Talk:Thermal paste

Berylium
This is almost entirely historical, now, but it may be worth mentioning the Beryllium-based compounds and the associated health risks. This is worthy of note to anybody about to dismantle something particularly old, or possibly some modern high-performance equipment. This might also be the right place to clear up some of the confusion about the hazards of different types of heatsink compound. Research would have to be done into the pervasiveness. --ToobMug 02:12, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree: there should be a section on toxicity. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.163.167.174 (talk • contribs) 20 May 2006


 * Separate section or in an existing section? Any idea what Beryllium compound looks like or what the risks are? I knew someone who was convinced Zinc compounds were carcinogenic (worried the hell out of me, as an electronics professional who deals with zinc compound daily), until I read otherwise. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jp adelaide (talk • contribs) 13:20, 30 September 2007 (UTC)


 * On that note, can't find any references to beryllium compound, only washers used to electrically insulate high performance transistors and its use in heatsink copper alloys. Need some info on this subject because google came up wit zip —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jp adelaide (talk • contribs) 18:31, 30 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I too have only ever heard of solid beryllium insulators - never a paste. If there is a paste, a note on toxicity would be welcome. If there isn't, well, it probably shouldn't be mentioned then. Snakeburger (talk) 22:41, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Sodium Fluoride
The thermal conductivity of 132 W/m*K of sodium fluoride seems much to high and there's no reference. The related Sodium chloride has a thermal conductivity of 6.5 W/m*K @ 20°C, so I think the given value is way off. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.226.237.70 (talk) 16:36, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Metal conductivity

 * "It is also more electrically conductive, however, which can cause problems if it contacts the pins of an IC."

At this moment I don't have a problem with leaving that statement in place. But I seem to member that Arctic Silver touts the dielectric property of Arctic Silver 5, despite the high silver content. If it does need correction, then I am thinking a new paragraph should be made describing the way to choose the right compound for the job. Citations would be needed too. --Charles Gaudette 22:48, 10 August 2006 (UTC)


 * So called 'micronised' (particulate metals processed to a cetain size by mechanical means) or colloidal metals (metal atoms suspended in a liquid, a substance created by electrochemical means) will be conductive but Arctic Silver isn't conductive because it uses various oxides and salts of silver, not the raw metal (something they are keen to point out on their web site). An oxide or salt of a metal is non-conductive. This makes Artic Silver a ceramic material, not a metalic one.


 * Oh. I just read it elsewhere and assumed it was true, but citations would be better. — Omegatron 02:47, 11 August 2006 (UTC)


 * The three classes given of heat sink compounds are misleading to some degree. Arctic silver claim, and is generally accepted to have, the highest thermal conductivity of consumer-available compounds but it is a ceramic (based on silver) and entirely non conductive. They also manufacture aluminium-ceramic paste and a ceramic paste without reference to the actual content ('ceramique'). Micronised or colloidal silver or other metals may well have better thermally condutive properies but without references to studies, the statement metalic compound are better than ceramic compounds is unclear. Further common zinc/silicone compounds are ceramic, being made from metal oxide in the same way more complex silver based ceramic compounds are. Much research needs to be done.

Silicon and silicone confusion?
I wonder, does the article confuse silicon and silicone, the former being a hard, metalloid element, the latter an organic-inorganic polymer? In my limited knowledge of thermal grease, they generally all have a silicone oil base, with various nonmetallic (e.g. zinc oxide, ceramic) or metallic (e.g. silver, copper) additives to increase thermal conductivity. Are there actually greases with silicon as an additive, and are there greases that don't have silicone oil as a base? --Arteitle 03:29, 12 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Silicone, the polymer, uses silicon, the mineral as the backbone of the molecule in much the same way organic plastics and oil use carbon. Silicone (silicon based polymer) oils offer better characteristics at high heat than carbon based oils. Important note: 'silicone' (with the 'e' at the end) is a registered trademark, a brand name, belonging to Dow Corning. I don't believe there is an issue with using this name as it's universally used for silicon based polymers.

Daniel Rutter? i have the same name as you, woahhhhhhhhh!

Merge with thermal interface material
Thermal greases are definitely a type of thermal interface material (TIM), and I believe that Thermal Grease should be integrated with this topic.

Further, TIMs and Heat sinks are subsets of the category of Thermal Management of Microelectronics and Optoelectronics.

