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Warning: That cheap thermal paste I used caused a 5 degree temp spike
I was working on a customer's gaming rig last week in Austin, a Ryzen system that was running fine but they wanted me to reseat the cooler after a move. I was out of my usual Arctic MX-4, so I grabbed a $3 tube of some no-name paste I'd picked up at a flea market months ago. Applied it like normal, booted up, and the CPU temps jumped 5 degrees under load compared to the old paste. I ended up stripping it all off and driving to Micro Center for a proper tube, which fixed the issue. Lesson learned: don't skimp on something that costs a few bucks when it can mess with heat transfer. Has anyone else gotten burned by off-brand thermal compounds?
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thomas_johnson12d ago
So you basically paid for a 5 degree tax on your CPU just to learn that cheap paste is basically colored chalk? That's rough man. I made the same mistake once with a white tube I found at a random gas station, and within a week my idle temps were higher than my gaming temps should have been. Flea market thermal paste should come with a warning sticker that says "may cause unexpected space heater mode.
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