Gene Pink
Well-known member
Working on an HP laptop computer, it has some unknown very high viscosity grey thermal grease on the CPU and the Video processor chip/heatsink spreader interfaces. Likely not the original stuff, as some missing screws inside tell me I'm not the first to dig inside this beast, and the heatsink assembly needs to come off to get to where the missing screws are/were.
[rant] Touchpad assemblies should come out from the top, and not take five hundred and two various head type and length screws plus removal of the display and three thousand ribbon cables, just to get at the damn thing. [/rant]
Usually, I would just go with the old school white silicone/zinc oxide Dow 340 for this, but I noticed that while the grey grease on the CPU was still a bit pliable, it was rock solid on the video chip, it took toluene to cut it. It had hardened and dried solid presumably from overheating, so I want to get this right. I do a lot of gaming, Solitaire, and occasionally, Minesweeper. ;-)
Searching this board and the internet, there seems to be no consensus of whether the grey silver-laden stuff is capable of any more than a marginal increase in heat transfer.
Opinions on this would be greatly appreciated, is the grey stuff really worth a trip to the store? Never had it, never used it, but then again. I'm a transistor power amp repair sort of guy.
I read names mentioned such as Arctic Freeze 3 or 5 (sounds like a brand of freon for your car's AC).
Note that the grey compound I removed was a much thicker layer than it should have been for good heat transfer, maybe 0.015", and clamped by preset mounting springs that didn't have the oomph to squish it thin. Something lower viscosity, like the traditional white stuff would have oozed out more, and ended up much thinner.
Opinions would be greatly appreciated on this.
Thanks,
Gene
[rant] Touchpad assemblies should come out from the top, and not take five hundred and two various head type and length screws plus removal of the display and three thousand ribbon cables, just to get at the damn thing. [/rant]
Usually, I would just go with the old school white silicone/zinc oxide Dow 340 for this, but I noticed that while the grey grease on the CPU was still a bit pliable, it was rock solid on the video chip, it took toluene to cut it. It had hardened and dried solid presumably from overheating, so I want to get this right. I do a lot of gaming, Solitaire, and occasionally, Minesweeper. ;-)
Searching this board and the internet, there seems to be no consensus of whether the grey silver-laden stuff is capable of any more than a marginal increase in heat transfer.
Opinions on this would be greatly appreciated, is the grey stuff really worth a trip to the store? Never had it, never used it, but then again. I'm a transistor power amp repair sort of guy.
I read names mentioned such as Arctic Freeze 3 or 5 (sounds like a brand of freon for your car's AC).
Note that the grey compound I removed was a much thicker layer than it should have been for good heat transfer, maybe 0.015", and clamped by preset mounting springs that didn't have the oomph to squish it thin. Something lower viscosity, like the traditional white stuff would have oozed out more, and ended up much thinner.
Opinions would be greatly appreciated on this.
Thanks,
Gene