Proper test of thermal pastes

[NEOAethyr]

I just thaught of a compound to test.

I know this is gonna sound silly but...
A cousin of mine, along time ago didn't have any tim for his p4.
So he used diaper rash ointment.
A month or 2 later I replaced it with as ceramic, for the heck of it, he didn't need it but I figuered it could help and why not replace it with something that is supposed to work better.

Well, in that 1 case, the only time that I've compared diaper rash ointment as a tim, it had a lower delta then as ceramic did at those higher temps that he normally ran at.
After replacing with as ceramic, his temps were higher, not lower at all.
I sat there for a half hour waiting for it to break in and lower temps below that of his make shift tim, and it never did.

So if you you are willing, probably not...
Try testing some diaper rash ointment.
I'm not sure what kind it has to be or anything though.

I'm semi serious about this.
It's probably not the best, but it might beat some of the other tim's out there.

I've never used it myself.
I just remembered it now and it got me thinking.
If it is worth something..., then perhaps we can just make our own tim or something that works better then at least as5 or as ceramic out of cheap stuffs.

I'm not joking though dudes, and I'm not trying to troll or anything.

[Hondacity]

fyi most discussions were with subzero temps...ie -100c and greater...

good luck with your experiments though

[NEOAethyr]

I'm fully aware of the temps this user review is testing at.

I looked it up, it's the zinc oxide varient.
Might be more stable of a compound that some of those tim's.
That's why I mentioned it...

But If you guys just wanna ignore it, then no biggy.
Just a suggestion.

[Hondacity]

if thermal conductivity is higher at lower temps... wouldnt you expect higher cb then?

you should expect lower cb....if the thermal conductivity is higher..the imc will get frozen fast...thus lower cb.

[Hondacity]

I'm fully aware of the temps this user review is testing at.

I looked it up, it's the zinc oxide varient.
Might be more stable of a compound that some of those tim's.
That's why I mentioned it...

But If you guys just wanna ignore it, then no biggy.
Just a suggestion.

i see...i might have not time to test this...but i'll search for some tims with zinc oxide base...

[Monstru]

Hey Jon, I appreciate the effort, but the point of TIM is to facilitate the thermal transfer between IHS or nucleus and POT. Synthetic loads can barely be called relevant, not so say proper, same goes for synthetic test surfaces...

[Glow9]

There was a review few years back and they used a number of different pastes and one of them was toothpaste can't remember if it was the control or just for kicks. Either way the uber fancy thermal pastes aren't always best I remember the stuff from radioshack for quite some time was just as good as everything else.

[Caddys83]

Thanks for testing.

[chew*]

This thread is kinda funny and elmor i do respect your testing but OCZ doesn't make paste.........they just bottle an OEM's paste..........

So how much are you guys paying for a tiny ass tube?


My pastes are straight from OEM's

The tube on right just some FYI is small least for me and amount of cpu swaps i do daily....., only 1fl oz.........cost $6.99

[Oliver]

Ya there are 2-3 big OEM's, the vast majority is just slightly changes in reciept ~

[[XC] gomeler]

I have a couple of points.

How did you secure your dummyloads to the hotplate? Thermal paste is needed between the resistors and the hotplate and you need sufficient clamping force to insure a nice thermal bond.

Which resistor were you measuring and where were you measuring from? If you were measuring from a resistor that wasn't directly underneath the CPU pot it may not be receiving adequate cooling as your thin aluminum hot plate won't be the best thermal transfer medium.

Some of the thicker pastes require a thermal cycling in order to thin them. With Ceramique I get consistently tissue paper thin mounts by heating the pot to 70-80C, rotating and pushing the pot against the CPU and then pulling the pot down to my running temperatures. My Ceramique tube must be a year old and requires an excessive amount of force to squeeze out of the gigantic tube I use but the thermal cycling does wonders for creating a thin/optimal mount.

I'll have to give this OCZ Freeze a shot. Anyone know which product OCZ was rebranding?

