DeoxIT Gold

Has anyone used DeoxIT Gold on the 1155 socket contacts?

For those who don't know, it is a gold coating that enhances electrical conductivity and prevents 'microscopic bad stuff' from happening.

i havent used it on cpu pad but im wondering why you ask? i use their cleaning products on some of the KIT's i buy for DIY amp's.

I use it on XLR's and such in my recording rigs, but I don't think I'd ponder using it on a CPU or socket! Seeing as the CPU and socket are generally never touched and generally don't get beer and stuff spilled on them, and they are already gold-plated at both sides of the connection, I don't really see a need or desire for this TBH.

You can be assured that Intel specifies the pins and pads to work under the most rigorous of conditions w/o any additional "help"

Now - if you have tar and finger grease all over your CPU pads, I'd probably just wipe it down with some 90% or better isopropyl alcohol and call it a day...

I asked because I was tempted to try it. But I think I won't.

It's too risky.

I have used it, and things like it (Cramolin and Tweak), for many years.

I usually put it on all my connections and connectors - DIMMS, SATA, PC card edges, even power and fan connectors; and audio connectons. All USB, Flash cards and drives, and Firewire connectors, etc.

Supposedly, it forms a micro-thin film that increases electrical conductivity via 'quantum tunneling'! I don't know if that is hogwash or pseudo-science, but I had a chemist friend who worked at Dow Chemical in this area and he says there is something to it.

It has a particular fondness for gold (as do we all) and is targetted for gold-to-gold connections. The formulation is a trade secret.

Maybe some day I will try it on an old CPU and see if anything happens.

I'm really nervous about tampering with nanosecond pulses, even if it works - what if it worked too well and screwed up the Intel timing specs!!

that is all snake oil, not matter how you cover the connector. the base metal is still lower then the cover put on it. as in most connectors from what i see tend to be thin steel some alu, then just covered with gold. you cant change how steel or alu handles the passing of electrons from point A to point B just because it has gold coating on it. this applies to all things...

just like in audio gear you cant improve audio quality simply by the wires your use. that is unless your running some small guage wire on a 50k audio system.

It is possible that it is 'snake oil', but it is also possible that thin-film materials exhibit unusual properties. It is my understanding that the conduction effects take place between gold and gold - not the base metal. Base metal is electroplated with gold, so that contact is chemical.

As I imagine - if you look at any surface with high enough magnification you will see something like a Grand Canyon. Only the tips of the mountains touch when two surfaces connect.

The film fills the valleys and supposedly increase conduction and prevents age effects.

I don't know. Weird stuff happens in thin films.

Anyway, I gave it a try. When I opened the CPU to do the assembly, I believe that I got a refurbished part.

The stock heat sink had no thermal compound, it looked scratched, and the CPU had some discoloration on some pads.

I cleaned the CPU pads with denatured alcohol and lint-free swabs and applied the DeoxIT.

I don't know if anything unusual will happen - the system boots, I've installed Windows 7 and I'm re-installing my apps. No errors, most I/O ports seem to work fine. I have not tested every one yet, but each class of ports (SATA 3 and 2, USB 3 and 2, Firewire, eSATA, etc.) works fine.

So far everything looks good. It runs fine at 'Optimized' settings and comes up running at 3.8 GHz with no heat issues. The heat sink doesn't even get warm.

I have not yet started overclocking, I'll report anything unusual after I finish installing my stuff.

If I hadn't seen those marks, I would not have done it, but I have yet to see any problems using DeoxIT.

No way to prove it does anything, except it seems to do no harm.

By the way, this is a core i7-2600k, mb is asus p8p67 pro, Ripjaws X 16 GB ram. I'm using a simple Silent 1156 cooler (for now anyway) in a HAF932 case.

A quick follow-up posting. In the last few months I have not found any problems with the CPU, memory or any hardware, so there was no harm done. And no way to prove that it did anything good.