Do Gap-pads/ Gum Thermalpads loose efficiency?

daehxxiD · Nov 22, 2009

Hey guys,

have a quick question about Gap-Pads (ie. those gum Thermal Pads, who usually are on GPU-ram for contact with the heatsink.

Some examples straight off google:

The Grey gum-thingies

The Pink thingies

Do these Pads loose any or all of their efficiency if you remove the Heatsink and then reapply it? The reason I ask this, is because when I usually replace the Thermal-paste I just keep the old Pads on... Never had a problem yet, but I was thinking about it (yeah, I think about this stuff WAAAY too much) and started to be kind of worried.

Thanks for the answers in advance

MRCL · Nov 22, 2009

Their heat-transfer abilities are bad anyway, they're mainly there to make contact between the cooling unit and the object to cool.

daehxxiD · Nov 22, 2009

MRCL said:
Their heat-transfer abilities are bad anyway, they're mainly there to make contact between the cooling unit and the object to cool.

Yea, of course. But as long as the heat-transfer is better than air it's good enough I guess... The thing is, I'm worried about them degenerating to such a point that it might just as much as clipping a piece of wood inbetween chip and cooler.

Or are they in fact designed to work more or less flawlessly even after a few Heat-sink reseats?

erocker · Nov 22, 2009

I doubt they'll lose any efficiency for the life of the card. They are only cooling ram anyways.

daehxxiD · Nov 22, 2009

erocker said:
I doubt they'll lose any efficiency for the life of the card. They are only cooling ram anyways.

Even when reseating the heatsink a few times? :eek:

Bjorn_Of_Iceland · Nov 23, 2009

myeah.. and its not even conducted to the actual copper sink even.. just on the hard plastic casing.. much like the GTX 280/260's backplate..

daehxxiD · Nov 23, 2009

So basically you guys are telling me I can rest assured changing heatsinks and thermalpaste but keeping on using the same thermal pads for a few consecutive changes, because they're there just for very basic thermal transfer and in no way ciritical to cooling key-komponents. Thus, even if they were to loose some of their thermal-transfer abilities not cause any malfunction or damage to hardware.

That is, if they are at all to loose any of their thermal-conducitivity by heatsink-reseating.

MRCL · Nov 23, 2009

Dixxhead said:
So basically you guys are telling me I can rest assured changing heatsinks and thermalpaste but keeping on using the same thermal pads for a few consecutive changes, because they're there just for very basic thermal transfer and in no way ciritical to cooling key-komponents. Thus, even if they were to loose some of their thermal-transfer abilities not cause any malfunction or damage to hardware.

That is, if they are at all to loose any of their thermal-conducitivity by heatsink-reseating.

Short answer: Yes. Long answer: Absolutely.

daehxxiD · Nov 23, 2009

MRCL said:
Short answer: Yes. Long answer: Absolutely.

Aye, thank you very much. :toast:

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Do Gap-pads/ Gum Thermalpads loose efficiency?

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