Old timer told me to never use thermal paste from a tube that's been sitting in a hot van

I thought he was just being dramatic. Left my Arctic Silver in the glovebox for about 3 weeks last summer. Applied it to a client's gaming rig and within 2 months their CPU was hitting 95C under load. Redid it with a fresh tube and temps dropped to 72C. That stuff definitely separates or dries out way faster than I figured. Has anyone else had a batch go bad from heat exposure?

3 comments

3 Comments

jason732mo ago

Nah I had a tube of Noctua go bad in my garage (you know Arizona heat) and it turned into basically paste colored glue.

cora_perez23d ago

Doesn't surprise me honestly, seems like heat just kills everything over time even if it says it's fine. @christophermorgan's got a point about checking the mount though, I've seen people blame thermal paste when it's really just a loose screw or something simple like that.

christophermorgan2mo ago

Old timer was probably just trying to get into your head, honestly. That Arctic Silver you left in the van was fine, the real issue is that gaming rig probably had a crap mount job or a weird airflow setup to begin with. I've left tubes of MX-4 in a hot toolbox for months and never noticed a difference, even on high end chips. Are you sure it wasn't just a bad seat on the cooler the first time around?