Note- I'm not snubbing Elmor's results but just pointing out several ways I can see to achieve more accurate results. Testing like this is important as it gets us thinking.

[chew*]

I'll have to give this OCZ Freeze a shot. Anyone know which product OCZ was rebranding?

Zinc oxide paste..........

[[XC] gomeler]

Zinc oxide paste..........

Right. That's like saying "This car uses gasoline.". Looks like there are a lot of various grades of zinc oxide suspensions/creams/pastes/powders. Going to rebuild my loadtester first and then have a little fun with this.

[NEOAethyr]

Now I'm really interested in tests comparing generic dowcorning zinc oxide paste to as ceramic.

Even if it's just these sub zero tests.

AS ceramic in theory would have a few extras in it to hold it together better.
But it certainly doesn't work...
I'm defently interested in results of the original formula bais.


To go back and think about it, been using as ceramic all this time...
I remember when I switched off from using as silver, thinking what a fool I was.
Now, it's like that all over again with as ceramic.
Replacing the tim on chipsets, using as ceramic when the original paste was probably better anyways (seemed like it sometimes), wow.., yeah that sucks...

I also wonder what alternatives there is to zinc oxide.
One would be obvious, silver oxide (shouldn't be less conductive then normal silver).
But there might be others.
Zinc isn't exactly the top contender when it comes to thermal/electrical conductivity.

Looking on ebay right now, seems you can buy zinc oxide powder.
Which makes the gel white, silicone isn't normally white...
Lol it's baby powder..., hmm I wonder if I got any around that's pure, I don't know if I have silicone though.

An alternative to the silicone might be something too.
That might be better then replacing the zinc oxide.
I'm thinking mineral oil or something, just off the top of my head, I have done 0 research though.

[chew*]

Now I'm really interested in tests comparing generic dowcorning zinc oxide paste to as ceramic.

Even if it's just these sub zero tests.

AS ceramic in theory would have a few extras in it to hold it together better.
But it certainly doesn't work...
I'm defently interested in results of the original formula bais.


To go back and think about it, been using as ceramic all this time...
I remember when I switched off from using as silver, thinking what a fool I was.
Now, it's like that all over again with as ceramic.
Replacing the tim on chipsets, using as ceramic when the original paste was probably better anyways (seemed like it sometimes), wow.., yeah that sucks...

I also wonder what alternatives there is to zinc oxide.
One would be obvious, silver oxide (shouldn't be less conductive then normal silver).
But there might be others.
Zinc isn't exactly the top contender when it comes to thermal/electrical conductivity.

Looking on ebay right now, seems you can buy zinc oxide powder.
Which makes the gel white, silicone isn't normally white...
Lol it's baby powder..., hmm I wonder if I got any around that's pure, I don't know if I have silicone though.

An alternative to the silicone might be something too.
That might be better then replacing the zinc oxide.
I'm thinking mineral oil or something, just off the top of my head, I have done 0 research though.

the issue is not conductivity as that plays little role here with cpu's that have 4 barriers before it reaches the core now anyway..........

first you have copper..........now there are diff grades of that.......

then you have paste also diff grades.......

then you have another pices of copper.......also diff grades I imagine.

Next you have indium or some other thermal interface depending, for instance nvidia is using a paste still, amd/intel indium...........

all this negates conductivity which also changes based on temp......

The key thing is if it freezes or doesn't freeze......as your conductivity is null an void based on your weakest conductor.......many cases indium solder.

TBH I use neither, the stuff on the left in pic is what I use and it has proven itself even at LHe temps.

[NEOAethyr]

Forgive my blindness lol, but I can't see all of the label for the left tube in the pic .
You mind if I ask what it is?

[Genghis Khan]

Of course, this is a bit extreme... but...
Honestly, isn't that what it's all about?