CarlZweben 22:01, 5 March 2007 (UTC) CarlZweben


 * I'm inclined to agree that the pages should be merged. I would guess that the other page happened because the author couldn't find this one (I very nearly started a page for the same reason).  Thermal grease has the the longer edit history and so I would suggest that it be the target of the merger, even if it is then renamed to "thermal interface material" (I have no preference on the name).  The procedure is documented at Merging_and_moving_pages, but it seems to imply that if I put the tags in then I'd end up being responsible for the merger.  I'm too lazy for that.  --ToobMug 10:51, 1 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I will also agree to the merger. I thought it would be a good idea awhile back. I'll have to mull this over, as I now have more Wikipedia experience under my belt, (but still short of mastering the art). I regularly run into thermal grease and other thermal interface materials (pads) used almost interchangeably. Further, I see grease and foil used together. My gut feelings run against doing anything merge wise with the heat sink article; though I'm open to hearing any ideas. I was involved in the x86-64, AMD 64, Intel 64 merge. Anyone can place the merge tags and anyone can do the merge, you you just want to get enough voices heard so that the merge is not reverted. Even with the higher profile of x86-64, it was hard to get people to comment in the volume I thought it deserved, and after several months we had to "just do it". --Charles Gaudette 19:36, 1 July 2007 (UTC)


 * while heat sink compound is used with computers, it's most common use continues to be in electronics. Focussing entirely on CPU use might miss some important information. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.167.197.212 (talk) 11:40, 27 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, merge then! 5 months is a long time to decide what to do! Meanwhile I've updated the best I can the English and meaning to avoid focus on CPU use and make clearer and easier to read (and more graceful) various parts of this article which should be tagged something to indicate poor quality. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jp adelaide (talk • contribs) 13:32, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Separate sections on CPU/GPU/computer and power-transistor use... useful
while the function of heat sink compound is the same regardless of use, there are several details which are of particular relevance to computer enthusiasts that aren't to Chinese 1/2 watt amplifier manufacturers (no disrespect intended) though both use thermal grease.

References Old
Several of the references refer to compounds dating to 2000. More recent and accurate references and sources of information and testing are available now. Add these or update existing (to avoid an eventually infinitely long list of obsolete data)?

Basic types needs revising
Very simplistic and misleading and presents itself as a pivotal key to understanding of thermal compounds and doesn't provide references. Removed bit about AMD recommending avoidance of wax based compounds: AMD's aging Athlon XP engineering guide recommends against all non-drying (ie silicone based) compounds. With the large area metal 'heat spreader' type chips this is no longer a problem brought up by manufacturers and, frankly, who knows what they will recommend in a few years time. Should this be a general guide or a specific one kept up to minute in regard to emerging technology & trends?

As to liquid metals: provide a reference and, verily, it shalt be very good and go in, possibly as a 4th category if we HAVE to separate categories of compound. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jp adelaide (talk • contribs) 13:42, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

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BetacommandBot (talk) 18:48, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Ad-like?
Is it just me, or does anyone else think the external references "AI Technology Cool Silver Thermal Interface Material by Shane Higgins" and "Latest Thermal Compound Faceoff by Joe Anderson" both look like the same paid endorsement? Granted, the competitor Arctic Silver was gently warned for blatant advertising, but that's still no excuse.

74.248.228.204 (talk) 02:12, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Switpoint?
"High temperatures cause semiconductors to change their switpoint of failure..."

This doesn't appear to be correct...but what should it be? Seems to have been in there forever, but the only place you can find this word in google is in a reference to this article! --199.126.14.213 (talk) 06:11, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Use sparingly?
"Because thermal grease's thermal conductivity is poorer than the metals they couple, it is important to use no more than is necessary to exclude air gaps."

This sentence from the article seems completely unverified. Especially since heatsinks are attached with some pressure. It seems rather unlikely that fresh thermal grease would some how force the heatsink and CPU apart rather than getting extruded out the sides. My conjecture would be that keeping the layer thin helps avoid dreaded bubbles. That said, I couldn't find any tests on the subject. 203.184.31.43 (talk) 18:06, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

If you put on too much paste and end up with a 1mm layer instead of a 0.1mm layer, you will have ten times as much thermal resistance in your layer! Your layer will not be as thin as possible unless you avoid putting on too much.

