What's your preferred brand of thermal paste for your notebook and why?

[revausr]

I use this on my Clevo p150EM Amazon.com: IC Diamond 24 Carat 4.8 Gram Thermal Compound: Computers & Accessories. Am I doing it right? (I mean if it is the best thermal paste for my Laptop).

[BAKED]

Liquid Ultra and phobya nanogrease extreme have given me the best results, I use liquid ultra for my 4690K delidded in my Clevo P750ZM which have improved the temps significantly.

[senso]

The factory coolers have lets say a less than perfect surface finish, coupled with tin copper or alluminiun sections, they bend a bit with use, for me, the best result was to employ pacience, wet and dry sand paper and lap it, sometimes its impossible due to the curves and bosses that the coolers have to touch things like inductors, mosfets and VRAM's, but when its possible, I think its worth the time involved, my N53SM took me around 8 hours starting at 200 grit and finishing at 1000 grit, but its a small-ish cooler, for thermal paste I use MX4(cheap and available around me) and ordered some Fujipoly pads to put over the chipset and between the motherboard and the topcase(metal in my case) so my CPU and GPU mosfets run a lot cooler now, because its a part of the motherboard that never sees air flow.

[nagelzz]

I'm using Noctuas cooling paste. Mostly because i got it with my thermal module, but it does seem to do a great job aswell

[marcopollo63]

Arctic Silver for many years, but next build will try GC Extreme.

[Oper0n]

Years ago I bought a syringe of IC-7 diamond and have used it faithfully during my numerous 6990M oven bakes until I finally gave up and got a 680M. I've always used the pea method with no spreading. Others have claimed poor removal, but I found it is just like removing gasket material when working on small engine. A nice flat quality razor blade used in a gasket remover tool keeps it from scratching or damaging the heatsink, 91% Isopropyl alcohol easily cleans off any remaining residue. The only empirical data I have is temps went down about 5 degrees from the stock compound when I re-pasted the 6990m with the Diamond for the first time. After that is was stable, but I never had it pasted more than 6 months because it kept needing solder reflow.

[HTWingNut]

I have not found a better non conductive, non capacative TIM than IC Diamond. From my own experimenting, it runs 2-3C cooler than GC Extreme at load, and results are instantaneous and don't degrade over time. GC Extreme takes a little bit of set time, to see some improvement (not much, but a handful of hours at temp/load) and it does start to degrade after 10-12 months. I know the scratching with IC diamond sucks, but with some due care you can minimize it. It's really cosmetic anyhow.

[D2ultima]

Yeah, if you want to remove ICD without scratching, simply follow ICD's instructions on how to remove it

What that is, actually, is to simply soak the ICD in solvent (Arcticlean or isoprophyl etc) and then just wipe it off. If you try to scrub it off with a cloth etc wet with alcohol, then you're gonna scratch it. It doesn't take long at all.

[HTWingNut]

I have IC diamond, GC Extreme, and just ordered some NT-H1. I'll have to do some testing and check results on my P650SE as well as on the P770ZMG if i have it long enough to test.

[infosk8er]

A minor cosmetic scratch on the die does not actually deemed it nonfunctional or make it run hotter. Thermal grease is used to make a flat contact to transfer heat from the die to the heat-sink and it would fill the scratch without an issue. I am not saying it should be scratched but if it is and not deep it will not cause any issue.

[Robbo]

A minor cosmetic scratch on the die does not actually deemed it nonfunctional or make it run hotter. Thermal grease is used to make a flat contact to transfer heat from the die to the heat-sink and it would fill the scratch without an issue. I am not saying it should be scratched but if it is and not deep it will not cause any issue.

I also think that one scratch won't make a difference, but if you have a lot of scratches on the chip then you get less efficient heat transfer, that's why some heatsinks have mirror finishes for better heat transfer. Although from what people have been saying on here, if you remove IC Diamond carefully then it doesn't create any scratches anyway. I'd buy Gelid GC Extreme though next time as on Toms Hardware it performed the best when they did their roundup of different pastes (well Liquid Ultra was better, but I wouldn't use that due to the risk of it being conductive). In the meantime I'm getting by with an ancient tube of Arctic Silver 5, it's lasting particularly well on the CPU - haven't repasted it within the last year and temperatures are just as good.

[spoxxx]

I would rather recommend the gelida above all easy application and is quite efficient , if from time to time refresh or replace in our computer , we strongly gelid , if we do not do it definitely Collaboratory but already there is a problem with its removal. for me the difference on the i7 3740 August hesitant about 2 degrees Korzyce coolllaboratory and that much though.

[techmods]

I use ic diamond with arctic silver mixed together to make it more liquidy, but I noticed that ic diamond has chucks in it, so I work it between 2 razor blades then apply it after its mixed, and I spread every other heat sink fin together for more air flow

actually I use pure icy diamond now, looks like it burns up if diluted

Edited February 21, 2016 by techmods

[andreacos92]

I always used MX-4 with optimum results. Now I'm planning of repaste my G751 and probably I will try IC Diamond and compare it with MX-4.

Do you think I should take the IC Diamond 7 or the 24? 1,5 gr seems a bit too little..

[LordKarango]

I bout a noctua cooler a couple of years back, and since the included thermal paste is suppose to be pretty good, i generally use that for all my desktops/ laptops (except for my current razer blade, as many people are reporting that the stock paste is pretty good, and replacing it can lead to worse temps due to the lack of a heat spreader)

[greeneline]

Another vote for CG Extreme. It's super thick, but I heat the tube in a glass of hot water before I apply. Cools better than anything factory and it's pretty easy to clean up if/when you make a mistake.

[almecho]

I've got an M11Xr3 here that I've had for some 3 and a half years, and have only repasted it once with Arctic Silver during that time as it was inexpensive and easy to get locally (small town) and that brought the temperatures back down to acceptable levels under reasonably loads as a desknote.

[Biff]

arctic silver hands down. dropped cpu temps more than I was expecting, now its oc'ed and still cooler than before.

[krisler]

I used gelid gc extreme on my laptop and I satisfied it

liquid pro is so hard too taking off when I disassemble my laptop

[warrimonk]

Ive had some good luck with arctic silver mx5

[Kesteral]

When I bought my last laptop I added in arctic mx-4 extreme thermal paste which certainly did the trick. I overclocked the laptop and it managed to stay impressively cool. I bought some myself again to top it up recently and it's worked brilliantly. Would definitely recommend this and it's probably the best thermal paste I've used.

[morshed11218]

zero therm ZT. I have been using it recently and it's great.It also comes with a finger cot, so when you spread a thin layer of it on your CPU you don't have thermal paste on your fingertip for the rest of the day.

[oile]

Arctic mx4 here. Never a problem

[daicharade1]

Nice thread..has anyone here used Coolaboratory Liquid Ultra in their notebooks for both CPU & GPU applications? I have a lenovo Y510P with SLi and I'd like to know how CLU does with regards to temps and longevity? I hear its good only for an year or so and in systems with adequate mounting pressure from the HS. Also people claim it solidifies under constant high temperature and dries up when the system moves.

[Azibiz]

I've always used Zalmans paste, always good quality