Does Thermal Paste Have a "Best By" Date?

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Teh Lurv

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I just received in the mail a Thermalright heatsink I ordered online. I originally was planning on using the thermal paste that Thermalright includes with the heatsink, however I noticed that the box is stamped with a QA packing date of 2007. I have partly used tubes of AC5 and generic white stuff going back to 2002 stored away. That got me wondering: is there an expiration date for TIM? I've never seen thermal past with a "Best by" stamp, but can paste lose effectiveness if stored for years?
 
I've heard several times on discussion boards that some thermal pastes will start to separate because of the differing densities in their materials. People have also said that mixing the thermal paste will mix the separated layers and fix this issue, though I can't vouch for either of these ideas.

I have a tube of AS5 from ~2004 that is down to the last sliver of gunk, I'll soon have to crack open the vial that I got from 6 months ago :). The AS5 from 2004, though I haven't analyzed the whole mass to know, seemed to be uniform in its entire contents. I haven't been extra-careful to store it laying down or anything else, it was stored however it fell. While I can't tell you about how it compares to not-old AS5, the GPUs I have used it on, a 7900GS (~3 months ago) and an HD 4850 (one week ago), have both worked without any problems. Temperatures seem normal, and I have no concern about the integrity of my hardware.

Hope that helped.
 
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Did somebody say Best Buy? :p

Anyway, I think there are a few pastes out there that do have a life expectancy. Mainly because they do tend to dry out, and while you can still use it-it won't perform as well as fresh paste.

I had this exact question in my mind when I was building my latest rig. Used a tube of AS5 back from 2005 first and then I tried a fresh one I bought recently. It may have been my imagination but the old AS5 seemed thicker and stickier. The temps however showed no real difference.
 
I've used 6 year old AS5 and new AS5 on the same build and cooler. There was absolutely no change in temps.
 
I haven't noticed any difference between using some older TIM vs newer stuff, I have had to throw away an older vial of AS3 because it got dried out (with the cap on it)
 
I've heard that there is a 2 year expiry date. However, I have been using my AS5 for about 5.5 years.
 
Haiku214 said:
I've heard that there is a 2 year expiry date. However, I have been using my AS5 for about 5.5 years.
Click to expand...

I doubt it, or wouldn't we all be reapplying / removing CPU thermal paste after a couple years or something?
 
The tubes of AS they sell are so big I bascially can never use them all so this has always been something I thought about. Another thing that bothers me is I often cannot tell what kind of thermal compound is in the free tubes you get with all sorts of products and even nicer heat sinks. So I am stuck with deciding between 10 year old AS or unknown maybe newer stuff. Maybe not.
 
My old as dust tube of AS is still going strong!

Of course they want us to buy a new 5gal tube every year :p
 
if I keep it on my processor for 5+ years, no reason it wouldn't be good in the tube for 5+ years either
 
Well not too many pastes stay good on the processor for 5 years at their premium effeciency. Most pastes lose their premium efficiency after 1-2 years and have a kind of burn off effect. And whats on your CPU has cured which may have happened in the tube if it wasn't air tight and/or the preserative (not all TIMs have this but their chemical nature can do the same degrade) used to keep the paste good evaporated or degraded. Personally I wouldn't use 5 year old TIM I would want brand new fresh TIM due to the difficulty of TIM replacement and me wanting premium efficiency. And you never know how long TIM you buy has already set on the shelf in the store your 5 year old TIM might really be 5 1/2, 6, even 7 year old TIM.

Also there are much better performing TIMs than AS on the market now that can perform 3-5*C better easily. Also AS is conductive and the newer TIMs are not which are much safer
 
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I used a ~5+ year old AS5 22cc tube a couple weeks ago I think. Didn't have any issues. : o I myself have had this though before though (@OP).
 
Thermal paste does not expire. Wouldn't leave the cap off the little bottle though, but that's common sense =P
 
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I disagree with that and TIM manufacturers tell resellers their shelf lifetime and thats why you see sales on TIM because they are reaching their end of shelf life.
 
I've heard that if you keep the thermal paste in the fridge, you'll get it to last longer.
 
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