replaced thermal pad with arctic silver 5. temp is worse?

Laptop is 2 years old and herd/read some good reviews on the arctic silver 5 compound so I decided to remove the old thermal pad thinking it would help with my cpu temp.

With the old thermal pad, the cpu (t7200) would run at 52-55c.

With the current silver 5 compound, its hitting 54-60+ during normal use...

Is this normal? Looks like it's actually worse. The fans still works and I basically cleaned everything while everything was apart.

The website does states it need 200 hours to break in or so. So, I'll see what happens.

 

Adding too much AS5 could cause your temps to rise. Did you follow the instructions from the arctic silver website?

 

Something is wrong. AS5 should give, at worst, the same temps like the old one. In time the temps should drop and stabilise. They should not be higher after a fresh install. Did you put way more than you should have? Is the sink properly installed?


David was faster...

 

Yes, I applied about 2 dabs about the size of a rice grain or even smaller. used a credit card to spread it evenly throughout the entire area. Any excess were on the credit card.

Temps right is is at 60+. While defragging and web browsing.

57c at idle.

 

I wouldn't worry too much and give it a few weeks to let the paste settle in. If your temps still don't drop contact arctic silver for a replacement or exchange for another type of thermal paste.

 

On some notebooks you cant replace a pad with AS5. How thick was the pad?

If its like a GPU, theres gonna be a 1mm~ gap between the heatsink, AS5 isnt enough to fill this gap.

 

the pad was pretty thin and it looked aluminum. there was also another pad which was thicker that was cooling another chip, the same size as a cpu and I left that pad alone.

I remove the pad with a butter knife and applied arctic silver after cleaning everything with alcohol.

Anyways, hours later, it looks like things have settled and the temp with just me browsing the web is at 56c. so its getting there. No longer worried and thanks for the replies.

 

It is OK that AS cannot perform very well immediately after the application. It requires several thermal cycles (may take a few weeks depending on your usage) to settle down. I would recommend you to wait for some time before taking any further action.

 

flipfire's train of thought was where I went too. Also if you didn't clean the surfaces well enough before applying it then that could account as well. My experience has been properly removing/cleaning off thermal pads requires some serious effort.

 

He didnt apply AC5 correctly. He probably wiped too much off with that credit card. NEVER use a creditcard to wipe it off. You simply smear it on with your plastic-wrap coated finger.

When applied, AC5 is much better than pads. You dont have to wait to see the benefit like people that have never used t claim. You see a few degrees C lower temps immediately after applying.

If you see HIGHER temps then it is very clear you didnt apply it on correctly (not enough).

Lastly adding too much is NOT bad as the inexperienced here will tell you. The excess simply squeezes out the sides.

 

actually not always the case. My T7400 runs about the same temperature with arctic silver 5 as it does without it.
The performance of the cooling system is very dependent on whether the hetasink lies flat on the cpu or not. Thermal compound was made so that one could fill the air voids with conductive air, so that more of the cpu core touches the heatsink. A thin layer of TIM is all you need, since the air gaps are usually extremely small.
Replacing a pad with paste is not usually a good idea, because for one paste is designed to fill micromillimeter holes, not like 0.5mm gaps.
Thermal compound does not work very well when conducting heat over large gaps.

hancock, the excess will only squeeze out the sides if the heatsink clamps down enough. If the heatsink retention clips or screws do not allow the clip to go tight enough all of the excess paste will remain under the heatsink.
Plus you dont want to over use it, for two reasons, 1) paste is pretty expensive, 2) it is conductive, so excess which squeezes out over the socket could short components on the motherboard.

K-TRON

 

Again incorrect. AC5 is NOT, I repeat NOT electrically conductive. It has a slight CAPACITIVE conductance to it which would harm nothing. I would recommend read about electrical engineering to understand this. Please do not post false information.

 

The silver in AS5 is 99.9% pure making it conductive, but only 12% of the stuff in the tube is actually silver. The other 88% is just thermally conductive filler.

To OP, try reapplying a thin layer of paste this time and make sure the heatsink is seated properly. Also remember to plug in the fans cable!

 

It's not electrically conductive because it is mostly filler and ceramic particles.

For the OP, it will take a few heat cycles before the AS5 reaches its optimal thermal conductivity level. It could take up to 10 days, but you are already seeing improvement.

 

I saw an instant improvement on both idle and stress test on my notebooks with AS5. It shouldnt increase from the original temps.

 

AC5 simply does not conduct electricity. Period. Anyone who disagrees needs to get a proper education. I have plenty of the stuff and tested is a while back with a very expensive Fluke multimeter. Even clearly states so on their website. People who believe it conducts simply manifested the idea in their own minds.

 

I can agree that Arctic Silver 5 is not conductive in that manner, but there could be a chance that there is microgaps that can be conductive(i myself got a fluke DMM that cost around $3900 new and that one can't even meassure those very tiny gaps of conductivity) if you're very unlucky and that's probably why people say it's conductive.

 

Again, that would be mathematically impossible. Things that are mathematically impossible are not true.

 

blah blah blah ....

 

Just to add my part to it.
Technically anything is conductive - even air, just with different resistances, and at school level you'd just say its infinity for air...

Thus - if there is a tiny amount of metal you would have a theoretical probability of conductivity that may cause a damage. And even if its 1 case out of 10 million tries.

 

Exactly what i meant with my previous post. There is a slight risk for it to cause damage, though it's not likely that it will at all, but it is possible (even if it's one in a billion).

 

In some countries there is a faked AS5 on the market. Hope it is not the case in US and EU.

 

I don't know about him but every AS5 tube I bought was original. I bought 3 so far in both France and Belgium. It is pricey, 11 euros!!!

 

i'm pretty sure the amount of paste I applied is as thick if not thicker than the pad it replaced. Again, the pad was just a sheet of aluminum or something. Pretty thin..

Also, regarding conductivity.

Not Electrically Conductive:
Arctic Silver 5 was formulated to conduct heat, not electricity.
(While much safer than electrically conductive silver and copper greases, Arctic Silver 5 should be kept away from electrical traces, pins, and leads. While it is not electrically conductive, the compound is very slightly capacitive and could potentially cause problems if it bridges two close-proximity electrical paths.)

 

Well - capacitive -> takes charge, and stores charge, yes?
Well - charge in, then charge out = flow of current.

But basically we're sort of running circles around a given issue.

 

Well, in Germany I bought a number of them for the price starting at 4-5 euro.
However, now I strongly prefer and recommend to others LiquidPro Coollaboratory as an even better one (though it is electrically conducting).

 

What they mean is a form of crosstalk. It won't short out your circuits.

 

The capacitive issue is a non-issue for CPUs even if you make a mass on top of the CPU.