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Is Your Silver-based Thermal Paste Really Silver?
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?"
Now THAT'S how damage control should work. The company took full responsibility and is offering a generous compensation.
It is disturbing that they had not caught this earlier, but I think that they are more than making up for their shortcomings.
I wish more organizations worked like this. Good word of mouth goes a long way on the Internet - see New Egg's success as an example.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
Well, class-action lawsuits are the end-all solution.
Short of that:
That's the FTC's job, but they don't seem interested in reports from the public.
I prefer the Better Business Bureau. I've filed a few complaints, and so far I've always gotten results.
Big companies don't even bother to show-up for small claims court appearances. So you could get up to $5,000 via a default ruling if/when they don't show.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
I know, I know, to forgive is divine, but attitudes like yours send the message "it is OK to be irresponsible as long as you say you're sorry."
Am I off-base?
There are no karma whores, only moderation johns
IIRC, copper conducts heat better than silver... why not make a copper paste
Copper is a great conductor of heat, but not as good as silver.
Copper: 402 k(W/mK) @ 300 kelvin
Silver: 430 k(W/mK) -- 7% better (in certain conditions).
Diamond beats them all at 895 k(W/mK).
Actually, there's a superfluid form of Helium-2 which, at already very low temperatures, blows anything else away in terms of heat conductivity. Of course, since it has to already be near absolute zero in temperature to have reasonably thermal conductivity, it would probably not make the best thermal "grease."
Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. --E. W. Dijkstra
2 pack; 97% pure micronized silver
75-80% silver content by weight
(from CompUSA's website, regarding said silver compound)
Wouldn't it be funny if CompUSA responded with:
"Our product is advertised correctly. Before micronization, the silver that was used was rated at 97% percent pure. The silver was then put through our micronization process and added to a substrate to create our product compound."
When asked what substrate was used
"The substrate is a a type of aerogel."
Well that would explain why the compound is 70%-80% silver by weight!
Punctanym: alternate spelling of words using punctuation or numerals in place of some or all of its letters; see 'leet'
As far as the danger of putting a potentially conductive paste on top of your CPU, yes it can be dangerous, if you dont know what you are doing. The ceramic core of the cpu is the ONLY part that needs any paste. Covering the whole chip can short-circuit the bridges and other circuitry on that surface, and even though there is a protective layer of laquor, there is still a risk. Adding too much can allow it to ooze out onto the motherboard and short something else, possibly the CPU pins. Too much compound will also actually insulate the chip rather than cool it, as it adds more material that the heat has to conduct through. During my stint as a repair tech, I had a few fried CPU's from people not reading directions/having a clue, and covering the entire surface of the CPU with the stuff. All the paste is supposed to do is eliminate any air gap between CPU and heatsink. Newer CPU's mihgt come with a metal shim on top of the chip (Ala the old K6-2's), giving a wider dispersion path for the heat to travel before jumping to the heatsink through the paste.
If you buy almost ANYTHING with a warantee, it only warantees itself, not what it might do to other things even if used properly. Is your car waranteed against getting into an accident? No. The lack of silver will reduce its conductivity, but the rest of the components in the compound still conduct failry well. The worst that would happen is a cpu might run warmer than it would with the silver. If your system is so critical that lack of silver burns up the CPU, you probably voided a different warantee already (Overclock something??).
Be thankfull a company is actually claiming responsibility and is willing to do SOMETHING about it, rather than ignore/deny etc. Stop complaining about how little they are doing, after all how much did you pay for their product vs how much this has to be costing them?
Tm
ps: I bet they are gona take the cost of this recall out of their supplier, seeing as the supplier sold them something claiming to have x% silver, but breached contract giving them 0%. Must have saved the supplier a load of $$ to not put that silver in, but guess they will pay for it now.
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This is offtopic, so I hope I don't go to mod hell..
.. tons and tons and tons.
Silver is cheap. Beyond cheap. Its everywhere.
I know this because I make and sell silver jewelry. Scrap silver is essentially worthless.
I have about 30lbs of 92.5 sitting here in a bucket that I will eventually melt down. And about 10 pounds of fine silver (99.9). Its simply not worth even trying to do anything with at this point.
And that silver boom that is supposedly coming...
I'll believe it when I see it.
Do you know how much silver US customs has in its possession? Tons
The reason for this is, if something is imported into the United States, and it is stamped as 95.5, and customs tests any particular piece in that shipment, (regardless of whether it is a small bag, or a container full) and it comes out to something LESS than 92.5% pure, they melt the WHOLE shipment down. Do what you want with it.
And trust me, they *do* test.
Which, come to think of it, could be a way to stop this type of thing, but I thing that "melting it down" only applies to items that are stamped. And silver paste obviously is not stamped. But there is a possibility it is still controlled as precious or semi-precious metals. I'll ask my customs broker next time I talk to her.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order- Ed Howdershelt Via Tass
Silver thermal paste is like a big go-faster wing on your Kia-Rio... it makes the buyer think he is smart.
If you want the real stuff you need to look at what the United States military uses. if you want the absolute best thermal compound available, get anything that meets MIL SPEC MIL-C-47113.
I found the only product so far available to the consumer in small quantities is GC electronics Type 44 Heat sink compound. the little 1/2 oz jar will last you, your friends, and your families lifetime.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.