Toothpaste as Thermal Compound

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It wont last long, only until the water evaporates away.
Then it will become an insulator which is quite likely to kill your console.
 
Sorry, but you can pick up a tube of TIM for cheaper than most tubes of tooth paste that will work better and last much longer, so why on earth would you use toothpaste?
 
Yeah this is a pretty stupid idea. Clean it off and use a proper thermal compound, there's no reason to ever use toothpaste as a thermal compound.
 
I use thermal compound to brush my teeth, why wouldn't toothpaste work for cooling your CPU?
 
Mmm Arctic Ceramique tooth polish.
Arctic Silver might work better.
 
Spend all that money on hardware and then screw it up because you are too cheap to spend $5 on thermal compound? Waiting a day for the compound is better than a week and the cash to replace a system.
 
It should work, somewhat - thermal compound's main purpose is to fill the air gaps between the metal surfaces, and it doesn't get hot enough to burn or oxidize much.

Keep in mind that no thermal compound also works, somewhat.
 
LOL...let us know how long that lasts for you. But go pick up some Shin-etsu TC that's on sale right now for $3 shipped.
 
You wouldn't want to use toothpaste because the Flouride in the paste is a mild etchant or acidic and could cause damage on the metals that it makes contact with. Why not use some left over cream cheese?
 
You wouldn't want to use toothpaste because the Flouride in the paste is a mild etchant or acidic and could cause damage on the metals that it makes contact with. Why not use some left over cream cheese?

I could be mistaken, but I think you need temps of like 800C before flouride will etch metal?

And it's in trace amounts in toothpaste anyway, like 0.1%.
 
I siad 'could' etch the metal as I wasn't 100% sure about that. I still wouldn't want to use it as grease!
 
Thanks for all the comments and opinions guys, I'll head to the shop and get some paste, but in the meantime this is working great!
 
You know, a lot of it depends on the actual ingredients of the toothpaste, like if its a baking soda based one. it probalby is just better to not bother using it as a paste given the heat conductivity is probably higher/lower than air.
 
I'd use plain electronic grease before toothpaste, it'll last longer and probably passes heat just as well.
 
[foreheadslap] ... I can't believe you used toothpaste. Just because one *can*, doesn't mean one *should*.
 
did you even read the very article you posted?
This was only over half an hour, though. When I removed the cooler from the heater, the toothpaste that'd been squished out around the edge of the contact patch was already dry and crusty, and the rest of the paste would follow soon enough. It'd be just minty white dust inside a week, and probably wouldn't work much better than no thermal compound at all. Maybe worse.
 
ROFLMAO!

Probably the last thing I would have thought to use for a TIM. Good find on the [H] article though, I enjoyed that one. I guess I must have missed that one.
 
As toothpast is a bit adbrasive too, you could just twist the heatsink around on top of the CPU a couple of hundred times and you wouldn't need to lap either.

Oh, BTW, don't take this seriously...
 
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