A lot has been written about the requirement for thermal paste between the cpu and the heat sink. Many different materials have been tried, including the following and their temperature rise:
Butter 53.2C Moisturizing cream 54C Hair wax 56C Toothpaste1C Banana 58C Paper 67.2C Yellow cheese 67.9C
I focus on the ability of the material to provide a liquid interface between the cpu and the heat sink. Even the regular thermal paste dries out and must be replaced.
If a liquid is needed, why not use ordinary mineral oil? It's probably better than butter, it doesn't dry out, and capilliary action will cause it to form a uniform film between the cpu and the heat sink.
Any thoughts?
Here is an article describing more. Notice the first sentence includes an oily interface material. Mineral oil, perhaps.
Thermal paste, or some oily thermal interface material, is necessary because it fills in the microscopic imperfections that otherwise trap air particles between the CPU and the heatsink, preventing the CPU from properly cooling. Heat radiates outward from the CPU to the heatsink, before eventually making its way to a fan where it disperses; but, since air is a notoriously poor conductor of heat, an outside element is needed to bridge the gap between the two components.
Very often, assemblers and computer repairers do not have thermal paste available. It is a fundamental component because it helps cooling the CPU temperature down, lowering the thermal resistance between the microprocessor and the heat sink.
Typically, PC-grade thermal paste supplies the necessary bridge, but most oily household substances could temporarily suffice. A quick Internet research reveals that many users have already taken it upon themselves to test out a variety of substances for use, including vegemite, Nutella, toothpaste, and American cheese.
Jorgen Elton Nilsen, of the Norwegian tech site Tek.No, tested all
industry-grade heater for analyzing the cooling capacity of air and water cooling systems. Devices like Innovatek are better suited for this task, as it's difficult to standardize the heat output of a CPU solely through software. One can't simply activate the maximum heat output by running a 3D-rendering demo because of the inherent bias:
there's no way to determine how much of the CPU's specified maximum power rating is used up by the software.
spreader and an Asus Triton 77 heatsink mounted on top of the CPU and proceeded to test toothpaste, yellow cheese, hair wax, moisturizing cream, butter, banana, and paper at intervals of 15 minutes under a 90-watt load.
The results will surprise you. In order from the most thermally conductive to the least:
Butter 53.2C Moisturizing cream 54C Hair wax 56C Toothpaste1C Banana 58C Paper 67.2C Yellow cheese 67.9C
Taken at face value, it appears that the butter and the moisturizing cream are the best short-term solutions, but truthfully, both liquefied before the allotted 15-minute time frame came to a close.
Considering that a motherboard sits beneath a CPU inside a computer, the liquefied oil runs the risk of spilling over onto underlying electronics.
The best solutions turned out to be hair wax and toothpaste, which exhibited a relatively low temperature without completely drying out and cracking.
If you're impatient or under a tight deadline and need to squeeze in a few hours of extra work, consider toothpaste or hair wax when nothing else is available. When the time comes to replace it with actual thermal paste, use a sharp edge to remove the dried-up compound before applying a small amount of isopropyl alcohol to a microfiber cloth and gently scrub off any excess particles. Suffice it to say, computer-grade thermal paste eventually dries up as well, needing to be periodically cleaned off and reapplied.
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