Spent $80 on a fancy thermal paste kit and it barely dropped my temps

I was having overheating issues with an old gaming PC I was fixing up for a client. Picked up a $80 thermal paste kit with spreaders and cleaning solution thinking it would save the day. After redoing the CPU heatsink three times, the temp difference was like 2 degrees at best. Wasted my whole afternoon and the client's money for basically nothing. Has anyone else found that premium paste kits are just snake oil?

2 comments

2 Comments

faith_schmidt9d ago

Did you check if the old thermal paste was fully cleaned off before putting the new stuff on? That's usually the biggest problem I see. Even the best thermal paste won't help if there's still a crusty layer underneath acting like an insulator. Also, the mounting pressure of the heatsink matters way more than the paste itself. If the cooler isn't sitting flat or tight enough, you're just wasting time with fancy goo. I've had just as good luck with a $5 tube of Arctic Silver as I have with those expensive kits. It's really more about technique than the price tag.

evanpalmer9d ago

Yeah, I used to think the expensive stuff was magic but you're probably right that it's more about the technique.