Does AS5 Lose Its Effectiveness With Time?

Here is an email exchange with an Arctic Silver tech:

Saturday, July 24, 2010, 10:52:27 PM, you wrote:


> On the PC enthusiast forum I

> participate in, some are saying that AS 5

> eventually dries out, loses its

> effectiveness and needs to be reapplied.

> Is there any truth to this?


> Thanks, Harry


Hi Harry,


For desktop/tower heatsinks held in place with spring clips, there is

no need to reapply our thermal compounds unless the thermal interface

has been physically disturbed by bumping the heatsink or rough

transport. Low mass laptop heatsinks that are firmly screwed in place

do not have this limitation.


Best Regards,


Kirk


Kirk Olsen


559-740-0912 Ext: 773 Voice

559-740-0913 Fax


www.arcticsilver.com

[email protected]


Arctic Silver, Inc.

9826 West Legacy Ave.

Visalia, CA 93291 USA

so...no?

The company says "no".

Moderator, could you move this to the general cooling section. I posted it by mistake under water cooling.

Thanks

Moved for ya, man.

As for what the AS tech told you, I think that it's reasonable to assume he's right. But, keep in mind the exceptions that he also said about bumping the heatsink or rough handling disturbing the TIM and breaking the thermal bond down. I know that I once had some of their old product, AS3, on a heatsink for around 2 years with no significant dropoff in performance. But that system stayed in 1 spot and was not moved around and was watercooled to boot.

Makes me consider my thermal paste applications since I do have a tendency to lan every now and then...

m0r7if3r said:

Makes me consider my thermal paste applications since I do have a tendency to lan every now and then...

Click to expand...

Yeah, especially if the application is over a year or so old. I imagine that the products keep enough carrier in them over time to keep them effective as long as the initial set isn't disturbed, but you are going to have some pumpout of the oil (or whatever) carrier which will leave the actual interface material much more brittle and prone to being disturbed if something disturbs the bond line between the heatsink and IHS. Then, since the viscosity of the old remaining TIM material is much stiffer, you don't get the material to flow back and reseat itself since the carrier has been degraded.

IIRC, there are pictures on this forum of dried-out/degraded AS5 (and other pastes) that are absolutely disgusting (and with associated high temps).

I just can't find them.

The AS5 (and all thermal paste really) should perform better as it cures, and a full cure takes a fairly long time. I imagine it would last at least 2 years (likely longer) before you would need to reapply it. Provided that you aren't regularly changing heat sinks of course.

There is an issue with this. For many applications it may work but not in most cases.

As the TIM breaks down and becomes completely non-viscus it has lost mass and due to this and the pressure and the weight of the HSF creating a sort of torque the HSF should become slightly un-level (base and IHS not as parallel) creating a slight temperature increase.