That $20 thermal paste trick my buddy swore by actually fried my GPU

So my coworker Dave told me to use this cheap thermal paste he found on Amazon because it's 'just as good as the expensive stuff.' I put it on my personal rig last week during a clean and now my temps are hitting 92C under load. Turns out it was some off-brand stuff that dries out in 3 months. Has anyone else gotten burned by bad advice from a friend on thermal paste or other parts?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_beth23d ago

Did you check if it was electrically non-conductive? Some of that cheap stuff has metal particles in it that can short out components, I had a friend ruin a CPU that way with some random paste from Ebay. Honestly the safest bet is just sticking with Arctic Silver or Noctua, it's like $8 more and worth not worrying about.

bettyk5323d ago

Did you ever consider that thermal paste might matter less than how level the cooler sits on the chip? I've seen people obsess over paste and then not tighten screws evenly, leaving a gap that does more harm than any cheap paste could.