Thermal Pad performance over time

In the past days I have been looking all over the net to find out if thermal pads lose conductivity over time (e.g. 4 years) or not. But I could not find any answers besides differing opinions.

My question is if TP's get noticeably worse (performance/conductivity wise) over let's say 4 years and have to be replaced. Or do TP's keep their performance for longer and the old ones should therefore still be sufficient?

I am wondering because I never replaced the stock thermal pads of my 7970m over its vRAM modules and vrm's.

If someone knows anything about this matter I would really appreciate an answer

 

The stock thermals pads on my GT80S turned into a chewed bubble gum after 1 year.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...aker-after-years-of-using-your-laptop.730556/

 

I would say it degrades the same as thermal paste over a longer period.

So you would have to replace the thermal pad maybe after 2-3 years compared to thermal paste 1-2 years.

Some thermal pad are wet type, have grease on them. If the grease dries then maybe the conductivity is lose? Such example is the cheap generic pads you can buy on ebay.

Then you have fujipoly which is the dry type, not sure how to gauge this one but could last longer?

Arctic pads are in the middle of the spectrum.

 

Aren't thermal pads always like this (consistency wise)?

Did it cool less after that year?

 

I think he meant the thermal pad become really soft and you can break with no effort at all, probably dry too.

The stock MSi thermal pad is quite firm and oily.

 

Why have you posted this question multiple times? Spamming is not allowed here. I answered you already.

 

This.

There is a slight increased in temp 3-4C.

 

Sorry, I posted it in two forums because I didn't know where this question actually belongs.

I didn't mean to spam and I know it's not allowed, just didn't know which is the right place to ask?!

 

Either one was fine. Replying to a post in 2 forums with the same reply is fine if it's relevant to the topic (that's not spamming) but making the same topic in multiple forums is spamming.
The right thing to do is to delete the topic, but if that's not allowed, just say something like "sorry, mod please delete" or something. Other people may not even see the thread with more replies and then you have clutter and someone has to merge them.

 

Ultimately, it will depend on what materials were used for the pads. If it's a mixture of materials, some phase separation might occur and performance will degrade significantly. Others may just degrade very slowly over time like many plastic parts do. Those should remain good for the lifetime of the notebook. Ultimately, it really depends on what the pads are made of. I doubt most manufacturers will want to disclose their materials. I would say going with price may be somewhat of an ndicator, but the pricing will also depend on thermal conductivity, so it will be hard to gauge unless there is a specsheet with a standard lifespan on it.

EDIT: there were two threads on this topic, the forum rules are pretty clear about this, so both threads were merged.

For future cases where this may happen to you or others, just go with what section you think is best. The worse case scenario is the thread getting moved to another forum and we'll leave a redirect in the old location for a couple of days.

If you make two threads, want the thread moved, you can report your own thread and ask the mods to move, merge, etc. and we'll happily merge two of your threads together if they are about the same topic. This also works for double posts, if you double post accidentally, we can also merge those posts if you request it.

 

what happened here

 

Just me being salty about having to spend $160 to buy 2 sticks of RAM to fix a problem that never should have happened so I'm in a bad mood and complaining snapping about double posts. I could have said it a little nicer I guess. Funny all the time I spent complaining about MSI's unstable Bios and boot loops and black screens not related to the MUX bug (and NOT about power limits) was because of mismatched RAM. MSI's Bios is actually VERY stable, even if it has bugs which could cause unknowing users to RMA (PEG Port Auto->GPU Mux switch black screen bug). But I'm getting off topic and thread derailing. Sorry.

 

OK, I'll remember not to post the same question twice anymore and thanks for merging

If all that can be gained through new thermal pads are about three degrees, I don't understand why someone would bother to change them and why it would be necessary to do so after two or three years (like @Mobius 1 mentioned). I highly doubt that 3 degrees more will harm the vRAM or the vrm's.

Someone even said that "old thermal pads may cause the vRAM and vrm modules to overheat and die, therefore killing the whole GPU. This might be the cause for many dead GPUs."

Still I'm unsure if replacing them makes sense, but just to be on the safe side I'm going to order new ones from Arctic (6w/mk should be enaugh and more than the stock ones ever had).

 

Like I said mine degraded after just 1 year and it increased 3-4C, so probably after a few years the temp might get worst. It could be that MSI used a bad generic thermal pads on my laptop.

Some people just wants to have a cooler machine, especially those who lives in hotter areas with hot ambient temps, same goes for those who overclock their laptops (in hotter areas too), so having to reduce 3-4C is helpful. If you have a good temp then there is no point in changing the tps.

 

Sure, but the problem is that there are no temp-sensors for the vRAM and vrm modules, the only temp sensor is for the GPU core -.- which makes it hard to find out if a replacement really is necessary.

How did you measure that your vRAM / vrm temps increased?

 

Arctic, would last a long time.

Have personally used their product in many personal devices, they last fine for 1+ yr. Although I would still replace them every 2 years OR when selling system to a new buyer as a value-added service.

I'd say every measurable difference in thermal performance deserve to be looked at imo.

Probably thermal pad actually bloated and reduce mounting pressure on the die component?

 

You need a external monitoring device.

It was so soft like a chewed bubble gum that it actually got rip apart when I pulled out the heatsinks.

 

Not only that, you'd have to get a few good thermocouples and have them calibrated properly. Accurate temperature measurement at or below±1 Celsius is not as simple as it may seem. Finding thermocouples is relatively simple, but then you have to calibrate so that it shows the right temperature too depending on the level of precision you want. It could get expensive real fast to do any kind of accurate monitoring with and without the thermal pad.

 

Mine was like that after 5 months.

CPU and GPU have now been repasted with Conductonaut and repadded with Arctic 1mm pads.

 

Well, I'll have to repaste the CPU aswell when changing the little pad for the VRMs, gonna use CM MasterGel Maker there.

I won't repaste the GPU though as I have done this like a month ago with GC Gelid Extreme (CPU too actually).

I'll be leaving the new Arctic pads for about two years at least then as the current ones have been in there for four and nothing bad happened either

 

If you don't see any degradation or increase in temps. then there is no need to change.

 

Well yes, but the thing is...I can't measure the temperature of the vRAM or the the VRMs (CPU and GPU) and therefore can only guess that maybe these things are starting to get warmer than "normal".

I'm only repasting the CPU because I have to change the little pad on the bottom of the heatsink and it really is not adviseable to just put the heatsink back on then (MANY airbubbles between the heatsink and the CPU when doing that).