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I used to think thermal paste was snake oil until I replaced mine
Honestly, I ran my old gaming laptop for like 3 years never touching the thermal paste because I figured it was just a marketing gimmick. Then last month my CPU was hitting 95C while playing a basic game, so I finally swapped the paste with some Arctic MX-4. After a 20 minute job, my temps dropped to 72C under load - a solid 23 degree difference. Has anyone else been shocked by how much a fresh paste layer can revive an old machine?
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jesse_craig262h ago
My buddy once told me thermal paste was basically just fancy toothpaste, so I used actual toothpaste on an old desktop I didn't care about. Worked fine for about two weeks until it dried out and the temps went even higher than before. That little experiment taught me more than any YouTube video could about why the real stuff matters.
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the_sean30m ago
That toothpaste story from @jesse_craig26 is wild lol. It makes sense though since thermal paste is basically made to handle heat cycles and not dry out, unlike Colgate. I bet a ton of people have had good results just from doing a simple repaste on an older machine.
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