Using Liquid Metal inbetween CPU and Waterblock

[AZwiftW]

I know a lot of people Delid their CPU and use Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut, or Coolaboratory Liquid Ultra, but can it also be used in-between the water block and the IHS? 

[For Science!]

1 minute ago, AZwiftW said:

I know a lot of people Delid their CPU and use Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut, or Coolaboratory Liquid Ultra, but can it also be used in-between the water block and the IHS? 

Yes, but its more risky with non-significant gains. While in the IHS-CPU situation the liquid metal is well contained, in a CPU-Heatsink scenario there is a larger risk of it getting onto somewhere you don't want and causing a short. I would get a decent thermal paste like Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut which performs quite close to liquid metal and call it a day.

 

Some people have also reported staining, although I think thats mainly cosmetic at most.

 

 

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/thermal-paste-comparison,5108-8.html

[Revan654]

25 minutes ago, AZwiftW said:

I know a lot of people Delid their CPU and use Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut, or Coolaboratory Liquid Ultra, but can it also be used in-between the water block and the IHS? 

Yes, I know atlease one who had problems with Liquid compared to normal thermal paste with a custom loop. Difference is almost moot between certain brands and liquid.

[mitchpman13]

If you do use it, just be sure that your cooler uses a copper or silver surface. It will react with aluminium turning it black and start to insulate the CPU.

[pr0xZen]

On 6.12.2017 at 12:39 AM, mitchpman13 said:

If you do use it, just be sure that your cooler uses a copper or silver surface. It will react with aluminium turning it black and start to insulate the CPU.

To say it the least. I know this thread is a few months old, but users will be finding this thread when wondering wether or not to do this - so I evaluate the importance of this to outweigh the lukewarm necro.

It cannot be understated - Do not, under any circumstances, apply Liquid Metal TIMs to anthing aluminium! It is not like "it won't be very effective", or "it can cause some discoloration and possible harm to your aluminum parts given enough time". While theoretically correct, this does NOT reflect the extreme nature of this reaction.

Liquid metal TIMs containing gallium WILL turn aluminium into a crumbling crud in a matter of hours! This does not just apply to the surface area that the TIM is in contact with - the gallium can and will migrate throughout the entire aluminium structure. Once started there is no practical way to stop this reaction, sans cutting away the affected part. It would be somewhat analogous to trying to wipe dry a rapidly deteriorating and crumbling metal spounge; a moot task.

There are plenty of videos on YT demonstrating this reaction with aluminum heatsinks and the various popular liquid metal TIMs (not just pure gallium). If you're even just entertaining the thought of applying liquid metal TIM to any aluminum part, please take a few minutes to watch some of those videos first.

[AngryBeaver]

Using LM (Liquid Metal) between the IHS and water block is in general not worth it. 

 

Something a lot of people don't know about LM is that while it doesn't eat away at copper like it does aluminum it does have a very slight reaction. Now this reaction doesn't hurt your copper block, but it does cause the LM to dry out in 8-12 months... meaning you will need to replace it often.

 

If you are using a nickle coated water block this isn't the case, this is also why this doesn't occur when used between the DIE and IHS, because the IHS is nickle coated.

 

In general you are better to just use regular quality TIM. You will avoid many issues that LM can cause when used between IHS and water block.

[Tech22]

On 3/5/2018 at 9:56 AM, AngryBeaver said:

Something a lot of people don't know about LM is that while it doesn't eat away at copper like it does aluminum it does have a very slight reaction. Now this reaction doesn't hurt your copper block, but it does cause the LM to dry out in 8-12 months... meaning you will need to replace it often.

It only 'drys out' because it got too cold. Gallium melts at 29.76°C, wherever you got this from, in their case the CPU became colder than that, causing it to become solid. This has nothing to do with copper causing it to dry out. But you should also know that Gallium corrodes ALL METALS EXCEPT tungsten and tantalum. Copper and many others just takes a VERY long time for it to do so (10+ years).

Quote

In general you are better to just use regular quality TIM. You will avoid many issues that LM can cause when used between IHS and water block.

