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Is Your Silver-based Thermal Paste Really Silver?

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the critical-looks dept.

strider69666 writes "Over at Overclockers.com they have a review of several thermal compounds that claim to have 99% pure silver content. 'I decided to test Arctic Silver 5, Arctic Silver 3, OCZ Ultra II Premium Silver Compound, and CompUSA Silver Thermal Grease. This test was not conducted to test performance, but rather to determine if these compounds have Silver as an ingredient.' Using a professionally mixed testing solution, they found that several brands do not, in fact, contain any silver at all! So, are you getting what you are paying for?"

34 of 788 comments (clear)

  1. bah by nuclear305 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Who cares who's selling what? The TRUE geek makes his own from a brick of silver.

    In my day we had to make thermal paste by grinding it down with stones.

    1. Re:bah by bunseki+suru · · Score: 5, Funny

      You had stones? Bah! In my day, we didn't even have friction! We had to will the silver particles apart - and we liked it. Young whippersnappers...

      --
      Integrated application integration with synergistic synergized synergy
    2. Re:bah by DrMrLordX · · Score: 5, Funny

      That sounds less like an activity to be pursued by a geek and more like a crafting recipe from FFXI.

      Requires alchemy(2) and goldsmithing(10), fire crystal + silver ingot + beeswax = thermal paste

    3. Re:bah by Brandybuck · · Score: 5, Funny

      Silver bricks? You was lucky! In my day we had mine our own ore and smelt it down. Then our dad would assay it, and if it wasn't 99% pure, all we got for breakfast was CompUSA Silver Thermal Grease!

      --
      Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
    4. Re:bah by John_Booty · · Score: 5, Funny

      Silver bricks? You was lucky! In my day we had mine our own ore and smelt it down. Then our dad would assay it, and if it wasn't 99% pure, all we got for breakfast was CompUSA Silver Thermal Grease!

      You had HEAVY ELEMENTS? In my day, the loose clouds of interstellar gas hadn't coalesced into star systems yet. All we had were hydrogen atoms and maybe a trace of helium around Christmas!

      --

      OtakuBooty.com: Smart, funny, sexy nerds.
    5. Re:bah by madpierre · · Score: 5, Funny

      You had loose clouds of interstellar gas. *LUXURY*

      In my day we had nothing but the vacuum and had to wait for a universe to pop into existence before we could even begin to think about the existence of energy and matter.

      Kids today ....

      --
      siggy played guitar
    6. Re:bah by eric76 · · Score: 4, Funny

      Forget silver paste.

      Try the paste made from mithril mined by the local dwarves.

    7. Re:bah by DarthApoc · · Score: 5, Funny

      And if you tell the young people today, they won't believe you!

    8. Re:bah by Hexydes · · Score: 5, Funny

      You had a vacuum? All I got was a broom and a dust pan. *weeping*

    9. Re:bah by gnovos · · Score: 4, Funny

      You had a quantum foam vacuum of pure nothingness to pop universes out of? I WISH I had a vacuum of pure nothingness to pop universes out of.

      In my day all we had was this damn turtle.

      --
      "Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
    10. Re:bah by Pyro226 · · Score: 4, Funny

      You had a broom and a dust pan? All I had was a toothbrush, and I had to brush my teeth with it as well.

      --
      This message is encrypted with Quad ROT-13 to protect the author's copyright under the DMCA.
  2. No by forkazoo · · Score: 5, Funny

    No, mine isn't. And by the way, despite the claims of the manufacturer, Soylent green is not 100% people. Quit believing advertising, and you will be just fine. Better yet, take up spectroscopy as a hobby. Chicks dig spectroscopes!

    1. Re:No by Frymaster · · Score: 5, Funny
      Soylent green is not 100% people. Quit believing advertising

      i call this the "grape nuts theory".

      no grapes. no nuts. grape nuts.

      --

      2 1337 4 u!

    2. Re:No by balloonhead · · Score: 4, Funny
      There was no need to bring the conversation to this. No need.

      You think a speculum exam is bad? Try working in A&E (ER to you yanks) at 4 in the morning when some chick comes in because she's lost a condom on the job and you have to dig it out from her semen-filled snatch. Eeewww.

      --
      This idea was invented by Shampoo.
  3. Who cares? by FractusMan · · Score: 4, Funny

    When someone buys 'Silver' thermal paste, are they paying for silver, or for performance? I don't buy the platinum edition of a game and feel jipped because the CD held little to no platinum.

  4. no - he got it wrong... by MrBallistic · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...compusa meant that it was 99% silver - the /color/.

    thank you, thank you. i'll be here all night. tip your wait staff.

  5. Ok by TexVex · · Score: 4, Funny
    Silver thermal paste
    Not so silver after all
    My CPU wilts
    Because I couldn't come up with a good Perl Haiku. :(
    --
    Fun with Anagarams! LADS HOST, SHALT DOS. HAS DOLTS. AD SLOTHS, HATS SOLD. ASS HO, LTD.
    1. Re:Ok by addaon · · Score: 5, Funny

      That's okay, you couldn't come up with a good heatsink haiku either.

      --

      I've had this sig for three days.
  6. o boy by lib112x · · Score: 5, Funny

    Is silver toxic? I thought the tube that came with my athlon fan was complementary tootpaste!

  7. I want to speak to the manager! by teamhasnoi · · Score: 5, Funny
    This 'hamburger' contains no ham, these 'French' fries are from Idaho, and this Dr. Pepper was not prescribed and tastes nothing like pepper!

    I want a free goddam coffee and an apple pie right now or I'll sue!

