective, but the included pastes are typically sufficient for reasonable cooling.
If normal PC cases are too boring for you, this idea might be just right for you:
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