This ^ regular TIM is the best option for that, liquid metal shows almost no improvement whatsoever on top of the IHS. 

[AngryBeaver]

8 hours ago, Tech22 said:

It only 'drys out' because it got too cold. Gallium melts at 29.76°C, wherever you got this from, in their case the CPU became colder than that, causing it to become solid. This has nothing to do with copper causing it to dry out. But you should also know that Gallium corrodes ALL METALS EXCEPT tungsten and tantalum. Copper and many others just takes a VERY long time for it to do so (10+ years).

This ^ regular TIM is the best option for that, liquid metal shows almost no improvement whatsoever on top of the IHS. 

I am not talking about it going to a solid. It was actually dried out and I have seen this personally a few times. It was not cool enough for it to revert to a solid. Also if it was reverting to a solid so easy people would never be able to get it out of the application tube.

 

 

[pr0xZen]

Regarding LM between IHS and die, and IHS and coldplate / cooler base, is the risk of LM reaching beyond the area of application. The risk of spills are much lower between IHS and die, as that would strongly suggest that you're putting the IHS back on. Thus pretty much making it an almost-sealed chamber, even if you don't glue it back on and its retained "only" by the force of the retention bracket (and/or mounting force of cooler). If applying superglue, nail polish etc over the SMDs under the IHS, any minor LM spillage won't do damage as long as it is contained "under" the IHS. Between the IHS and the coldplate however, there are plenty of mischievous places for the LM to go. Beyond that, as with GPUs, there is significantly less to gain from using LM over a good quality non-LM TIM, due to the much larger thermal transfer area available.

Another worthy of note tidbit; Many SMD components, especially larger ones like shunt resistors on graphics cards, contain aluminium, and tin, in their end-caps. That means Gallistan and other LM TIM alloys will not only deteriorate the solder, but the contacting cap of the component themselves. So using LM for "shorting shunts" is really a horrible idea. There are plenty of other options that do the same job wihout soldering, like rear window defogger repair "paint" for autos.

[bhaveshp]

On 3/11/2018 at 9:59 AM, Tech22 said:

It only 'drys out' because it got too cold. Gallium melts at 29.76°C, wherever you got this from, in their case the CPU became colder than that, causing it to become solid. This has nothing to do with copper causing it to dry out. But you should also know that Gallium corrodes ALL METALS EXCEPT tungsten and tantalum. Copper and many others just takes a VERY long time for it to do so (10+ years).

This ^ regular TIM is the best option for that, liquid metal shows almost no improvement whatsoever on top of the IHS. 

does gallium corrodes silver???

[Benjeh]

No point on a IHS and a waterblock, I used LM on my GPU and my waterblock and the cooling gains I got were brilliant, 30C drop at load.

[RejZoR]

I've gone to liquid metal and ditched it. Temps are a bit lower, but the metal staining is just atrocious. My IHS is now permanently stained despite being nickel platted copper and so is the CPU block and the GPU contact base (copper). Frankly, not worth it as it's nightmare to work with.

 

Decided to go back to high end thermal pastes. Currently on CoolerMaster Maker Nano and it works great, excellent temps and super easy to clean or apply. I'm sticking with either this paste or with Kryonaut. Conductonaut gave me mixed experience...

[Benjeh]

On 11/9/2018 at 2:40 PM, RejZoR said:

I've gone to liquid metal and ditched it. Temps are a bit lower, but the metal staining is just atrocious. My IHS is now permanently stained despite being nickel platted copper and so is the CPU block and the GPU contact base (copper). Frankly, not worth it as it's nightmare to work with.

 

Decided to go back to high end thermal pastes. Currently on CoolerMaster Maker Nano and it works great, excellent temps and super easy to clean or apply. I'm sticking with either this paste or with Kryonaut. Conductonaut gave me mixed experience...

Why are you bothered about staining when you cannot see it? 1st world problems. Any how, I don't have any high end pastes, I had some grizzly paste like a tiny tube I got with something I can't remember and the temps on my gpu were 40c idle and 68c under load, I now sit 24-26c idle and 38-40c load with liquid metal. If my cpu block stains then tough, part of using the stuff.