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So yesterday I oc'd my i7 6700k just a bit to 4.5gHz and is running just fine and stable. The only thing that worries me a bit is that the thermals tend to hop time to time almost up to 80 degree celsius. It's only during very heavy use (gaming + streaming to twitch) but it makes me enough worried to think that should i ease up on the oc or should I change the thermal paste on my h100i? Currently I just have the stock h100i but maybe i should do a change up to arctic silver 5 or mx-4?

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I'm cleaning out my gtx 670's and I need to replace the old thermal compound. I have some Arctic silver lying around, can I use that, or do I need special thermal compound for gpu's?

I've already taken the leap to do this, so here's my experience so far. I have an XFX 4gb RX 460 Double Dissipation. I should mention that I have applied the "Unlocked Shaders" bios modification to my card, so temperature readings as described below are a few degrees higher than with the stock RX 460 unmodded. Thought I'd clear that up beforehand. In a recent thread I posted about benching said RX 460 (my very first post here) I was introduced to HWbot.com, a community of competitive and enthusiastic overclockers. TL;DR, the thread quickly got out of hand between me and one other member of the LTT/HWBot community about going fast and pushing my CPU (Phenom II x4 955) to its limit. I fiddled around and got a max clock up to 4.114ghz that I recorded to CPUZ validator. Cool stuff! During the process of trying to OC my CPU to the max, I screwed up and realized I don't have any thermal paste to replace on my heatsink. So I went out and got the best I could find in my immediate area, some Arctic Silver 5. Applied, validated my CPU clocks...good to go. Then I got to thinking...what would it do for my RX 460? Last night I wasted no time getting temperature readings of it at stock and OC'd before tearing into my GPU. I used 3DMark Fire Strikes' introductory scene just to get the GPU ramped up and hot, so I don't have any scores to speak of yet. So stock temps at idle were anywhere between 51c-56c with the default fan curve, which Radeon Crimson leaves off until it thinks they're needed. This was the same case with my OC applied, more or less (a recent update to MSIAB disabled sticking the GPU clock maxed out on unofficial overclock). On load the fans ran at 1700rpm keeping the temp at 67-68c. With my OC, the fans ran around 2200rpm and temps hit 71-72. There was also quite a bit of artifacting during the bench. I am aware that my overclock was ambitious, to say the least, and I didn't need NEARLY this high of a voltage bump. I didn't realize my mistake until after the fact...we'll get to that later. So let's take it apart: It was really easy to tear down. 4 screws on the back of the PCB holding the block down and 2 on the rear of the support shroud. Here's what XFXs' application looked like and here is mine Close it all back up and slap it back in. Results? Well, this is the tricky part to me. I ended up wasting another couple applications of my AS5 because turns out that wasn't quite enough paste. Temps were actually HIGHER at idle and it became even more unstable than before during OC. So I tore it down 3 more times and applied paste differently each time. Second application was spread, third application was a dot, and final application was a larger dot. I compared temps after each on load and at idle with the same settings and results were minimally different from each other and the initial baseline test. However my final "bigger dot" method seemed to do a bit better than the rest. I have come to terms that the fan curve provided by Radeon Crimson is crap. You need the fans to spin at least a LITTLE bit to get some kind of cooling result, otherwise the GPU die is relying solely on the heatsink and that alone is only going to do so much. Currently with 25% fan speed, idle temps rest at about 36c-40c. Cooling while on load is where the real result comes in. I can actually keep the GPU cool enough below 65c while overclocked on load at 40% fan speed, or 1800rpm, to finish the same Fire Strike test, this time with more reasonable settings. So back to the point I added earlier about my OC settings. Turns out at 1340mhz/1920mhz I really only need to bump the voltage up to +12 and remain stable enough with minimal artifacting, though that's still not ideal. I don't plan to keep the clocks that high for any other purpose other than benchmarking and even then it's giving diminishing returns in terms of actual performance gain. This is why you test and learn, people . I think that just about covers my experience. I have found a happy medium in temps and maximum performance gain out of my card at a more reasonable 1330mhz/1920mhz and +6 on voltage to get about 62c with no artifacting throughout the Fire Strike benchmark. I do also know that the Arctic Silver 5 needs some time to cure, so my temperatures may drop a degree or two more when it finally sets. Here's hoping! I hope you enjoyed this little experiment of mine. Do you think it was worth it to do this on a budget card? Please leave your thoughts down below. I'd love to hear your own experience and whether or not you might try this after seeing these results.

