Thermal Compound Questions

Hello everyone!

I have been wondering recently a few things about the Thermal compounds in laptops.

1. When do you replace your thermal compound? (Let's say daily gaming)
2. Anything better than IC Diamond?
3. Does liquid metal paste create corrosion and is it worth it?
4. IC Diamond vs Liquid Metal?
5. What's trending with good temperatures in 2018?
6. What to use to clean the old one off?
7. Warranty void if I replace my paste? (GT73VR)

Cheers,
Ralf

 

1.) When your notebook is getting hot.
2.) A couple but every thermal compound is pretty much way to similair to decide which one is "the best". Only thing you could use to improve temps by a little bit is by using Liquid metal.
3.) Depends on person if it's worth it or not, if you're an overclock hungry person that counts every single mhz he can get then yes, otherwise no. It does cause corrosion with alluminmium and with copper it does bond weirdly over time. As far as I can tell it's only cosmetic.
4.) Ferrari vs Porsche, prefrence.
5.) Depends on hardware, GPU anything beyond 85c is meh, CPU anything beyond 90c is meh.
6.) Alcohol.
7.) Depends where you bought it, warranty is different everywhere. Considering you bought yours from HID I'd sayit's likely already pasted properly but in case your temps are getting high and want to do a repaste we can ask @Donald@HIDevolution about the Warranty they give. Pretty sure he will be the goto guy for you.

also we talk IC Diamond 7 or Diamond 24? One thing to note here is that liquid metal requires tight heatsink fit in order to work, if your heatsink doesn't sit tight, it won't work, then IC diamond is way better to go since it is way thicker and will close the air gaps.

 

Check this post brah: http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...eview-by-phoenix.801314/page-11#post-10517550

Liquid Ultra is one of the best thermal compounds and on these MSI laptops, because the heatsink makes perfect contact with the CPU so IC diamond being thicker doesn't help with anything. It did help greatly when I had my Clevo P870DM3 due to their flimsy heat sinks but is not necessary to fill any gaps on these MSI laptops

 

The only difference between IC Diamond 7 or 24 is the syringe size not the quality

 

I assumed the density of diamonds were bigger, seems that it is indeed only the size of the tube. Good to know.

 

yeah that's what I thought too when I wanted to buy my syringe. sounds like its more powerful at first glance you know, like when you measure Gold or something the more the better right? very confusing. Heck a lot of websites on their configurator give you a choice between the 7C or 24C so people would probably assume that 24C is like better but it's just a bigger syringe

 

Same marketing crap intel is doing with their I7 U series, which is more like an OC I3 and NVIDIAs 1060Max Q.

Ohwell, still good with systems that have massively crappy heatsink fits. Looking at your post it might also be rather bad with systems that have a really good fit, since it's a really thick paste and will probably get squished out, I should try it on my MSI notebook, since it works wonders on my Clevo with terrible heatsink fit but might be downright horrible on my MSI. Gonna post back when doing the testing.

 

I look back to the days that you were dubious of liquid metal

 

In deed, with my Clevo, I have gotten accustomed that IC Diamond is best, well for me at least it was on THAT system. So I continued using it on my MSI laptop but when I wasn't very happy with the temps and switched to Liquid Ultra, I got an immediate 10C reduction in temps at the same clocks which are 4.2 GHz x4 and heck now I don't necessarily need to undervolt to have good temps. Before, I had a -100mV undervolt with IC Diamond.

 

On my GT72

MSI:
ICD: 71C 15min stresstest
Kryonaut: 62C 15min stresstest
Conduconaut: 61C 15min stresstest

On my clevo wiht a 4940MX conduconaut vs kryonaut on a tight CPU fit also had only 2c difference on a 30min stresstest. Similair experience has been made by kenglish on his clevo, so conduconaut really doesn't seem do that much for notebooks, I assume this is mostly due to the cooling not being as extreme as on desktop notebooks. Seems like ICD is indeed not great for tight heatsink fits. So I'll go ahead and recommend Kryonaut for @ RalfTech

 

Conductonaut=10C temp drop compared to Kryonaut and Phobya Nanogrease Extreme. Very, very worth it. Just make sure you use them highly compressible cut-out foam dams (thank you @tijgert ), and 3 coats of nail polish over the exposed SMD resistors around the CPU (or GPU); Kapton tape or Super 33+ tape can be used in place of nail polish. Foam dams are free insurance to stop any LM runoff from getting on the PCB.

 

Nice, thanks for these tests man. I appreciate it.

By the way, why don't you try Liquid Ultra like me? although your temps with Conductonaut are superb so maybe not worth the hassle.

