Twenty years ago I bought a small syringe of Ceramique 2 by Arctic Silver, top of the line thermal paste at the time. It’s been sitting in a bag in a box for at least the last ten, and today I pulled it out and put it to use.
My laptop has been increasingly toasty and loud these past several months. I have been pushing it harder, but I finally realized I had a problem. No longer, however, as the old goop is working wonders.
If you are experience frequent spin ups and surprising chassis heat, give it a try. It’s cheap, fast, and easy.
Do you tend to clean off the old paste first? I have never done it before; does one use a swab and some isopropyl alcohol? I have an old Dell that might benefit…
One think to look out for is that depending on the design of the cooler, it may also cover other components than just the CPU or GPU dies, such as vram chips or VRMs, which use thermal pads, not thermal paste. (Actually, even some old GPU dies used thermal pads). If you’re lucky you can re-use the existing thermal pads if you don’t tear them on disassembly, and if they’re not too dirty or dried up.
If you need to replace them, thickness matters a lot. Or you can replace with thermal putty.
I think the FW recommendation is to use PTM7950 instead of other paste or liquid metal.
You can order them in the FW store.
Apparently PTM7950 lasts longer than paste. Paste functionally works fine, as you have found.
PTM7950 is good stuff, really good for laptop processors or other processors that see large heat cycles and run much warmer than say a desktop. Little more of a pain to work with, just keep in mind it needs some heat cycles to flow into place so if you put it on and stress test it will seem like it is not working great, and will get better. I use it a lot for Console APU, laptops, and Micro ITX boards doing repairs, anything that will run hot by nature, or does not have an IHS.
The thermal pads I didn’t replace, only the paste over the CPU.
I very carefully scraped off the bulk of the original paste with the back of the framework screwdriver (would have used a spudger if I had one). Then a few Qtips dipped just a bit in isopropyl alcohol cleared the residue. A minute or two later I generously applied the new paste and with precision re-seated the sink and fan unit.
Moving methodically, slowly, as I was, the whole process, from start to finish, was done in under twenty minutes. Next time it’ll take ten.