How often should you change thermal compound?

[Blue Falcone]

How often should the thermal compound be change?

[KingBassie]

Haha not. If u putted the pasta on the chip and then placed on the right place then it will be okay. U can if i want change it but i dont see the usefullness of unscrewing ur cooler and then past it all over again when it is already good to run for age's. But what u need to do is keep u computer clean away of dust and if u have water cooling setup then u need/adviced to clean u pc whole each half year. ^^

[ZigZach]

Interesting question.. I wouldn't suggest replacing the thermal compound unless you overclock your CPU, or are experiencing heat issues. For regular usage I would suggest replacing the compound when you replace you CPU.

[KingBassie]

But remember the cpu is really sensetive so if u clean the cpu and u acidently break a pin or put pasta on it then u are nearby screwd. So best advice if u dont need to clean u cpu then leave it the way it is and if u notice that u cpu is cooking some egg (So hot) then place some fans in ur case latly fans are not that expensive ^^

[_I_]

as long as its working and your temps are teh same as when it was first installed, its good
tim does not go bad
more often than not just clean the dust from the pc and heatsinks and itll be as good as it was before

tldr: only repalce the tim when installing a new heatsink or cpu

[TeKraken]

@Chief
Your post made me hungry.

.................................

I agree with ZZ & _l_. For most users, apply and forget. Only worry about it if your temps continue to be higher than normal after you have removed dust etc from the heatsink.

[Silicon Vampire]

Unless you disturb the contact between the three materials, the stuff last several years (if it is a quality compound).

Disturb it slightly and it can and usually will become a problem. Note that many major manufacturers of pre built computers use just enough quality to make it through the warranty, plus a few months so it doesn't come back to bite them.

Laptops especially. They design them to fail under normal use within a short lifetime. About 2.5 - 3 years max from what I've seen, if well taken care of. You can prevent it but it takes some expensive material and a complete disassembly.

[wburton]

You don't need to replace your thermal compund often. Only replace it if you have cooling issues or move/ remove your heatsink. I do my thermal compound every 6 months when I clean out my laptop & desktop.

[Blue Falcone]

ok thank you for the information.