 

Is it any different than LCU? If not, then I didn't put any tape or anything when applying LCU

 

I have both around, conduconaut is much easier to clean, the temps on conduconaut and Liquid Ultra are the same on notebooks, at least I tested this on a MSI GT 72, MSI GT 70 0NC, Clevo p157SM, Alienware M17x R4 and Asus Rog G75VW.

On desktops the story changes a bit. On a 7700K (delidded) OC 5.2ghz conduconaut was actually better by quite a bit, top temps were better by 6c compared to CLU, same story on a threadripper 1920x system. On desktops CLU is defnitely inferior to conduconaut, so in a nutshell, unless you run a desktop, I personally wouldn't bother with either CLU or conduconaut, but the best tim of all time available for the public at this time is conduconaut.

It seems systems like MSI that have an extremely well designed fit compared to other competitiors are already pretty well with kryonaut.

 

Ok, I will try Conductonaut soon. Yes with the MSI systems, how many times have you seen complaints regarding uneven or not properly fitting heatsinks? none! They're quality control is night and day better than Clevo, their stuff just works! at least for the most part. With Clevo, it's a matter of luck what heatsink you'd get. I had to change the heatsink on both my previous P870DM and P870DM3 as they both sucked but when I did, luckily I got a perfectly fitting heatsink and that solved my heat issues back then but this shouldn't be the norm and expect customers to go around fiddling with their brand new laptops to make them work right. Mind you I was doing pretty high overclocks as well but still.

After I changed that heatsink on the P870DM3, I was able to run my Silicon Lottery 6700K 24/7 @ 4.6 x4 with a max temp of 80C, yes that was one of the best CPUs I've had I got the best of the best silicon lottery CPU from the whole lot (call it luck)

 

There are very very very very very few, considering MSI is the biggest gaming notebook producer it's quite remarkable (so many sold units vs how little bad heatsink fit reports are coming in). I used and had so many notebooks, HP Omen, Asus ROG, Clevos, AW, MSI, Acer Predator, Lenovo etc. of all the notebooks, MSI is the only one that actually worked out of the box, sure their EC sometimes sucks and their stock BIOS is somewhat limited, but we got svet to fix it for us. MSI is so far the only notebook manufacturer that seems to actually do some sort of quality control, every other notebook had some weird issue going on, especially ASUS.

If you want the absolute best thermal out of your notebook, replace the heatpipes with thicker ones, add fins to your heatsink and make sure the airflow is still good, you can also add 1 or 2 low AMP small fan/s (I got 2 5v 0.05AMP ones) to get some extra airflow into the case running on the same Fan Header, it will improve the temps quite dramaticly, I did this on my Clevo notebook and it ended up being passive cooling on games like Mafia 2, Dota 2 etc. around 60s c with an overclocked 1060.

Once my SPI programmer is coming I'll obviously mod the 1060 and see if I can push the heatsink even further. Once I got a finalized version I'll post pics and make a thread about it so people who are willing to do extreme mods to their system can follow up on that, but that will follow right after I tested my selfmade microcode updated BIOS.

 

Phoenix, actually MSI has problems with balanced heatsinks too.
Did you see your "Powermax" temps?
you had 14C core temp difference between cores 1/3 vs cores 2/4.
That's because the heatsink also attaches to the VRM's to cool them, elevated by thermal pads. That causes a reduction in heatsink pressure on the side of the CPU core closest to the VRM's (cores 1 and 3).

If you saw my screenshot, I had 8C difference and you had 13C-14C, although you also had higher VID boost too. I was able to reduce the difference slightly by using 0.5mm thermal pads instead of 1mm thermal pads. There has to be VRM contact and that's good enough. With 1mm pads, I would have a few C higher spread.

Nail Polish and Kapton (or Super 33+) tape are required, but only one or the other. You don't need both. That's bare essentials. Both serve the purpose of covering and insulating SMD / traces on the CPU (or GPU).

Foam Dam is only for stopping any "runoff" from the die/heatsink into the main circuit board. It is NOT to be used in place of tape/nail polish, but with it together. It was the great mighty @tijgert who was the first person to think of this. Mr Fox saw his trick and thought it was an amazing idea. It's free insurance, to protect it. If you don't move your laptop around, you may not need it. But for airplane pilots or people biking and busing around, it can be helpful !

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/questions-about-liquid-metal.803973/page-3#post-10535630

 

Totally agree with you and let me not get started on my previous experience with ASUS. Great specs for the price, but the laptops just simply don't work. If you haven't seen my famous past experience with ASUS post let me know and I'll post it for you.

