I have had this tube of MX4 since 2013, it’s served me well, countless rebuilds of my computers, CPUs and GPUs alike, home servers, gaming computers, laptops, games consoles, pi4, I used this on everything. You served me well.
8th June 2013 to 4th November 2023.
That’s incredible. I typically only get 1 use out of mine.
Far out, how much you putting on? As far as I’m aware, doing a cross over the processor is all that’s needed
I know it’s an animation but the fact that it starts to liquefy kinda weirds me out a bit.
Idk the tube of arcticnaut I have came with a little wide applicator that I used to just kinda paint the whole thing in the thinnest layer possible with the coherence of the paste being what it is. Squished out a bit over the sides but didn’t get around the socket or anything.
Idk what Thermal Grizzly Cryonaut comes with but dammit if it doesn’t do the job. I’ve seen 70C on my CPU once and that was during a video render, a game has never broken that barrier. It’s Ryzen Master Auto O/C’d so idk what it would be getting without that boost in performance.
Doesn’t thermal compound experies? I thought after some years it would not work anymore.
No, but you do want to occasionally rotate them around. They will separate over long periods of time.
If you have some expensive stuff that has been untouched for like a year, plunge it all out on a cleaned piece of glass, very, very, thoroughly stir it back up, and scoop/smash it back into the back side of the tube and then let it sit upright somewhere for about a month so all the air works itself back out to one end before using it again.
This really depends on how the particular paste is made. I’ve never seen MX-4 (carbon) or NT-H2 (ceramic) de-emulsify.
It’s not something you’d visually notice all that well. Just that the carbon particles (using mx-4 as an example here) will drift downwards instead of being equally dispersed in the paste. That can leave your solution you apply having too little carbon to do its job as well as it should.
No pastes are just liquid. They’re all super finely ground solids suspended in a liquid, and the solids never weigh the exact same amount as a liquid, so given time, the always start to separate.
I didn’t notice any breakdown of the paste. It typically dries out over time once applied, this was still the same consistency throughout its life (in the tube)
This has been my experience with MX-4 as well. It’s really really really stable. I’ve never had to re-apply MX-4 due to it drying out, either. (It’s supposed to last at least 8 years in use.)
The same tube has been sitting in my drawer and every time I’ve needed it, every few years, it’s been good.
I have a big tube that I don’t think I can ever use up. I have used like less than 10% in a decade.
The post shows more devotion than many relationships found in my family tree.
I’ve got half a dozen tubes floating around somewhere in various totes and drawers.
I’m pretty sure I still have a bit of Arctic Silver 3 lying around somewhere…
