Is thermal paste absolutely necessary?

DrPepper · Apr 6, 2009

3dsage said:
I'm not saying you should try this but cant you use Vasaline and Toothpaste?

I think his stock heatsink has the paste on it anyway. Never tried those though I might do one day.

grunt_408 · Apr 6, 2009

If you didnt need it then there would be no market out there for it. They sell it for a reason. I would stay safe and wait for the postman to drop of the paste before fitting the cooler.......

mudkip · Apr 6, 2009

Well...

The opinions are all different.

Some say if your cpu is flat and your cpu cooler too then you can use it without thermal paste. Because if the heatsink is directly attached on the cpu the heat will be absorbed immediately. And it's even better.

My personal opinion is that that could be true. When the heatsink is attached on the cpu without imperfections then the conductance is perfect. Many people don't apply thermal paste and they're running their computers without problems. (Your cpu won't get broken anyway because of the build in protections in the bios.)

But when the cpu cooler is not 100% flat, and the cpu aswell thermal paste is better because you fill the spaces with thermal paste which conducts the heat.

also too much thermal paste isn't good either..

So it depends on:

-Heatsink of the cooler
-Flatness of the CPU
-Airflow

You can use as a replacement for ''normal'' thermal paste:

-Toothpaste , which does the job but will dry out in a few days
-Oil
-iron grease

Hope that this post is your answer.

Dippyskoodlez · Apr 6, 2009

mudkip said:
Well...

The opinions are all different.

Some say if your cpu is flat and your cpu cooler too then you can use it without thermal paste. Because if the heatsink is directly attached on the cpu the heat will be absorbed immediately. And it's even better.

In theory, yes.

In practice, the likelyhood of a heatsink being near perfectly flat, and your CPU heatspreader being near perfectly flat incombination are next to impossible.

Bokteelo · Apr 6, 2009

I've come to the conclusion that if there is indeed no thermal paste on the stock heatsink, I will use toothpaste as a temporary substitute.

Dippyskoodlez · Apr 6, 2009

Bokteelo said:
I've come to the conclusion that if there is indeed no thermal paste on the stock heatsink, I will use toothpaste as a temporary substitute.

Stock boxed heatsink -will- come with paste of some sort.

SparkyJJO · Apr 6, 2009

Bokteelo said:
I've come to the conclusion that if there is indeed no thermal paste on the stock heatsink, I will use toothpaste as a temporary substitute.

minty aroma from your PC :laugh:

Scrizz · Apr 6, 2009

I ran my pc on accident w/o thermal paste.... good thing I had good cooling...
temps were 73C light load lol :laugh:

N4cot1c · Apr 6, 2009

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omUjTdvqsP8

Bokteelo · Apr 6, 2009

SparkyJJO said:
minty aroma from your PC

Bootleg air freshener! ^_^

FordGT90Concept · Apr 6, 2009

Heh, it would work if you had an original Pentium Pro but, everything modern just runs too hot. As stated many times, don't do it.

I think AMD processors have a tiny tube of mystery white thermal paste while Intel has a square of silver-looking thermal paste already on the heatsink (have to be careful when handling it). AMD may have changed over to the Intel method though.

Rock God · Apr 6, 2009

Uh yes.

Dippyskoodlez · Apr 6, 2009

FordGT90Concept said:
Heh, it would work if you had an original Pentium Pro but, everything modern just runs too hot. As stated many times, don't do it.

I think AMD processors have a tiny tube of mystery white thermal paste while Intel has a square of silver-looking thermal paste already on the heatsink (have to be careful when handling it). AMD may have changed over to the Intel method though.

yeah, I dont think I've seen a tube of stuff since AMD picked up the heatspreader.

SparkyJJO · Apr 6, 2009

FordGT90Concept said:
I think AMD processors have a tiny tube of mystery white thermal paste while Intel has a square of silver-looking thermal paste already on the heatsink (have to be careful when handling it). AMD may have changed over to the Intel method though.

AMD chips have preapplied grayish paste on their heatsinks. Always seems like waaay too much so I usually end up scraping about an eighth of an inch from each side. Otherwise it tends to ooze out the sides of the heatsink around the IHS and then when removing the heatsink later it risks pulling the CPU from the socket.

pantherx12 · Apr 6, 2009

I have an Athlon running at 2.1ghz with no thermal paste, it idles at 45 c.

So using thermal paste would be advisable!

also tested out an old dell a friend gave me after taking it apart, it had idle temps of 78!c

Bokteelo · Apr 6, 2009

If the stock heatsink does come with paste, then I'm going to leave the MX-2 unopened until I start building my i7 rig. I can't overclock with my locked bios anyway, no point in wasting perfectly good paste right? ^_^

King Wookie · Apr 6, 2009

Bokteelo said:
If the stock heatsink does come with paste, then I'm going to leave the MX-2 unopened until I start building my i7 rig. I can't overclock with my locked bios anyway, no point in wasting perfectly good paste right? ^_^

Makes sense to me.

AltecV1 · Apr 6, 2009

thermal paste is totaly usless stuff

Error 404 · Apr 6, 2009

Use sunscreen, it has Zinc Oxide in it, same as thermal paste. Its just water based, so it will evaporate after a while though.

FordGT90Concept · Apr 6, 2009

Bokteelo said:
If the stock heatsink does come with paste, then I'm going to leave the MX-2 unopened until I start building my i7 rig. I can't overclock with my locked bios anyway, no point in wasting perfectly good paste right? ^_^

I bought a second tube of thermal paste like two years ago and still working on my first today. Thermal paste is pretty cheap except for the kinds with diamond dust in them.

Deleted member 3 · Apr 6, 2009

LittleLizard said:
depends. how much u like fried cpus?

CPU's won't get fried. They all have protection against it. Your computer will just shut down once the CPU overheats. Depending on the CPU you could actually do some office work without any. And as mentioned, basically all stock heatsinks come with it applied already, just use that and you'll be fine.

r9 · Apr 6, 2009

No it is not needed if you use your PC in the space (in shadow of course

).

kiriakost · Apr 6, 2009

newtekie1 said:
I really want to know what 3 layers of aluminum foil would do. The whole purpose of Thermal Paste is to fill the imperfections between the heatsink base and the CPU, all adding aluminum foil would do is add more layers of imperfections...

Try it , to find out .

DaveK · Apr 6, 2009

I turned my old PC on without the heatsink and the fan went crazy, sounded like an aircraft taking off until it shut off itself. I'm assuming his PC will do that too...

But surely it should be fine with a heatsink and no thermal paste? Sure it won't do it aswell as it would with thermal paste, but the heatsink is there to help right?

skycrane · Apr 6, 2009

i would definatly wait till you got the paste in. you could try and do it without it, but when you fry your cpu.....

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Is thermal paste absolutely necessary?

DrPepper

The Doctor is in the house

grunt_408

mudkip

Dippyskoodlez

Bokteelo

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Dippyskoodlez

SparkyJJO

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Scrizz

N4cot1c

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Bokteelo

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FordGT90Concept

"I go fast!1!11!1!"

Rock God

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Dippyskoodlez

SparkyJJO

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r9

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