 

I wish you can make a video of how to apply the thermal paste using that method. I'll send you a virtual cookie to munch on

 

Unfortunately I don't have any video making experience, and I'm not going to repaste anymore. I have VERY extreme OCD. @iunlock is even more OCD than I am. I literally repasted LM on my CPU *EIGHT TIMES* now--maybe NINE Times total, until I got the temps as perfect as I possibly could, even though I can't solve the higher core temp difference with prime AVX (small FFT), although I can keep it at 3-4C between cores 1 and 3 (hotter cores) from core 2 and 4 (cooler). At 4.7 ghz, 1.260v, (IA AC DC loadline=5), on a prime 95 small FFT (AVX DISABLED) test run this morning, I got 84/82/84/83 core temps after 1st selftest pass (7 minutes), fans at 100%.

To disable AVX and FMA3 in prime 95 29.x:
in local.txt file, add:

CpuSupportsAVX=0
CpuSupportsFMA3=0

To apply the thermal paste I Just used a "womans's eyelash/eyebrow care" brush (looks just like a paint brush for art), and put three drops of LM on (instead of 1 drop), spread it around fully (i chose to use a little too much than too little, after all I do have nail polish and foam dam protection).

(Highly compressible) foam dams on MXM GPU's ( @tijgert 's picture):



@Mr. Fox 's foam dam (LGA CPU and MXM GPU):


@judal57 's nail polish over resistors trick (instead of tape):

 

idk if it can beat the "Sound only coming from subwoofer" or "USB 3.0 doesn't work" problems caused by ASUS systems that have never been fixed. I'm not even kidding, there are Asus notebooks where the speakers literally never worked nor the USB hub. I was on the floor laughing.

What do you mean with "apply the thermal paste using that method"? I was talking about a literal revamp of the heatsink, or are you refering to how to workon the radiator itself adding fins?

 

yes one of them was the freakin' lef USB port not working / causing the laptop to freeze across many different generations of ROG laptops.

Here's my old post from 3 years ago, grab your popcorn

if you want a laptop that works, avoid anything from ASUS.


click on the spoiler:

Spoiler: My ASUS Laptops Experience

1) Returned my ASUS G751JY



2) ASUS = 0 quality, it's a matter of luck if you get a 100% working ASUS laptop, or any piece of hardware made by ASUS.



3) All the latest and previous last 3 Gen ASUS ROG laptops have USB port issues, it's all over their ROG forums



4) And old post I made 1 year back.......



All ASUS laptops has a problem with the left USB 3.0 Ports. You plug in a USB 3.0 HDD to the left top or left bottom ports and it will randomly keeps freezing the laptop completely. That is for all G750 series, JX,JW,JH,JZ,JS, you name it. don't believe me, just hang around on the ROG forums and see the jokes of problems they have. pathetic for the amount of money you pay. problems with screens, auto dimming problem, contrast problem.


I wouldn't use an ASUS laptop anymore even if they gave it to me for free! cheap Taiwanese crap!


Did I forget to mention...


their implementation of Optimus is messed up...it is very tricky to force games to use your nVIDIA GPU unless you do a lot of settings and even then users on their forums complain that the freakin' games are using the Intel HD Graphics! LOL! horrible!


you want Testimony ? Please take the time to read this:


why ASUS? because people who buy ASUS cannot afford Clevo, no other reason on earth...that's a fact...I was one of them...


First laptop, 2 years ago..


G73Sw:


bought it and ran home like a little child wanting to see my lights in the chiclet keyboards....ooops...no lights...tried all driver updates..BIOS update...nope..


Called ASUS, they told me to bring it to the service center it's an easy fix!! whaaaat?? I buy a 2000 USD laptop and go to the service center next day? oh well..I did and they activated it with their BIOS tweak utility that they don't give to customers! great quality control Taiwanese Engineers! send out laptops for sale that don't work properly as advertised...


after 1 week...the screen started giving me fuzzy images...closing/opening the screen lid fixed the problem....wow!! what did I buy? a 1990 Toyota Corolla or a brand new gaming laptop??


They said they need to replace my screen! wow!! the laptop can't last a week without being repaired! i fought for a refund and got it after a long hassle...


next laptop...


ASUS G75VW,


ASUS decided to remove their awesome creative sound blaster audio chipset and put some cheap VIA audio chipset which made the subwoofer act like a center speaker rather than a subwoofer..


also..I only had the option to get the matte screen...oh well...people say matte is good...right? NOPE! not on ASUS! the ASUS matte screens look as if someone spilled grease all over them. very grainy image especially if you look at a white screen such as these forums or Google..if you look close..you can see the pixels of colorful rainbows! again shocked in awe for this cheap crap!