    1. Re:I want to speak to the manager! by The_dev0 · · Score: 5, Funny

      You're about to break my heart about baby oil too, aren't you?

      --
      Never fight naked, unless you're in prison...
    2. Re:I want to speak to the manager! by Tumbleweed · · Score: 4, Funny

      And you don't wanna know about the Girl Scout Cookies, either.

  8. Overclocked... by Justin205 · · Score: 5, Funny

    403.9 Access Forbidden: Too many users are connected

    You're telling me a site on overclocking has to cut off the user limit? Their servers aren't overclocked enough to handle it?

    --
    "Your effort to remain what you are is what limits you."
  9. Re:RTFA by jburst · · Score: 5, Funny
    several thermal compounds that claim to have 99% pure silver content

    They are advertised as CONTAINING silver, it's not just silver color.

    That means they have content which is colored silver. You don't speak marketing, do you?
  10. Re:OCZ has announced a recall. by SYFer · · Score: 4, Funny

    Perfect response. Give the Product Manager a raise.

    This is a situation where a company's extremely quick action--which is probably going to reach virtually everyone who even knows about the problem (the parent is still "above the fold" here on /.)--may actually have the effect of increasing brand loyalty.

    Hell, I don't buy the stuff, but if I did, I'd switch to theirs on the basis of this response alone.

    1. Sell bogus silver paste
    2. Get exposed on Overclockers
    3. Masterfully respond to problem
    4. Profit!

    --
    "...all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness..." yada yada
  11. Re:Overclocking not for the serious geek by kfg · · Score: 4, Funny

    It is just like Bob putting a big block in his pinto.

    Oh, yeah, sure. When you put it in that light it all makes perfect sense.

    KFG

  12. Re:ARTICLE TEXT by mattkime · · Score: 4, Funny

    I think at some point we need to start modding article text postings as off-topic. Nothing destroys a good slashdot conversation like a return to the main article. ...it also undermines the slashdotting attempt.

    --
    Know what I like about atheists? I've yet to meet one that believes God is on their side.
  13. Reading in-between the lines of a OCZ recall. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    OCZ would like to take this time to spin doctor a recent article published at Overclockers.com, which shows that OCZ Ultra 2 thermal compound has no silver content.

    It is not really OCZ's fault, we don't actually make the stuff. OCZ is a victum just like you! Someone in China did it and we couldn't have possibly known because we outsourced our quality control as well. This required us to trust a single independent lab test to be representive of the quality of all batches of OCZ Ultra 2 thermal compound.

    Now that we have been caught with our pants down, we have submitted a second batch to our outsourced quality control and confirmed that it is all China's fault. But we would like to point out that the compound did contain 30% silver by weight. We have reached the conclusion that this recent batch (actually, it might be multiple batchs but we can't afford to test each one to be sure) did not meet with the OCZ unenforced specifications.

    Instead of giving your money back, we will define the steps below as "accepting full responsiblity" and would like to point out that we are taking legal action since it really is China's fault.

    Beginning today we are issuing an incomplette recall of all full or partially used OCZ Ultra 2 (if you still have an empty OCZ Ultra 2 then your S.O.L. and get nothing).

    1) The tube which now sells for $9 on NewEgg (and we would like to point out that the Tech Zone rated as cooling 2 degrees C below Arctic Silver) can be exchanged for Arctic Silver which you could have just bought for $7 -OR- you can get a OCZ heat sink that we need to get rid of anyways since it is discontinued!

    But wait... there is more...

    2) A one-size-fits-all T-shirt featuring the OCZ logo so you can be a walking advertizement for OCZ until it falls apart the third time you wash it. The fact that there is not the cotten/polyester blend we specified can not be OCZ's fault because after all... OCZ does not have it's own quality assurence and in the end everything is China's fault.

    Oh... but wait... there is even more...

    3) $10 off another of our products which also comes complette with no quality assurence!

    Thank you for getting scre... doing business with OCZ. Remember, if it is not OCZ technology then you might actually be getting what you payed for.

  14. I can see the imprint: by Lionfish · · Score: 5, Funny

    I fried my cpu and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.

  15. Maybe"silver" is just the color ... by SmoothTom · · Score: 4, Funny

    ... not a metallic element they are refering to? It looks "silver."

    You know, uh, like, uh "orange" paint isn't really made from oranges, it's just that color ...

    Yeah! that's it!

    (And if you believe that ... )

    --
    Tomas

    1. Re:Maybe"silver" is just the color ... by Scorchio · · Score: 5, Funny

      Hmm.. I guess that means I'm not going to make my fortune by melting down boxes of Golden Grahams.

  16. double bah by Blue23 · · Score: 4, Funny

    In my day all we had was this damn turtle.

    You had a turtle? We plunged forever into the nothingness of pure void. Uphill. Both ways.

    --
    LITTLE GIRL: But which cookie will you eat FIRST? C. MONSTER: Me think you have misconception of cookie-eating process.
  17. Re:Nice... by lobsterGun · · Score: 5, Funny

    it warms my heart to see that you used the proper "You're a moron" rather than the ever more common "Your a moron" or the coloquial "U R a m0r0n".

    Nice work.

  18. Re:Nice... by PSaltyDS · · Score: 4, Funny

    "I wonder where the foreign manufacturer is though, and how easy they are to prosecute. Now I feel sorry for OCZ, because it looks like they're the ones getting the shaft."

    It's a Nigerian exporter who promised OCZ they had MILLIONS OF DOLLARS of unclaimed silver they need help get out of the country...

    --
    Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced. - Geek's corollary to Clarke's law