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?"

Comments

Nice...

[Chordonblue]

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.

Re:OCZ has announced a recall.

[The Clockwork Troll]

Why would you give them your business as opposed to the manufacturers who have actually had substantial amounts of silver in their product all along?

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?

Re:OCZ has announced a recall.

[Tmack]

Silver, being a metal, is very conductive. Conductivity in the electrical realm generally translates into better conductivity in the thermal range as well. So yes, a 99% silver compound would transmit heat from cpu to heatsink better than your standard paste. A 99% copper paste would be almost as effective, but its affenity for oxygen would cause it to break down into a green sludge of oxidized metal rather quickly.

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.

Re:Silver global supplies are running low...

[ShadowBlasko]

This is offtopic, so I hope I don't go to mod hell..

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 .. tons and tons and 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.