About Arctic Silver?

What exactly is it and how has it helped in your laptop experience, before and after?

Also, does it need to be re applied after years of laptop usage. Because it seems to me that it is just a paste that is applied and as I know with all paste, they eventually dry up and have no effect after a long time.

I know there is info on the outside about this, but I'd like to hear from you guys about it.

 

That depends on what effect you expect your paste to have.

Thermal paste is there for one reason, and one reason only. To fill in tiny air pockets between CPU and heatsink. And I'd say that it can still do that no matter how dried out it is.

 

As far as effect goes, processors treated with Arctic Silver run between 3-12 degrees cooler (Celsius, not Fahrenheit).

Arctic Silver 5 is also engineered to become MORE efficient as it dries (or so the hype goes). During the CPU's initial use, the compound thins out to enhance the filling of the microscopic valleys between processor and heatsink and ensure the best physical contact between the heatsink and the CPU core. The compound thickens slightly over the next 50 to 200 hours of use to its final consistency designed for long-term stability. (This should not be confused with conventional phase change pads that are used by other OEMs with their heatsinks. Those pads melt each time they get hot then re-solidify when they cool. The viscosity changes that Arctic Silver 5 goes through are much more subtle and ultimately much more effective).

 

Arctic Silver 5 is just one more thing that helps your system have lower temps.
I think I've posted a guide somewhere,but don`t remember..so just google.it
It's definitely worth it!

 

Eleison: Arctic Silver 5 Aficionado.

 

Guilty as charged, although most of what I said could be found with a quick Google search

 

As should anyone else who aspires to owning a hi-perf system. A heatsink is useless if it doesn't make contact with the object from which it is supposed to remove heat, and the more contact it has, the better. Thus, anything that increases the amount of surface area on the CPU that is effectively connected to the heat sink - via the interface - will increase the amount of heat removed from the CPU. Now, I don't have the data and studies, but it strikes me that something that expands and fills in the gaps and stays that way is going to be better than something that is continually cycling between melted and unmelted states, since that sort of cyclic behaviour is likely to lead to less overall contact with the two metal surfaces.

 

Doesnt it come preinstalled on most Sager systems?

 

Yes. But not on some low config systems that wouldn't need it unless the user subjects it too a serious workload, but generally the systems don't need it because the components don't get hot enough to warrant the use of the compound, tough it could be a difference of a 20 vs 30 year lifespan of the processor but that don't matter cause HD's die in 5-10 years or less and in 20 years a damn 10GHZ processor will be $500 (accounting for inflation, 500= 75)