Discolouration of thermal compound

[jeffery7466]

Hi people,

 

So I received my spanking new Ryzen 1600, and, of course, the Wraith Spire cooler came with it.

The pre-applied cooling compound appeared yellow -brownish (see attached). Is this normal?

 

I contacted the seller and  they claimed "Thats oil within the paste that settles. This is normal and what the paste is made up of."

 

What's your take on this?

 

EDIT: picture failed to attach the first time round.

[KenjiUmino]

13 minutes ago, jeffery7466 said:

I contacted the seller and  they claimed "Thats oil within the paste that settles. This is normal and what the paste is made up of."

first i thought "oil in thermal paste? whut? never heard of that" but after a quick google search and reading this i learned that oil seems to be indeed mixed into most thermal compound on the market.

 

i'd wipe the preapplied compound off and apply new one

[mariushm]

Absolutely normal.

Indeed , thermal paste is made out of two or three major ingredients usually in super fine powder suspended in some oil to make them paste like.

 

If you'd feel more comfortable, you can just wipe the paste off and use something else - for example arctic cooling mx-2 or mx-4  or arctic silver ceramique 2 or arctic silver 5

Basically anything but the cheapest silicon grease style pastes (dark gray usually, and in tiny baggies instead of syringes)

 

[jeffery7466]

8 minutes ago, mariushm said:

Absolutely normal.

Indeed , thermal paste is made out of two or three major ingredients usually in super fine powder suspended in some oil to make them paste like.

 

If you'd feel more comfortable, you can just wipe the paste off and use something else - for example arctic cooling mx-2 or mx-4  or arctic silver ceramique 2 or arctic silver 5

Basically anything but the cheapest silicon grease style pastes (dark gray usually, and in tiny baggies instead of syringes)

 

How often does this separation happen? I've never seen or heard of after market thermal compound doing this.

[mariushm]

It happens quite often and especially in bigger packages like 25-50ml syringes (or toothpaste like containers) or jars of paste.

Some packages even mention turning boxes with thermal paste syringes upside down every few weeks to move the oils back in and with jar like containers they tell you to mix the contents for a few minutes before use.

In smaller syringes or when pre-applied on heatsinks it happens less often, but does happen.

[KenjiUmino]

3 minutes ago, jeffery7466 said:

How often does this separation happen? I've never seen or heard of after market thermal compound doing this.

i have never seen anything like this.

 

what i have seen is that white paste can sort of "dissapear" ... dunno what exactly happens there but it looks like it just evaporated leaving only a wet spot behind

 

and i have had silver paste (arctic silver 5, etc) getting dry and crusty after some time - probably because the oil got away

[Tiwaz]

if you have other thermal paste that is somewhat decent, use that one, otherwise leave the current one and maybe order some ARctic mx4 to replace that

[jeffery7466]

1 hour ago, mariushm said:

 

 

1 hour ago, Tiwaz said:

 

Yea I'll probably get new thermal compound.

 

Question: Everyone seems to use iso-propanol to remove the old paste. I have access to absolute ethanol. Is there any harm is using that? I can't see why it would harm anything.

[ARikozuM]

1 hour ago, jeffery7466 said:

How often does this separation happen? I've never seen or heard of after market thermal compound doing this.

Even thermal pads have the same oil applied. You can frequently see them seep after a few hundred hours of pressure. Completely normal. 

[mariushm]

50 minutes ago, jeffery7466 said:

 

Yea I'll probably get new thermal compound.

 

Question: Everyone seems to use iso-propanol to remove the old paste. I have access to absolute ethanol. Is there any harm is using that? I can't see why it would harm anything.

You can use any solvent... acetone for example (nail polish remover), plain sanitary alcohol, even gasoline will work (it's solvent, just cean surface with water after)

 

But the layer of paste is so thin and still relatively new that a simple paper towel with a drop or two of water will be enough to remove the paste.

You need solvents if you want to really clean the surfaces of all particles of paste and all that, for example when you don't want to contaminate something new with the old stuff.

In your case, new pastes won't be negatively affected by whatever will be left on the heatsink and cpu top after removing current paste so stop stressing yourself.

Use whatever you have on hand and don't worry if there's some tiny amounts of residue left after cleaning.

 

[Tiwaz]

1 hour ago, jeffery7466 said:

 

Yea I'll probably get new thermal compound.

 

Question: Everyone seems to use iso-propanol to remove the old paste. I have access to absolute ethanol. Is there any harm is using that? I can't see why it would harm anything.

you can use any alcohol you can easily get, just make usre its dried afterwards since that might be a n issue with lower % alcohol

some people also use Vodka

[jeffery7466]

26 minutes ago, Tiwaz said:

you can use any alcohol you can easily get, just make usre its dried afterwards since that might be a n issue with lower % alcohol

some people also use Vodka

Yea absolute ethanol is 99.9% ethanol so I won't have that problem

[Tiwaz]

8 minutes ago, jeffery7466 said:

Yea absolute ethanol is 99.9% ethanol so I won't have that problem

nice