1. Toss chip into milling vise. That's right, set it right there in the vise. Turn on coolant.
2. Machine through groove into IHS. Remove in interior portion of the IHS. Leave the outer ring. Save interior ring for proof of what it is.
3. Machine periphery down to make good "boundary prevention of tip of cooler." This will get lapped down with the silicon. Clean the whole thing off with brake cleaner or something similar.
4. Hone the silicon (there's a HUGE blanket of non-active silicon on the chip be sensible and it won't hurt anything). I've used water or WD-40 as the cutting fluid. You can get a granite tile from Lowes as your surface plate
5. Carefully protect any exposed transistors with dielectric something or another.
6. Mix up your own thermal suspension (do some research and you'll find stuff better than ceramic, or silver).
7. Put the stuff together nice and square with a fair amount of pressure
8. Achieve better results (assuming you aren't near a cold bug temp for that particular die)

People forget that there's a TON of links in the heat conductivity chain between the die and the top of the IHS. I know for a fact that EVERY CPU has a cold bug. Every single one. It's just some of them never experience them as they are hiding under a blanket of silicon, indium, IHS, THermal Paste, Pot/Fan/Chiller/etc.

Don't be a baby, start taking off the blankets.

You only stand the chance of killing the chip, destroying resale, etc.
But, the chance for increased results is better. Not to mention the fact that naked silicon is dead sexy.

I dunno how many naked chips we've lapped without issues. But you can't expect to treat them the same way by reefing down with cooler pressure!!!

[chew*]

Forgive my blindness lol, but I can't see all of the label for the left tube in the pic .
You mind if I ask what it is?

its paste and its dow corning, other than that thats all i'm willing to offer, namely becasue trying to aquire it will be fruitless.

[NEOAethyr]

I do wish they would use copper lids instead of what appears to be steal...
Same goes for chipsets, especially chipsets...

I know I'de feal at ease knowing that there's a copper lid on my chipset instead of it being bare..., these days I tend to be careful about it as possible, it's not like back when you had the cores covered in silicon.
This is all offtopic though .

Edit:
Lol chew...
If it's so hard to get for the avg person, then why not show us the label of ingrediants for that sucker lol.

[chew*]

I do wish they would use copper lids instead of what appears to be steal...
Same goes for chipsets, especially chipsets...

I know I'de feal at ease knowing that there's a copper lid on my chipset instead of it being bare..., these days I tend to be careful about it as possible, it's not like back when you had the cores covered in silicon.
This is all offtopic though .

Edit:
Lol chew...
If it's so hard to get for the avg person, then why not show us the label of ingrediants for that sucker lol.

becasue the ingredients label is faded off and worn, thus the reason i pulled sticker back just to show the OEM label

[Hondacity]

is that the dc-tc5026?

[chew*]

i guess the label being worn off that would be hard to find out........

[NEOAethyr]

I don't know if they make tc-5026 anymore.
But they do make a tc-5600.
Impossible to find though.

TC-5022, you can get on ebay, international, for over $10 for 3.5grams ^^.
Seems like it might be easier to just call them up and ask them for 1kg of it for some sort of reasonable price...
Being that the plant seems to be in michigan and all...

Another thing, seems like they use there own products to make this stuff.
Like there silicone grease for example.
If you knew exactly what they used for some of the higher end stuff, you could just order the ingrediants, there brand, and make the tim yourself.


Comparing tc-5022 to that of artic silver brand compounds, is it just me or does it appear that AS false advertises big time in there specs...
You can't even compare with the spec's listed because AS has there specs way jacked up, no way AS brands could be up to 50,000+ times better...

Edit:
Note, shelf life of tc-5022 which is a white paste btw, is 2 years.
The silver? baised tc-5600, 1 year...
Interesting to see a real spec on something like this, something that isn't made up bs.

[Ket]

Not a bad little test, but I'd like to see the AS Ceramique results after its classic curing time (200hrs). I'd bet it would fair much better in your tests then.

[M.Beier]

Not a bad little test, but I'd like to see the AS Ceramique results after its classic curing time (200hrs). I'd bet it would fair much better in your tests then.

I have to agree with Ket here.
Elmor, have you become a noob? Dont you usually run your LN2 for 200 hours straight?