So I called ASUS complaining about the quality of the screen, they offered to change it to the 3D screen not coz I want 3D, but only because that is the only screen they have that is Glossy..


took the laptop...2 days..I get a call...sorry sir, we changed your screen, but fried your motherboard....we have no spare motherboards...so if you pay $500 USD we can give you a G750JX instead or you can wait till god knows when till we get a motherboard from Taiwan...


so I got the G750JX...


very bad driver support....ASUS released the win 8.1 drivers after 6 months of win 8.1 was released...anyone who upgraded while having the old drivers either got a non booting laptop after the upgrade due to outdated bluetooth/wifi drivers or had horrible problems....


next comes the 2D performance of their GTX770M....there is something not right about it! 3D was fine and performed as it should...but 2D was glitchy and choppy...imagine even a simple game of solitaire..the motion of the cards wasn't fluid...I used to get jealouse when I see my friends' Intel HD Graphics perform so smoothly in the Windows environment while my brand new gaming laptop cries in 2D...opening tabs in firefox...wow..another plethora of jerkiness / slow motion


next...they put cheap Atheros WLAN chipsets which cannot connect above 72 MBPS!! wow! had to pay 50 USD and get a Bigfoot Wireless N-Killer from the US and pay customs just to have a laptop perform like a normal computer


next.... USB 3.0 problems..


basically, I had to connect my USB drives to the right ports and the left ones were kept for my mouse and printer? why? because ASUS cannot produce a piece of hardware that functions right! they claim all ports are USB 3.0 and they are all in blue color...BIG LIE! it wasn't only me, I posted this on the ROG forums and every single one of the members verified the same!


I can't find my thread that I started, but here are 2 examples I quickly grabbed:


Asus G750 USB 3.0 Ports not working with some things


and


Is it normal that the top left USB port is very slow?


ASUS? HELLL NO!!


Worst case scenario, save some money and wait, then get a real gaming laptop from Alienware and be happy for life! rather than bite your fingers after you buy your ASUS


A quick Google search on the G750JX presents exactly what I experienced! I've probably formatted that laptop over 200 times twice daily just trying to make it work but every time some quirk happens...


USB 3.0 sooooo Slow on ASUS g750 jx [Solved] - Asus - Laptop Tech Support


USB problems G750 JX


Just got a G750JX, and with it, a whole suite of problems..


Asus ROG: G750JX-RB71 Screen Ghosting..


http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus-gaming-notebook-forum/727019-big-green-float-g750jx-screen.html


G750JX Cheap display, horizontal lines - www.hardwarezone.com.sg


Brand New Asus G750JX-RB71 has been crashing repeatedly


G750JX - 1day old - Black Screen and not Booting

 

The funny part is, everything you wrote, I already read that at least 20times somewhere else from other users :'D
If it wasn't for their desktop mainboards they would have died long time ago in the notebook market. They legit don't care about their customers in the notebook market, it's very clear that the notebook team is a very different one from the mainboard team, sady the team that works on the mainboards are putting the reputation up again. I don't even know how both teams are in the same company, it is insane.

 

yeah the quality difference is on a different level. We've all known ASUS motherboards to be the best since like agest and they still are, they are geared for overclockers even. Sadly, the laptop development team are smoking something.

 

you can say that to most laptop development team.
currently only MSI and clevo offer socket laptop, but the bios are still just as shutdown as ever, with tad more room than mobile cpu due to higher TDP specification by intel. cant wait for MSI's 17 inch from eurocom next year, 8 cores in laptop dream.

 

Thanks for the information!

Interesting results. IC Diamond seemed to be the best for GT73VR when I was buying it. I was scared of corrosion when I read about LCU also the risk of it pulled me away. However, now I have decided to find something that runs cooler probably LCU like @Phoenix mentioned and it seems that nobody has had issues with it on GT73VR's

 

@Falkentyne I'm planning to remove IC Diamond and use liquid metal... Is it worth it? Thanks for the pictures! I love the foam dam idea.

 

It's worth it if you prep correctly. MSI laptop? Foam dams and nail polish insulation or foam dams and Super 33+ tape please.
I would replace the 1mm pads on CPU VRM and chokes with 0.5mm pads to give CPU more pressure because that VRM side causes less pressure on cores 1 and 3. Why do you think almost everyone who has a GT73 or GT75 has higher core temps on cores 1 and 3 compared to cores 2 and 4?

And don't listen to danishblunt. LM is at least *10C* better than (new) Kryonaut, Phobya, Noctua NT-H1 or IC diamond.
He got 2C difference because he doesn't know how to use it. Just like his fake custom EC and MSI Bios he made in his dreams. 5.2 ghz at 1.270v on 7820HK stable!! YEAH BABY. I want some of whatever this guy is smoking. Must be the good stuff.

@Papusan