A Case Full of Thermal Paste

[UnknownSentientBeing]

So I got thinking, thermal paste is pretty good at conducting heat.... soooo....

 

What if... stay with me...

 

 

You took a computer,  fully functional with a graphics card and cpu, took off the coolers for both of them, and just filled the case to the brim with thermal paste. I Know, I know, coolers depend on surface area with a great many number of fins to dissipate the heat, but I think with that much thermal paste, a filled case would at least compete surface area wise with it depending on the case.

 

Just thought this would be a great crazy idea that id love to see the channel do or at least would love to have a conversation about just to emphasize how silly an idea it would be outside of the obvious unwieldiness.

 

EDIT: So just for lols lets do the pricing maths

 

https://www.amazon.ca/Thermal-Performance-Compound-Interface-Material/dp/B0045JCFLY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1462771897&sr=8-1&keywords=mx-4

 

That  with a thickness of 2.5 gm per cm3 its 1.6 cm3 of thermal paste per tube.

 

A  define r5 is 22x46x53cm meaning its 56000cm3 so it would take 35046 packages of thermal paste at 11 Canadian rupees a pop to fill this case.

 

AKA  386000 Canadian rubles

 

 

At least the shipping is free though.

 

EDIT:2. Perhaps a more level headed idea would be making a cooler out of thermal paste in a specifically shaped 3d printed shroud. Even then though, thermal paste as ti turns out is prohibitively expensive so this idea is even more impractical  and illogical than I first thought.

 

 

[Curufinwe_wins]

1 minute ago, UnknownSentientBeing said:

snip

No. It would act as an insulator and heat wouldn't be dissipated...

 

 

[MegaDave91]

 

Impractical and that amount of TP would insulate.

[Manage My Cables]

2 minutes ago, UnknownSentientBeing said:

So I got thinking, thermal paste is pretty good at conducting heat.... soooo....

 

What if... stay with me...

 

 

You took a computer,  fully functional with a graphics card and cpu, took off the coolers for both of them, and just filled the case to the brim with thermal paste. I Know, I know, coolers depend on surface area with a great many number of fins to dissipate the heat, but I think with that much thermal paste, a filled case would at least compete surface area wise with it depending on the case.

 

Just thought this would be a great crazy idea that id love to see the channel do or at least would love to have a conversation about just to emphasize how silly an idea it would be outside of the obvious unwieldiness.

Could actual work you'll have to try it and post results. That's if you wanna spend hundreds to fill a case!

[Rune]

The paste itself is actually pretty bad at transfering heat compared to things like...you know, heatspreaders. The problem is that solid materials (copper, aluminum) are very hard to manufacture perfectly, and don't have perfectly smooth surfaces. That is where the paste comes in. Instead of leaving gaps in the heat transfer area, it is better to have something there than nothing at all.

 

TL;DR: No.

[WoodenMarker]

This wouldn't work. The surface area would be much less since it would be reduced to the outside of the case.

Components are cooled by cooler air taking the heat elsewhere. Without that air flowing over a greater surface area, the system would quickly overheat. 

[mikat]

mineral oil is way better for this purpose

[UnknownSentientBeing]

21 minutes ago, Manage My Cables said:

Could actual work you'll have to try it and post results. That's if you wanna spend hundreds to fill a case!

Its... a little bit more than hundreds....

[Manage My Cables]

1 minute ago, UnknownSentientBeing said:

Its... a little bit more than hundreds....

depends on the size of your case and the quality of the paste.

[UnknownSentientBeing]

1 minute ago, Manage My Cables said:

depends on the size of your case and the quality of the paste.

I mean how cheap can non conductive thermal paste get. Using a thermal paste half the price and a case half the size is still thousands.

[Narnash]

Thermal paste is actually a very bad heat conductor a heat disipation from ~7,5 W/(m x K) to ~ 235 W/(m x K) from aluminum in comparison.

The thermal paste would be a insulator, we only use thermal paste, even if it is not a good conductor, because air is much worse (~0,025 W/(m x K) @ 20℃)

 

And now we already need to use fans to maximize the heat dessipation of our coolers, with thermal paste this would be impossible. 

 

To set all parts air free in thermal paste is also nearly impossible, to reach the full 7,5 W/(m x K) isn't easy.

 

 And at least, the last bottleneck is the surface, at the very end we all cool with air, the heat have to go somewhere and if you haven't a huge surface to compensate the low heat dessipation from air the heat will kill your components.

 

 

 

There are even more resons (but I write on phone and this is exhausting)

A mineral oil PC is what follow your idea at best, bur there you have to cool CPU and GPU also with a watercooler (most of the time, or you build a complex cooling and exchange system for the oil) to cool the parts. RAM, PSU, VRAM and MoBo will be cooled more or less by the "thermal fluid" mineral oil (It also look awsome :D)

[xgn]

the whole point of thermalpaste is contact with the socket. What would happen is you would block any room for airflow.

[mikat]

7 hours ago, Manage My Cables said:

Could actual work you'll have to try it and post results. That's if you wanna spend hundreds to fill a case!

no it can't, you will just burn your cpu this way

[Dash Lambda]

It would be a lot like filling your case with putty or glue.

 

To extend to an analogy, you might as well replace a battery with a large coil of wire.

Or replace a car's drive train with a tank of grease.

Or replace an LCD panel with a simple backlight.

Or replace a trackpad with a plastic sheet.

Or replace a power cord with a rubber tube.

...

You get my point.