Ghetto TIMs

[Dschulz72]

So I thought I would share my rather surprising findings with everyone. I recently purchased a Dell Precision T3500 workstation with an intel Xeon W3520 quad core processor. The stock heatsink is pretty big, so I didn't expect really high temps from this thing even with a TDP of 130W. I was wrong. 

I decided to run a rudimentary stress test with it, running Prime95 in Blend mode and checking temps with RealTemp. It was not pretty. One of the cores reached 99C, which is 1C from TJMax on this CPU. When I ran the CPU focused test, I had to stop it after about 3 min. since one core hit 101C!!

 

Anyway, I decided to open up the system and check the heatsink's thermal compound. The old Dell stuff was entirely dried out and looking terrible. Since I didn't have any proper TIM to replace it with, I just put toothpaste on it (after cleaning the old stuff with Goo Gone). 

 

Yes, you read that right, toothpaste. Colgate triple action mint toothpaste. 

The sad thing is, it reduced temps. It's now running about 10C cooler than the 6 yr old Dell compound at 89C under Blend using Prime95. 

 

Lessons learned:

 

1: Old Dell Thermal paste is not to be trusted. 

 

2: Toothpaste works as a TIM in a synch. 

[NeatSquidYT]

lel top kek

[Nup]

Hahaha i love this  

 

You should try different brands and bring us the definitive guide on what toothpaste TIM to use...  

[Stefan1024]

Basicly every paste will work, since it only have to oust the air. But be careful your toothpast will dry out quickly.

[Dschulz72]

Unfortunately I only have one brand of toothpaste on me, but I could steal some of my roommate's when he's not around... Anyone else tried something unconventional?

 

Honestly I really don't care about this processor. I have a better LGA1366 processor I'm going to put in soon, so if it lasts a few days, I'll be happy. 

[Pony080905]

Unfortunately I only have one brand of toothpaste on me, but I could steal some of my roommate's when he's not around... Anyone else tried something unconventional?

 

Honestly I really don't care about this processor. I have a better LGA1366 processor I'm going to put in soon, so if it lasts a few days, I'll be happy.

Some one needs to try horse semen

[Micky Love]

Please, try peanut butter and mayonnaise... 

[Dschulz72]

I don't have either of those lying around, but I do have some honey!

[Stefan1024]

Honey gets liquid when heating up. You shouldn't use something with a lot of water (evaporate) or oil / fat (produce a lot of smoke at 100 °C.

[Dschulz72]

Like I said, I really DON'T care one bit about this processor. It's only worth $20 and I have and X5570 to drop in if it dies. 

 

Anyway, the honey is on now. It's doing similarly well to the toothpaste, with the highest observed temperature at 87C under full load using Prime95.

[Micky Love]

Like I said, I really DON'T care one bit about this processor. It's only worth $20 and I have and X5570 to drop in if it dies. 

 

Anyway, the honey is on now. It's doing similarly well to the toothpaste, with the highest observed temperature at 87C under full load using Prime95.

hey man, that could be dangerous actually... I don't know if honey is conductor of electricity but it's a fire hazard if it runs/drip in the socket/mobo ... 

I was joking when I suggested peanut butter... But not for mayonnaise       Joke

[Dschulz72]

Honey doesn't have enough ions to conduct electricity effectively. It's just as harmless as a normal TIM. Now something that has acids or electrolytes in it would be a bad idea. Gatorade prime would be a terrible idea. Salsa wold be a bad idea. Applesauce would be a bad idea (But I'm sure it would smell like a baking pie).

[Blackie Sheen]

Many other ghetto TIM have also been tested in the past. Look at the table in the link:

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/Thermal-Compound-Roundup-January-2012/1468/5

[Dschulz72]

Note to self: No chocolate on my CPU...

 

Well, the toothpaste seems to be holding up well until my PK-3 arrives. Luckily that's only until Monday. Sitting comfortably at about 44C during regular use until then

[D3MON]

Did this last week on friends pc as i ran out of paste, temps were still in the 70's (after all it turned out to be a dodgy reading that later corrected itself) so after 30 mins decided it was best to get rid of it, was very minty as i removed the cooler though....which as a pc tech is a nice change from dust, fur and dead spiders.
last friday i'd lost my big 10ml/25mg tube of AC ceramique2 so i got on the phone to my friend as he was near maplin and got him to get me some cheap rubbish grease in a tube (10ml/25gr) for £6.49 just to make do knowing hed be around in an hour or so, while he did that i bought some from my favourite etailer ebuyer AC mx-2 8gram just giving it a try "next day delivery wednesday" THATS NOT NEXT DAY!...but it was easter
so got the terrible stuff coming in an hour and the decent mx-2 in about a week, as my friend rang me to tell me hed got the cheap stuff and hed forgotten his backpack ina caffe and hes running back to get it (he did) i hung up to let him run back, the second i hung up the phone i found my old ceramique2 under a padded envelope.

so now here i am with a full 25gr tube of cheap stuff, a near empty (5mg left?) of ceramique2, and a full 8gr tube of MX-2..
i dont think ill be running out too soon now. but im not putting much faith in toothpaste.

dialectric thermal grease as used in cars is a fantastic alternative as its non electrically conductive, very thermaly conductive, super cheap and lasts forever but not everyone can get it. but now you know if you have a halfords near by...

[Dschulz72]

The Prolimatech PK3 I got isn't much better than the toothpaste... Do you think it was a bad application, or does it just still need to burn in?

[Caeradwyn]

I remember an ancient test of different TIMs, back in the days when Arctic Silver 5 was still new and fresh. The difference between the worst ones and best ones were only 3-5 degrees, and they also did toothpaste, finding that it was pretty much on par with a bad TIM. So, good TIM is simply that one last little tweak for a heavy overclock, it's not a "make or break" kind of thing. I would never recommend toothpaste though, because as somebody pointed out, it'll dry out, and lose its efficacy. Also, a good TIM isn't that big of an investment, so going with something like Noctua NT-H1 is probably a good investment.

[Circs]

Check out the links in my signature. One of them has a bunch of just for fun tests that includes denture adhesive!

[simson0606]

i've done this in the past as well, but it started drying out after a while. although it was a nice temporary solution

[ThomasD]

Honey gets liquid when heating up. You shouldn't use something with a lot of water (evaporate) or oil / fat (produce a lot of smoke at 100 °C.

Every kitchen cooking oil has a smoke point much higher than 100 °C.  The main reason I'd avoid them is that they will tend to migrate/flow, especially when warm.  You want something that is going to stay put.

 

Lithium grease makes a decent super cheat TIM.  Go to a hardware store and you can get a pound jar for about $7.00.  Or, better yet, find someone to give you a dab for free.