Thermal Grease - Best One? IC Diamond?

They're rectangular because circular dies would just be silly. Duh!

I still recommend manual spread, but a thin vertical line would be best if you don't want to do that

 

Is there any chance of things going horribly wrong?

I plan on cleaning out the factory paste, then applying a thin vertical line of new paste on the CPU/GPU and then putting the heat sink right over it. Sounds good to me...but I don't wanna fry my computer or anything lol

 

Rectangular instead of square is what I meant. DUH! And what's underneath them is more what I'm asking. Should every square mm have thermal paste on it or like with an IHS.

Maybe I'm over thinking things too much.

 

No lol

Even without paste your notebook shouldnt overheat.

Do this one

 

lol ok good. I'll give it a go tomorrow.

 

Yes, things can go horribly wrong, actually. For example, as soon as you open up your access panel, the action will set off a string of causal events that will resonate into an alternate dimension and aggravate parasitic energy beings. Said energy beings will develop a way to cross over dimensions and in the process temporally travel so they arrive at your location just as you begin to open the laptop. Upon doing so, it will temporarily possess you, causing you to repeatedly stab your motherboard with a screwdriver. Your computer will definitely be dead then.

Don't know about that. When I didn't paste my GPU well enough with AS5, things got ugly on that end. Thank God for shims.

It's like the... processing parts. The parts that matter. Or something.

Again, I usually recommend a nice paper-thin later over every square nanometer of the die, but a smoosh method isn't going to make computer run over 9000C hotter.

 

Copper !

I always used OCZ feeze and since its non-conductive I never worry

 

It shouldn't make much difference, and might, in fact, make things slightly worse. Heat pipes work to transfer the heat from the component to the heatsink by the fan, where it can be transferred to the air that's blown out the vent. Here's a Wikipedia article to give you a basic explanation of how it works: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_pipe

If you put thermal paste on the outside, there's a chance that you'll end up transferring extra heat out of the heat pipe, and into the inside of your notebook instead of to the fan, which would result in increased temperatures inside your notebook. I don't think the chance is particularly high, but still, the point is largely that it won't help and would be a waste, considering how heat pipes work, and might even my mildly harmful.

 

Thanks, didn't know some that. Yeas, now it's more clear that it would probably make things worse not better.

 

I have a question, I just bought myself 2 ICD tubes, but how do you know for sure that its IC Diamond? I mean, the label says its ICD, but the labels also put on a normal surrenge with mesurements on it, and its taped to it with a piece of invisible tape; so the reliability is somewhat doubtfull. I bought it on ebay however from a guy with over 2000 ratings, almost all positive.. So the question, can anyone confirm that its normal that the label is taped on ? and maybe tell me the color of the compound? As far as i can tell its grey with a itsy pitsty brown tint in there..

 

Yay old thread revival.

It's possible, but you'd need a decent amount of science lab equipment to verify composition. You can't tell by color. Perhaps by texture, but I don't know if you have a frame of reference.

I haven't purchased any ICD7 syringes, but from what I recall, it's a gray or white plunger, and the body is wrapped in a blue label. Doubt it was taped on. Even if the syringe is genuine, it's not difficult to fill with another material.

 

Yah good point there.. Ima give it a shot anyways than. Let's call it a leap of faith .

 

The older ICD tubes had a light blue label and I think had a piece of clear tape to keep it together. The new ICD tubes should have a higher quality black/purple lable.

The paste should be grey in color and almost puddy like in consistency.

 

My tube of ICD is the black/purple one, and it is the thickest thermal paste I've ever used, almost like clay but it softens if you heat it up.

 

Color in thermal compounds varies batch by batch.

Luckily for you I've dealt with ICD7
The syringes varies, so do the labels. Depends how they obtained the compound, whether by becoming a distributor (retail), buying oem (crappy syringe and labels), or buying bulk (person buys in a tub or bucket, and fills his own syringes).
Sounds legit to me.

 

Yeah, don't worry. Even my arctic silver ceramique comes in a generic syringe with a cheap printed label slapped on it. AFAIK there isn't any "fake" thermal paste.

 

There have been some fake pastes if you get it from a sketchy source...

 

Thanks to everyone who replied to my question, y'all were very helpfull ^^.

 

Currently I'm using both AS-ceramique on both my GPU and CPU. GPU maxes out at 68C and 78C after gaming for 2 hours (RAM) while the CPU maxes at idk. lol

(ASC< AS5 by the way)

 

I've used AS5 for the last few years, a couple of 3.5g minitubes over that time. I think too many people think more=better when it comes to TIMs.

Also conductive or not is irrelevant if you don't overuse. Espeically on lappy chips as there's the huge green area that's fully sealed.

I did once use a bit of AS5 to "reattach" a resistor to an old mobo I'd clipped off stupidly when a screwdriver slipped

I clean old gunk off with a few good tissues and a bit of water, no alcohol or other stuff, firm-ish but even pressure and taking your time gets the job done. Half-pea-size in the middle of the CPU [but depends on die size, heatspreader or not, and distance between CPU and HS], let the heatsink spread it when you put it on. Always worked as good as any bench or report out there said it would. (Never had any CPU problem either)

Not saying this because I think my way is best, but I do think a lot of people think it's more complicated than it needs to be.

 

My experience has been a short thin bead. Let the heatsink and pressure on the heatsink disperse the compound across the chip. You really can't put too much on doing it this way as the heatsink will spread it out and it will ooze out the sides if its excess, not a great idea, but not horrible either. You really just want a perfect circular or oval pattern (if chip is rectangular) when you remove your heatsink.

I used to be super careful. Now I dab a small bead, fasten the heatsink, and its good to go. People don't need to over think this stuff.

I've found ICD7 drops my temps by a good 5-8C at load and 2-3C at idle over AS5. I'm a convert for sure.

 

I would like to see how ICD7 is comparing to newer compunds like Artic Cooling MX4 or Tunic TX-4.

 

In terms of absolute performance, ICD7 should be under both of those. But in reality, there are a lot of factors that affect temperatures and even the difference between them and say AS5 is minimal.