It is vital that the article communicate well the basic physics facts. In a typical heat-flow system, the total system thermal resistance is the sum of a series of components. For a layer of a given material, the resistance of that component is proportional to the thickness, all else being equal. Thus, the quoted sentence is wrong in the first part and right in the second part. The first part is wrong because whether the grease conducts better or worse than the adjoining metal is not a very relevant issue. No matter how well the grease conducts heats, its mission is just to get the heat across the gap. It will do this best if it is as thin as possible, as long as there are no voids or air bubbles. No matter how well the thermal grease conducts heat, if it is thicker than it needs to be it will just impede heat flow more than necessary. (The exception to this simplistic basic view is if the heat distribution on the interface surfaces is very uneven and the grease really does conduct heat much better than the materials being interfaced.) An ideal perfect thermal interface material would be zero thick and have zero thermal resistance.

The sad key basic fact is that if you screw up your gap filler you can make things bad, but no matter how great your gap filler you cannot make things great because other factors will usually ensure that the total system thermal resistance is significant.-96.237.79.6 (talk) 15:42, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Practical Use
This section has claims of a test conducted with ointment, but has no references to it. I only post this in the Discussion section because I couldn't find the [citation needed] option in the Edit window. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Munozdj (talk • contribs) 16:21, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Liquids
The thermal conductivities of liquids are notably low relative to solids. The thermal conductivity of water (0.6) is higher than almost all other ordinary liquids, and almost any additions to water (salt etc) lower the thermal conductivity. Why?

These two references have tables and relevant practical discussions: The Best Heat Transfer Fluids for Liquid Cooling An Overview of Liquid Coolants for Electronics Cooling -96.237.79.6 (talk) 03:27, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Units of thermal conductivity
The symbol W/mK could mean "watts per millikelvin" or "watts per metre kelvin". Could the symbol be changed to make it clear what the which meaning is intended? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.215.139.65 (talk) 15:01, 9 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Done. The correct units are watt per meter kelvin or W/(K·m) since thermal conductivity is a measure of the quantity of heat that passes through a given material thickness per unit time. --BBUCommander (talk) 21:01, 26 March 2013 (UTC)

O.R.?
In the primary section of the article, there's a couple lines of text regarding an "informal comparative test of thermal greases," with no citation given. I'm not sure whether to categorize it as original research or just a case of a forgotten citation; I don't presume to have Mod-like knowledge as to which is applicable. Eddievhfan1984 (talk) 02:41, 15 October 2012 (UTC)


 * . It's now cited to Daniel Rutter.

Metal-Free
The concept of having a section on "metal-free" thermal paste seems silly. If you're going to have this section, at least specify what category its under. Ceramics already are metal free, so odds are the citation at the end of the "metal-free" blurb was just a ceramic thermal paste. Random2001 (talk) 21:04, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Longevity
There is still a lot of debate on whether a thermal paste should be reapplied after every few years or not. Some say that pastes dry up while others argue that it is not a lubricant that is supposed to stay wet. As long as the source and heat sink never separate or move, the paste would last for even 10-15 years. Can someone clarify? With newer materials being created, it differs on the thermal paste. The term lifespan can be replaced by; shelf life. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.172.165.252 (talk) 08:41, 1 October 2016 (UTC)

Environmental Hazards
I'm finding a lot of statements on heat sink compounds regarding environmental hazards. For example, superlube silicone heat sink compound is zinc oxide filled, and supposedly it IS the zinc oxide that makes it hazardous. Even though it's the active ingredient in diaper cream and sunscreen. Is there a missing component here? What's the deal on this? I also heard rumors that ALL of this stuff is potentially nasty. And that some of the old stuff was potentially nutrive for fungus (heat sink rott?) I'm not qualified to write this in to the article, but surely there's more information? Bad or not, it's definitely making it in to landfills.

CAS: 1314-13-2 EINECS: 215-222-5 Index number: 030-013-00-7 zinc oxide < 2,5% CAS: 25322-69-4 NLP: 500-039-8 Poly(proylene glycol) < 2,5%''
 * ''Aquatic Chronic 3 H412 Harmful to aquatic life with long lasting effects.
 * H412 Harmful to aquatic life with long lasting effects.
 * Aquatic Acute 1, H400; Aquatic Chronic 1, H410

Last I knew zinc oxide and glycol were relatively benign.

--98.148.84.86 (talk) 19:14, 6 June 2018 (UTC)--98.148.84.86 (talk) 19:14, 6 June 2018 (UTC)

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