Thermal Paste? Compatibility specific or based on performance type?

[Loopylou786]

Hello,
I’m currently cleaning/ repairing/ upgrading my six year old Acer Nitro515-55.
I was wondering what the go is with the thermal paste. The one recommend is hard to get or out of stock.
So I’m wondering is the Corsair XTM70 Extreme Performance Thermal Paste would be okay?
I’m upgrading cause it’s been running hot and lagging out.
So I’m replacing the 16gb to two new 16gb ram chips and a new 1tb ssd with heatstink since my computer runs over 70 for long periods of time .. at the moment.

[Satoru]

Note that you can get literally any thermal paste and it'll be fine. The 'expensive' stuff now tends to be liquid metal. Now yes you can get improvements with it, but it is EXTREMELY FUSSY. To the point where if you mess it up by putting too much, you can destroy your computer.

Unless you are trying to overclock your system into oblivion, any thermal paste is fine. The cheap 'normal' stuff is also more forgiving in terms of application as well. Just replacing your existing, likely crusty, thermal paste will help with thermals immensely.

Though for most laptops that old, the #1 killer of yoru CPU/GPU is the fact that your vents looks like 15 cats died in them. No amount of thermal paste in the world is going to help, if that heat can't get out of your system. Ensure your fans and exhaust ports are clean if you're already doing teh above. Just cleaning them out as regular maintenance can go a long way to increasing the longevity of your laptop as well. If they're just sorta dusty, some compressed air can help. If its really bad, you're gonna have to get down and dirty and rip apart your vents and fans to get at the dust

[Loopylou786]

Originally posted by Satoru:

Note that you can get literally any thermal paste and it'll be fine. The 'expensive' stuff now tends to be liquid metal. Now yes you can get improvements with it, but it is EXTREMELY FUSSY. To the point where if you mess it up by putting too much, you can destroy your computer.

Unless you are trying to overclock your system into oblivion, any thermal paste is fine. The cheap 'normal' stuff is also more forgiving in terms of application as well. Just replacing your existing, likely crusty, thermal paste will help with thermals immensely.

Though for most laptops that old, the #1 killer of yoru CPU/GPU is the fact that your vents looks like 15 cats died in them. No amount of thermal paste in the world is going to help, if that heat can't get out of your system. Ensure your fans and exhaust ports are clean if you're already doing teh above. Just cleaning them out as regular maintenance can go a long way to increasing the longevity of your laptop as well. If they're just sorta dusty, some compressed air can help. If its really bad, you're gonna have to get down and dirty and rip apart your vents and fans to get at the dust

Yeah I’ve cleaned the fans, that weren’t that bad surprising. I thought it was gonna be worse due to all the horror YouTube videos you see.
But when I removed the fan, I noticed the thermal pastes had melted or it had been smeared when originally built tho I was aware I need to replace it regardless of its original condition.

Following that, is it best to just avoid anything that metal liquid based?

[Satoru]

Originally posted by Loopylou786:

Yeah I’ve cleaned the fans, that weren’t that bad surprising. I thought it was gonna be worse due to all the horror YouTube videos you see.
But when I removed the fan, I noticed the thermal pastes had melted or it had been smeared when originally built tho I was aware I need to replace it regardless of its original condition.

Following that, is it best to just avoid anything that metal liquid based?

Definitely avoid liquid metal. The delta benefits are not worth it in your application.

[Loopylou786]

Originally posted by Satoru:

Originally posted by Loopylou786:

Yeah I’ve cleaned the fans, that weren’t that bad surprising. I thought it was gonna be worse due to all the horror YouTube videos you see.
But when I removed the fan, I noticed the thermal pastes had melted or it had been smeared when originally built tho I was aware I need to replace it regardless of its original condition.

Following that, is it best to just avoid anything that metal liquid based?

Definitely avoid liquid metal. The delta benefits are not worth it in your application.

Thank you so much.
One more thing as well?
Thermal pads, what’s the go with those or do recon it’ll be safe to leave?

[Satoru]

Originally posted by Loopylou786:

Originally posted by Satoru:

Definitely avoid liquid metal. The delta benefits are not worth it in your application.

Thank you so much.
One more thing as well?
Thermal pads, what’s the go with those or do recon it’ll be safe to leave?

Those are generally uysed to cool certain things like RAM modules or such. They're kinda fussy too as you need them to be the correct height between the plate and the thing you want to actually cool. Its 'idea' if you can maintain the existing ones