Thermal Paste Longevity and Operating temperatures

Hello,

So, I need to make yet another thermal paste recommendation request. However, I have slightly different concerns which I haven't seen addressed in older posts and, I am having a tough time finding by searching.

I need to pick a thermal paste for a 2012 model HP 7040-tx laptop with i7-3610QM and 630m Nvidia GPU. It is a laptop notorious for heating issues.

My chief requirements are for a paste that does a good job for reasonably long, supports high operating temperatures and is easy to apply in a laptop for both cpu and gpu (non-conducting, non-capacitive, etc), since I will be doing the paste job myself for the first time.

After some research, I settled on Noctua NT-H1 but its spec sheet says operating temperature max of 90 degrees, which is odd! And, there are some Amazon.in reviews of it losing effectiveness quickly. Arctic MX-4 was then my second choice, but its operating temperature is not specified and its longevity is also questioned by some people, along with some complaining about pump-out. Arctic silver advertises operating temperature up to 150 degrees which is what I like, but it is not non-capacitive and I am unsure of using it on the gpu and concerned about messing up something if the heat sink fit is not good.

I am ruling out the top-line liquid metal and IC diamond ones as I do not need super effectiveness, but I would prefer something mainstream, cost-effective, commonly used for laptops, which will do the job reliably for at least a couple of north-Indian summers.

So, my question is to those who have used pastes on some of the common overheating laptops and observed for a couple of years. Which paste have you found most reliable?
Thank you very much!

 

Yeah, MX-4 in laptops is certainly disappointing, I've helped people that insisted on using it even after pointing out posts from others that had problems, and they found the same problems themselves - which to them was a surprise because they had good experience with MX-4 on desktops.

The difference between desktops and laptops is laptops move around.

Laptops flex every time you pick them up. When you carry them in a bag pack they get jostled - those heavy cooling components stretched out over the width of the laptop get stressed and move about.

Driving, walking, bicycling all have different moments of force loading on the parts. Much more than just sitting there on the floor or desk.

What this means is air gaps can open up and oxidize the paste. All paste that isn't formulated for this may have great temps initially, but will over time "dry out" or "pump out" due to air / heat / etc.

Once your original paste is changed out, you will enter into the realm of a re-pasting cycle that doesn't end. Most laptop OEM's use paste that resists drying/pumping out. They must do this or they will then get stuck constantly repasting their products.

The high resistance to drying out pastes that vendors use won't give the best thermal performance, but 99% of the time if they design the cooling right, their production builds it right, and the QA catches and rejects the few failures made, you can have a great out of the box experience that doesn't require re-pasting.

But, it sounds like your laptop is just too old to continue with the original paste?

If so unfortunately there aren't any "popular" pastes that will have long life without re-pasting cycles. Especially if you move your laptop daily.

There are people that treat their laptop like a desktop and don't move it at all, or just from one room to the next, which is low stress on the cooling components.

If that is you you might get away with NT-H1 or AS5 for longevity. I've got desktops that don't move around approaching 10+ years on those pastes with no temperature variations other than ambient (room temperature) variations.

If you get a popular enthusiast paste, like Kryonaut or Gelid or ICD or any of the others, you will be at the mercy of their ability to work in your use case without drying out.

You will likely not pick correctly the first time

Just assume that, and you will need to repaste a few times before getting your technique on this laptop perfected. I'd stay with the same paste each time until you get your technique perfected, and then if you don't like the results from that paste, wait until the temperatures start to rise before trying a new paste.

Be sure and post what you are trying and how it works out here so we can help.

 

IC diamond isn't that bad on price and is mainstream. It is thicker which helps with warped heatsinks. Best I've used for my laptop.

 

Thanks for your reply. Actually, I had this laptop serviced at home by a HP rep in 2015 so I could learn how to do the re-pasting myself. He used some un-named OEM paste and just slathered it all over, which I thought was odd since I thought one was supposed to put on just a thin layer. I think/hope I can do better. So it doesn't have original paste anymore, but does have kinda official pasting.

The laptop is nearing an age where even if I screw things up it won't hurt too much and can be replaced. So, its perfect for experimentation!

I used to travel with it, but since its gotten old I expect it to stay at a desk at home now on and forever...

 

Easy to apply and good quality... Gelid Extreme. I would go for Phobya NanoGrease Extreme. But harder to apply.

 

@Papusan just wondering why I keep seeing you mention those two pastes over kryonaut, especially nanogrease extreme, genuinely curious

 

From what I have seen... Grizzly Kryonaut seems to pump out faster than the other two mentioned (with not perfeckt fitted heatsink). Results from Phobya NanoGrease Extreme. Don't look look you blind on thermal paste results/tests from review sites done on the better desktop cooling or test bench. Notebooks have often awful cooling(warped/uneven heatsink). Rarely that notebooks have HS who is in perfect shape.

 

So then since I have a GT73VR and I remember Falkentyne stating that the heatsinks are most likely warped, either I do his fix of sanding the heatsink or use Phobya Nanogrease. I ordered both Kyronaut and Nanogrease to replace my Cpu paste(couldn’t decide which to use), but now I’m going to use Phobya first and see if I like the results.

Edit: so I was going to use phobia first but barely got it today and did kryonaut. Either I didn’t repaste it right or it got pumped out because I got good temps at first but when I ran a benchmark, the temps were horrible, gonna repaste Asap with Phobya and if it’s the same gonna check out heatsink and see if it’s warped.

 

All depends on the HS fits. But both is good thermal paste.

 

Thanks everyone for suggestions.
I just realized that living in a ****-hole country means that every paste is marked up 40-80% in price out here.
I could only find Arctic Silver Ceramique 2 close to the international prices so I'm going to give it a try. I will probably have to wait until a friend is traveling out of the country to get Gelid Extreme. I wasn't sure about IC Diamond's abrasive-ness issue so maybe I'll give it a try next time, once I actually know how to do a paste job.
Actually, I liked Arctic Silver 5's broader temperature range but wanted something non-capacitive which Ceramique is, so it kinda fits my specs. Certainly not the best I know, but I'm hoping it will work out reasonably.

 

you can always refer this thread http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...nd-apply-traditional-and-liquid-metal.806840/

 

I like antec formula 7, it was cheap for a while, big tube, works great.