I am buying a Corsair H100I V2 to cool my i7 6700K. I have thermal paste remover from Arctic and microfiber cloths, along with other better thermal compound. I have heard that pre applied thermal paste is not that good at all (dangerous CPU temps, shorter CPU life), so I plan to remove the pre applied paste on this cooler and replace with my own. Is the pre applied removed normally just like any other thermal paste (with my arctic remover)? Or am I wrong about pre applied paste being worse and just leave it there? And also, whenever I remove the cooler for a quick upgrade or mobo change/CPU change (which might be soon, as in weeks or a month), will I need to re apply the thermal paste even though it is freshly on?

I watched the video on which would be a better cpu thermal compound, pads or paste. I was thinking about spray Teflon or automotive thread antiseize which is graphite based. What other unusual things could be a good thermal compound?

Hey community! I just had a question, do you guys know which gpu manufacturers create gpu coolers that are easy to remove and install again? I have had the problem with two gpus already where after 3 or more years of use the thermal paste (that often isnt great to begin with) really starts being a bottleneck even without heave overclocks. On My current gpu (Aorus 1080 ti) I ouldnt even remove and install the cooler again properly because there are several tiny cables that are too short that you cant manually plug them in unless you have small fingers and special skills, so i kinda had to leave with it. Even without overclocks on a longer gaming session in a 25°C room with the fans at max speed and the gpu clocking to around 1900mhz the temperature of the card is 85°C, when it was new it was around 78°C. I know that temperatures dont matter for durability, but i cant even get a proper overclock done at these temps. I know the explanation isnt necessary but i wanted to state it nonetheless. So from your experience which gpu coolers are easy to remove and install again in your experience? Are AIO watercooled gpus and the reference cooled gpus easier to install? thanks for the help and yours sincerely, 45HardBall

I have a ASUS VivoBook 14 X411U (i5-8250U, Nvidia mx150) which running at 82-88 °C while i play Battlefield 4. If i will change the OEM thermal compound to Artic Mx-4 there will be any noticeable change in the temperature? Btw, which is the best value thermal compound on the market?

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Hello, so I have some thermal paste I bought when I build my new system. Now on year old on time of posting this (May/15/18) I was wondering if I should buy new thermal paste or use the same tube I've had since then. Has not been touched since build was complete. It is MX-4. Do I need to mix it up a little with the jet? I put it on my sister new system started with a little clear like water. I reapplied it and was like normal. So I'm going to coffee lake cpu and was wondering if I need new thermal paste or is this tube fine? If you have any recommended thermal paste besides the one I have mentioned let me know as well. Build in signature if you need info on my build. Also if this isn't the right section apologies. If someone can move to the correct one so I know from now on.

Amazon: http://geni.us/1kJp NCIX: http://bit.ly/20WqgrI Will your thermal paste application method impact your CPU temperatures?

Hi guys, I have a Corsai h100i, and I had it in Push fan configuration, and decided to turn it into a Push/Pull config. In the process of adding the extra fans, I ended up having to take off my h100i from the CPU. Before I did this I was running 4.7 at v1.262 with it never going above 70degrees C. I replaced my thermal compound and added the new fans, but after booting and running tests to see the possible temp difference, it actually got worse... I was reaching 82+ degrees C with the new configuration. I figured I did something wrong with the thermal paste, so I took it back off, cleaned it up, and tried again... Not getting 82+ degrees C anymore, but I am still getting much higher then before I did this new configuration. Getting 78 degrees C max after I replaced the thermal paste the second time. I've only just replaced the paste last night, and so maybe it still needs time to settle, but I don't think its going to drop another 10 degrees from settling... I put on a grain of rice worth's of paste, so I'm certain I'm not putting too much. The paste I am using is Cooler Master ThemalFusion 400. Should I try to replace it again? With even less paste? I want my old temps back. :unsure:

just changed the thermal paste on my cpu, this is the first time that I do something intense like that with my pc the hardest thing that I ever done was installing a new hard drive my max temp for the cpu was 95 (pretty old dual core) and now it does not exceed 65 on rendering. I feel so happy I'm proud of my self the temp might be a little high for you but for an old dual core with Intel stock fan it's fine

What type of thermal compound do I need and where does that come in to play in the process of building the computer? My build: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/X7bJ3C

Hi guys, I just got myself a Noctua NH-D15 to keep cool and silent my FX 8350, my question is: is there some disadvantages/risks if I don't remove the existing thermal compound on my CPU (only has like 2 months of use) and just apply a little more of the Noctua one? I don't have an "easy access" to isopropyl alcohol, therefore my question. Thanks

