Page 1 of 1

My computer helps with the vacuuming

Posted: Tue May 07, 2013 9:01 am
by palo
Or...How I learned there is a difference in Thermal Compounds (the hard way).
I was having a problem with my computer running W7 - monitor going black and keyboard lockup causing me to force shutdown and restart. Decided to pop the hood and re-seat the graphics card. What I found looked like the inside of a vacuum cleaner.
Image
When I assembled this thing I had used the Thermal Compound that came with the kit and it was all but completely gone. After a complete cleaning I goobed it up with Arctic Silver 5 that I had left over from another project. What really shocked me is that it was always very noisy but now the fan was barely audible. So I guess with the fan working so hard it was caking everything with dust and causing it to spin even faster. All quiet now and it only shuts down when I say.

Pat

Re: My computer helps with the vacuuming

Posted: Wed May 08, 2013 2:51 pm
by bigj231
I hate to say it, but I have seen that before. It's even worse inside of a reference-cooler GPU. I use a can of compressed air about once a month on my own PCs so I don't have to worry about it.
AS5 is good stuff though. I got some free with a motherboard a few years ago. I used it on my laptop, and now I never seem temperatures above 60C. A little goes a long way on chips without heat spreaders.
It does tend to take a while to fully cure though. My temperatures tend to drop a few degrees a month or so after application.