Mixing thermal paste with Isopropyl alcohol to lower temps

Here is the info: http://www.spodesabode.com/content/article/alchpaste

The whole idea does make sense, and shaved off a couple degrees of his test. Anyone try this with Arctic Silter paste? The guy used a Isopropyl alcohol spray, all I got is 99% Isoprpanol (isoporpyl alcohol) in a bottle and I'm willing to give a try . First on a 486 of course, although I have no way of testing the temperature. If the 486 didn't by any chance fry hehe, I'll test it out on a Cel566@850 with a Golden Orb heatsink I got lying around. I should be able to test temps with it though.

Anyone did any testing already?

yeah i have heard about that before, basically its makes the paste more liquidy so that its able to oose out better between the heatsink and core, basically artic silver has been working for a long time to make it so runny, chances are if applied right it wont bring temp drops, unless Isopropyl alcohol has a better heat conductivity. But sure does help with that "cheap" paste since its so thick, dont know any long term effects, i guess as long as it doesnt disolve the core or anything it will be fine, just make sure you dont make it too runny or it will all leave and there wont be any left.

hope this helps

Kevin

if it made as3 better, then why wouldn't the arctic silver company mix it that way themselves?/??


put your thinking caps on.....

Dansdata has shown that toothpaste has better results than thermal pastes.

Why?

Toothpaste contains more water than thermal pastes.

Why doesn't anyone use toothpaste on their processors?

Because of durability and endurance of the paste. AS3 and similar pastes are carefully engineered so that not only will they conduct heat acceptably, but they will also last for an acceptable amount of time without haveing to reapply.

If you want better temps and something to do with your spare time then use toothpaste as a TIM and reapply it every half hour, maybe then you won't fry your chip but I'm making no guarantees.

LINK: www.dansdata.com/goop.html

Interesting quotations:

Is fancy thermal goop as good as the manufacturers would like you to believe, and as various Junior Overclockers do believe? Nope.

Click to expand...

If you think any particular grease is going to cause your CPU to run more than a few degrees Celsius cooler than any other grease, though, then assuming the grease is properly applied, you're dreaming.

Click to expand...

To see whether these substances work so well simply because they're wet, I tried some plain tapwater between the heater and the heat sink. And lo, it scored a magnificent 0.41°C/W - possibly at least partly because, without any gelling material, it was free to move heat by convection as well as conduction. In such a thin film, though, convection is probably negligible; it's the water's own rather good thermal conductivity, and the thinness of the layer, that are more likely to be the significant factors.

Click to expand...

The toothpaste I chose turned out to be slightly runnier than Arctic Silver 3, in case you care; it's pretty easy to spread it very thin. I put on a thicker layer, though; "optimising heat sink toothpaste application" is not something I intend to put on my curriculum vitae.

Firing up my Minty Fresh Thermal Transfer Experiment produced, rather hilariously, an excellent score - 0.47°C/W.

That's right - Toothpaste Superior To Arctic Silver 3! Film At Eleven!

Click to expand...

TheMightyBuck said:

if it made as3 better, then why wouldn't the arctic silver company mix it that way themselves?/??


put your thinking caps on.....

Click to expand...

that will be called AS4

My guess is that the reason it works when mixing it with isopropyl is that it makes the paste "thinner". So when you apply the mixed stuff to the processor, the isopropyl evaporates almost instantly, leaving behind a much thinner layer of the thermal paste than you can ever apply with a creditcard/scalpel without it having gaps with uncovered areas. It's always known that you should apply thermal paste as thin as possible so you only filling the rough gaps rather than it being thick so it is "lifting" the gap apart with a film of the paste itself.

Of course i might be wrong, but if the article on spodes are true then this is one theory i can think of that sound reasonable to me.

Duh! stupid me, thats the exact theory thats written on the article! So if someone else can come up with the same theory as him then I guess there is some sense to it. He could go and try it on AS3, but then again AS3 might actually contain alcohol already or maybe some other stuff that has similar properties, so it may or may not work.