Is it okay to use 5 year old paste?

Hi guys

I have some leftover Arctic MX-4 that I bought back in 2012. I was wondering if I should use it on my 2+ year Ideapad Y50.

Thank you!

 

For everydays use it should be okay! Until you plan to oc your components!

Gesendet von meinem ONEPLUS A3003 mit Tapatalk

 

I tried a syringe of silver heatsink paste, it had gone solid as a rock.

I would squirt a bit out, and give it a good mix, if it looks ok, not too dry or too much liquid, It should be good to go.

John.

 

I would throw it in the dustbin. See if you can find a fresh new thermal paste of better quality http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...nd-apply-traditional-and-liquid-metal.806840/
None should chapo on thermal paste.

 

Dustbin? Isn't it dangerous waste and should be recycled accordingly?

 

Maybe more correct. Depends what recycling solution they have where you live. But don't use it on your hardware.

 

Take it where ever they take old meds, paint, electronics, old batteries, oil.

 

I wouldn't trust it, you let anything like that sit and it will lose its thermal properties at best, and turn into a rock at worst.

 

As long as it's not dried out, and spreads without clumping, it's probably just as good as new.

I've used AS5 that's older, but it was from a large quantity syringe and had plenty of product to maintain moisture. The cap kept it good and the first squeeze came out looking normal.

If you have no other choice right now, and need to use something today, give it a shot while you are waiting for your new paste order to arrive.

 

You could get a 5 gram stuff of that MX-4 crap for like $5 awhile back. Are you really that stuck up for cash that you need to use 5 year old paste to save $5 ? Buy some Kryonaut from Amazon and call it a day, and get rid of that MX-4. 1g of Grizzly is cheap but not exactly cost effective. You can even get a 11.1g tube that will probably outlast your next three systems for $27, unless you make a living repasting computers for a job somewhere.

Phobya nanogrease extreme is the next best thing, but is much harder to find than Kryonaut. @Mr. Fox had better results with it than Kryonaut, but I had worse results with it than Kryonaut. The huge recent thermal paste guide also had Phobya Nanogrease extreme behind Gelid and Kryonaut, but YMMV.

 

If you wanna paste and call it a day for a long time just get IC Diamond.

 

Thanks everyone!

It's not that I'm "stuck up for cash". I live in Egypt and here the best you can get is Cooler Master V1, ordering anything from overseas would cost me a fortune, so it's either using the 5 year old MX-4 or buying Cooler Master V1 which I'm not keen on using (based on the reviews I read).

 

Tough choice. If there's some that's still paste-like in the tube, you can give it a try. I would squeeze the first bit out and not use it if taking that route though.

 

Put the tube into some hot water (not boiling!) and let it sit there for awhile. Then check it. If it looks similar to how it was when new, it should be ok to use.

 

If there has been a change in the paste viscosity over time, I would not use it. That would mean that either one component has slowly leeched out of the paste or a change in chemical composition has occurred. I would mostly bet one the former. I'm no expert on paste, but what all pastes look to me is some kind of solid dispersed in a fluid, likely with a few chemicals to get good particle dispersion, etc. in small quantities. These materials should be stable over long periods of time provided they are stored properly.

 

I don't doubt the paste manufactures would recommend you buy a replacement.

John.

 

Update:
Ok so I decided to use it and there was nothing odd about the paste. Everything is working fine so far, I will report back once I've stress tested the machine.

Thanks for your help!

 

You could use Aida64 as the setup.