Kryonaut - abrasive properties and high temp degradation

Just a heads up in the right forum - a week ago Thermal Grizzly admitted they had a bad batch early in 2018 - Kryonaut abrasive?? , not ground good enough, with large particles left in the paste leading to scratches on heat transfer surfaces. I bought mine in March 2019 from Amazon seller "Onyx PC" (the only one that had Prime) and my laptop CPU die and heatplate look pretty bad. Thermal Grizzly doesn't record serial numbers, is unable to recall the product, so you may or may not get a tainted syringe even when buying right now.

I wouldn't probably notice if my idle temps didn't go 20C up after three weeks following the repaste, I blamed it on the paste degradation over 80C, based on their product page saying that "Kryonaut uses a special structure, which halts the drying out process at temperatures of up to 80° Celsius." - and my 6 core GS65 with power limits removed was hanging for extended periods of time near 95C. Right now I'm not so sure, maybe they messed up more than just zinc oxide powder particle size. Even bone dry it shouldn't kick the temps from 30 to 50C under the same package power, and when I removed it it wasn't even dry at all, looked normal. But - the GPU on the same motherboard was fine (other than scratched), and since the GPU didn't really go above 70C I still think the temperature has something to do with the Kryonaut degradation.

If you're planning to use Kryonaut test it first on some throwaway surfaces and see if it gets scratched. And keep an eye on temperatures, see if they don't degrade if you're pushing the machine hard.

 

Well this is alarming since I'm using kryonaut in my 1080 and 8700k. Thanks for the info

 

I just asked Gentech to put Kryonaut on my new Aero. This is very upsetting

 

Wow. Bought a 1g tube of Kryonaut off eBay in August last year for my laptop. Looks like I dodged a bullet.

Thanks for the heads up.

 

lol calm down guys. even if it is abrasive (like IC DIamond regularly is) it will not harm your hardware in any way. itll probably just be annoying to repaste more often than usual

 

Some, including me, wait with IC Diamond application until the part involved (CPU, cooler etc) is out of warranty, close to it, or I am absolutely sure there is nothing wrong with it. I don't think sending a part for RMA that looks like it was sandblasted would result in a smooth replacement process:



That's the OP picture from that overclockers thread after Kryonaut application.

Secondly, pretty much every one who reported same issue also reported bad thermal performance. In my case it took some time, I noticed bad temps after 3 weeks, others immediately. And I'm not removing the motherboard from GS65 to repaste every two weeks. It has MX4 now, and I'll change it to IC DIamond when I get a chance, won't make any difference appearance wise anyway.

 

Really silly that Kryonaut doesn't have a lot number or something for returns/exchanges. I've never had an issue with any of my 3 tubes of Kryonaut, but poor quality control like that makes me want to look elsewhere when this one starts turn low.

 

Here's a quote from a TG rep:

"Luckily we do know how many were sold. It's was batch of about 800 pcs. Taking into account that we have a high six figure amount of syringes out per year it would not be in relation to take out everything in the market. It's basically the production of one day vs everything that we do in one year.
As I said if you experience anything like this in the thread - contact us and we will figure out a compensation for you. Communicating with you as customers and preventing this from happening again is taking responsibility."

A very small amount made it into the wild.

With that being said, I do have a still bagged, sealed syringe of Kryonaut I bought from Onyx PC in July 2018 in my collection that has me going, "Hmmmm...."

 

Ouch. At least they're being honest, unlike IC Diamond representatives who always denied the fact that some people had scratches after using their paste.

Problem is, when you'll send your laptop for warranty and tech will look at the GPU and CPU surface - they can instantly deny any warranty due to "physical damage caused by user" even if that physical damage has not caused the failure. I was lucky enough for that to not happen but I've seen plenty examples of this from other users, from smartphones to power supplies.

 

Can you "feel it" when you rub a drop between thumb and forefinger? If it's that gritty you should be able to sample a bit from the tube before use and test for the gritty feel.

 

Good point, I'm travelling this week, I'll give it a try this weekend. Just did a quick search what is the minimum size of particle human finger can recognize. As it turns out, some Swedish study shows that people are able to distinguish 13nm patterns from smooth surface. There was a video posted in the other thread, of the new Thermal Grizzly shareholder - der8auer, talking with GamersNexus, and he threw 20nm as particle size - so most likely you will feel something regardless if the batch is good or bad. He also used a metric ton as unit of measurement when ordering powder, I'm pretty sure you can make a little more than 800 syringes out of it. On the other hand - he was also using Newton as units of pressure, so there is a good chance that he doesn't know what is he talking about.

 

If the paste is "normal/good" I don't think you'll feel the grit, but if the bad batch is making visible scratches on the surface of IHS / heatsink, there's a good chance you can feel it.

 

right, well when dealing with such company reps u cannot win, noatter what kind of thermal paste youre using... any kind of wear and tear will be seen as "damage" and an excuse to deny you warranty services

Sent from my Xiaomi Mi Max 2 (Oxygen) using Tapatalk

 

My dual heat sink is connected through thermal pads, but those pads are not very good oh, and I replaced them with kyronaut paste. It's not a die, however should I perhaps switch to conduconaut? I would have course avoid the aluminum areas.

 

Nah, use a thick thermal paste (ICD, Kingpin KPX) or a thermal pad substitute like K5 Pro. Thermal adhesive works too if you don't plan on taking it apart often.

 

Follow up on the kryonaut on my laptop. Along with XTC undervolting im at 37C - 41C on normal use and in the 75C - 80C when playing video games. So far its holding up. Fingers crossed

 

how's the krynaut doing? i asked gentech to paste mine with kryonaut as well LOL

 

Any company that would void a warranty for doing a repaste is a company not worth doing business with. As I can only speak of Asus, it is company policy to honor a warranty, even if a laptop was repasted. Asus understands that units get modified, especially gamer units. The only time this would not be the case is if it is determined that a unit's failure is directly tied to a repaste job. For example, if you repasted with LM, and the unit shorts out, then no warranty.

So don't get paranoid about scratching the surfaces of your CPU or heatsink. Heck, in fact, many heatsink surfaces come pre-scratched.

 

I was not talking about repaste, I was talking about physical damage caused by repaste. Which is what may happen if you are not lucky enough with certain paste.


Since you brought up Asus, they are... not a very good company when it comes to dealing with warranty in general. Plenty of reviews on Amazon which will tell everyone that. As well as experience like this from a person who purchased multiple models:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/posts/10882291/

So yea, sorry but I would rather not risk my money by returning a laptop with physical damage and hoping it won't be noticed. Or deal with Asus for any issue in general.

 

And you totally missed my point. The abrasion caused by the paste would not constitute as damage to void a warranty.

 

Please show me the policy which states so, from Dell, as well as from manufacturers like MSI, Sager, Lenovo, Eluktronics.

 

The Clevo/Sager reps can answer themselves here. MSI, Asus, and the other big companies pretty much follow each other, as denying service is a real online PR nightmare. As I said before, I can only speak of Asus' policy. If you are truly interested in Dell's or another's policy, contact a corporate manager and ask. Asking a Service Rep usually doesn't get you the best info, as I've corrected many in my day, and there's a good chance they don't work for corporate, but for a 3rd party supplying customer support.

@Meaker@Sager

Hi Meaker, what is Sager's policy regarding potential abrasion of cpu lid and heatsink from thermal paste? Would that be grounds for voiding a warranty?

 

Minor marks on a die are not going to void the warranty. Not using a sufficient amount or say toothpaste would

 

Maintaining the same temperature so far but I've havent been gaming on the laptop as much as using it for everything else