Hi everybody. For Christmas I've just bought some components to build my PC. I've chosen an i5 4690K, which'll be cooled with a Noctua NH-U9B SE2... With the cooler comes the aftermarket notcua's thermal paste. I'm writing this post to ask how I should put the thermal paste on the CPU, if I should do the "line" method or I should spread it all over the cpu. PS: merry christmas

Buying a hyper 212 evo today to cool a 4790k. Not sure whether to use the compound already that comes with it or to buy separate paste such as MX-4. Also, does the hyper 212 evo come with rubbing alcohol or something to remove the previous thermal compound? Thanks, Blueprint

In a nutshell: I disassembled my entire laptop in order to replace the thermal compound. Now when I try to start it up, only the keyboard LED's and touch control panel LED's light up and flash at regular 1~2 second intervals. The screen is completely blank. Any ideas what could have gone wrong? The laptop: http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c01550098&cc=us&dlc=en&lc=en

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So i stumbled across this old video of Linus: So i was wondering if i should replace the thermal compound on mine. There are currently no issues with thermals (it hits 80 °C in games but that's normal) but i mean, it could be better. The card is probably 3 years old so who knows how dry the thermal compound is already? I have some Arctic MX-4 lying around, would this be a worthwhile replacement for the nvidia goop? What do you guys think? Warranty is ofc long gone on this card.

So, I am building a gaming PC. I already have the CPU (i5-4670K) and GPU (MSI GTX760 TF 2GB OC), and will probably have the rest by Christmas. The only things I am not sure about are the thermal paste/ compound, the motherboard and the monitor. I was thinking about the IC Diamond 7 and the Coollaboratory Ultra. But I have heard that the diamonds scratch the CPU and that coth the IC Diamond 7 and the Coollaboratory Ultra can corrode and destroy the CPU and the CPU cooler. If you know anything about that or know other good thermal paste/ compound please let me know (I'm going to OC the CPU with the Coolermaster Hyper 212 Evo CPU Cooler). Now to the Motherboard... I looked into the MSI G45 Gaming, which would be good with the GPU, and I looked at some ASUS boards. I would like Wi-Fi, but the boards I looked at that do have that, cost $200+ and my budget for the MOBO is around $150. Also a MOBO that I can easily OC my CPU and GPU with would be great. I am liking the BenQ RL2450HT, but it is an RTS monitor and I will mainly be playing FPS games. Is it still a good decision? The FPS monitors from BenQ are all $200+ and I wouldn't like to spend more than $190... But there aren't many monitors with high refresh rates etc. for that price. Any advice? Any advice is appreciated (as this is my first build) and please tell me if you see that some of my components don't work together well (bottlenecks etc.) The list of my specs is here: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2b6bQ or see the picture below.

I've been looking around for a good thermal compund to use and I don't really have a way to tell which one is better than the other. So I was wondering if anyone has had any experiance with different compounds, and what should I look for in a good one? or could someone recomend a specific compound for me?

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.

Before I start, I'd just like to say that I'm a pretty tech savy person, but I'm just recently crossing into PC hardware customization territory and the sorts. The closest to "tinkering" some sort of hardware has been replacing my PS3's power supply. I have a ~6 year old HP Pavilion dv7 (http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c01550098&cc=us&dlc=en&lc=en) and it runs HOT. So hot that it shuts off randomly and then right away while booting, and the fans always seem to be on. I know that it's reaching its end, but I wanted to know would it be worth my time and money to go ahead and apply some new thermal paste in order to cool it down a bit and make it a bit more usable. I am planning on just using some cheap thermal compound (http://www.bestbuy.com/site/antec-nano-diamond-thermal-compound/3742027.p?id=1218431588535&skuId=3742027&st=thermal%20paste&cp=1&lp=2) nothing too fancy. Also, I was considering throwing in an SSD while I had the thing opened up. Currently I have 102 GB free of 222 GB, so I really wouldn't need much. But would it even be worth putting in the cash (for the SSD) into such an old machine? Also, if you recommend an SSD, which one do you recommend? (Keep in mind I have no idea what the heck SATA, SATA II, etc, etc. mean. So you're going to have to point me to the exact product link, thanks ) As a note, this is just a backup work laptop. I have a MBPR and a Surface Pro as my main machines. I just need this one to be something I can casually use for random tasks without the risk of corrupting data.