I need Grease for
PC? ![]()
A.K.A: (TIM thermal interface material) or in a shop HEAT SINK
GREASE !
Yes you do, or the chip /processor
will overheat. The processor (main CPU and GPU) need to not overheat. (if it does? it slows down and at 90c temperature it shuts off "HALTS", the PC is dead until it cools down) CPU wattages very from 6watts to 150watts or more if overclocked. (if you run hot processors avoid the consumer greases and use commercial grade greases or phase change pads) The designer knows that, and addressed this issue in all PCs made on earth. Learn that heat is the number one killer of electronics, (if not dropped 6 feet to concrete) Most PC's have 2 fans inside to carry the heat out of the box to the room you reside. The job of the heat sink on those chips is to extract all that heat and remove it to the room you reside (not to be held inside any PC) I will cover this 2 ways, one bar stool simple and , then what tech. guys need to know to survive all problems. There are many materials used here, the grease works best (skipping better thermal epoxy adhesives, that can not be removed later) The strip pads are used in fast production usage or are pre-married to the bottom of the heat sink, and do not work as good as SHIN ETSU hand laid. No lie the pads work great on 15watt Notebook CPUs, (but this topic is about hot desktops or worse gaming desktop PCs. There are materials used the defies rework (glues) or phase change materials , I avoid all those products. My hit list of rules (personal)
Long Play way (LP) 33RPM record style. Jump to bar stool answers below. On some modern laptops with a 15 watt processor ,even tooth paste passes tests, (but not for long term) The new INTEL™ Skylake-x 8168 CPU burns TDP as much as 205Watt (that is wasted power called HEAT) the chip costs $6000 !(2018) way out of my league. My hp laptop INTEL I-7 burns 50watts, so does its GPU, for 100w total, and must expel all this heat some way and does. (fan+heatpipe+radiator+ vents) These are the ways to cure the most hard cases of overheating. (after the PC is cleaned of all lint inside) 50 years old today we still have DOW Chemical grease: (this is the best base line grease in the world, they invented it and still sell 340 ! All lab tests should always use this 340 grease as the base test. "Dow 340" grease the oldest and most common, in the business, (seen in 1970 to now, and used by me that whole time span) costs only 20 cents per gram. max. per use (as a price refr) Has a spec. Thermal conductivity of k= 0.67 W/mK (square meters) or r = 1.49 ( 3-4 times worse than SHIN below) Some of the china clone greases are 10x worse! Dow is made of Silicon grease and Zinc OXIDE. (alumina is also very good) Simple and cheap and effective on all lower powered chips. Really the trick is not conducting electrons, but heat yes very well, lasts long time yes, does not dry out, is consistent from turn off and on 1000s of times. (and the grease over time say 10 years, does not turn hard or turn to very thin oil and run out) r = resistance and k = conductance. r =/= k ( r is not equal to k) but are reciprocals. r=1/k Thermal conductivity "k" is measured in watts per meter-kelvin (W/(m⋅K)) (below is Square mm (millimeters) The large K = Kelvin, 50c = 323K temperatures. Shin is rated at k= W/mK = 4.5k seen below ( . about 3 times better than the old DOW 340 and costs 30 times more money to buy. (20 cents a gram,, versus 6 bucks/gm) but is worth every penny. (if your have a hot processor) Or on par with DOW TC-5022 But if your processor (chip) expels 100watts of energy (wasted heat) (at full tilt load) then what choices do you have?, (answer TINY) This link here, is one of the best documents on this topic, read about the 16,000 thermal cycles here by: GREG BECKER,et al. The heat sink has four 12 pound springs for 50 lbs force on top of the CPU. This causes my BB sized SHIN grease to flatten out to .001" think, 1 thou.! thick. This works best of all. That means the heat sink must not be cocked or at an angle to the CPU. Many noobs, do not install the intel FAN/HS correctly and do not know the 4 legs must be locked last.(or the HS never lands on the CPU with 50 lbs of force) Enter SHIN: The best heat sink grease in my opinion and my own personal testing , is SHIN Etsu and G-751 tops my list. (does not dry out ever !, it does not turn hard later, then crack the thermal bond !) I get my grease here (best prices in USA 5 tubes 0.5gram for $16 or 2 for $10) The best prices are on AMAZON.com (due to makers wishes, they only sell directly there (sadly) and keep in mind the fleabay sales, many are fake SHIN greases sold out of someones garage or moms basement..... I find not one source selling the 100gram bottle of shin seen below) Some fleabay sellers do buy 1000 tubes of SHIN direct sales (wholesale) for a buck a tube and sell the from $6 to $9 each, what I call scalping. Less is more do not use too much grease. (if it oozes out the sides of the HS , you used way too much grease) One BB (gun pellet) sized applied (aka. one grain of dry rice) is put in the center of the CPU top surface, (no need to play with silly credit cards at all, let the Heatsink springs do there job, ok?) This is all you need to know about the G751 . The 1mils = 0.001 " or for the real world not USA, this, 0.0254 Millimeters You have no control of this, as the Heat sink goes to 50c hot (typical) the compound thins out from this and the 4 springs on the HS and lands at 1.2mils. (the grease binder prevents pump out failures) Top brand greases have the OXides powders inside , of many sizes to allow for different chip top surface smoothness or not so smooth. ( a very important feature) The hotter running processors like my (100w) Nvidia have mirror polished tops so very thin layers of TIM work best there. below data is r = 1 / k ( thermal resistance conversion math) so 10 = .1 k. (therefore DOW is .67k or 1.49r) and Shin is 4.5r or .22k) The below is R, thermal resistance, so 10r below left is equal to 0.1k. (called Reciprocals in math) This graph shows as the grease gets soft, and the springs squeeze down the 10r is a goal. (it goes near 1 thousands of and inch thin) Here is the line up of good greases by Shin, (they make a huge array of products not just processor grease) A.K.A, heat sink (HS) greases, used for many chips, and transistors (power types) (the best of all are thermal epoxies) The SHin grease contents are mostly secret but the toxic Zinc Oxide, is MSDS listed. My guess is it contains many top preforming oxides, aluminum for one. This graph below is very cool, see that air stinks, for thermal conductivity{"k"} (thus the huge fan and huge 100w rated heatsink) and that Diamonds is the best (common) 10º power is equal to 1, 10 (1st power ) is 10. Shin is 4.5k on this scale.! It land below on the "e" of grease , very very good. This graph is found at wiki.com Really nice graph of common materials. (ever wonder why some heat sinks can not be removed?, bingo, for thermal epoxy) This is "k'" ![]() More , sure, Dow does make newer grease. TC-5022 is good ,this is commercial grade grease . (not fleabay schlock) Finding it is not easy. Here is nice chart below showing just how well each work , when at different thicknesses. 0.025mm is .001 inch and near .001 is a goal. (it is hard to see but SHIN and DOW match up) Low vertical is good. (r factor) All data to right of .05 too think applied. (this is lab test data below; not theory) See how BRETT finds errors here, Not sure it is valid, but is a good read on grease hype 101.
Here is the Laird 780 spec, (my LGA1151 is about 50psi (springs on HS ) 5.5 W/m°K (conductive spec) Bar stool answers, to the guys working in dim light in the basement or worse.
If you read the TIM makers manuals it shows that less is more!, it even proves this fact in LAB. Both DOW, SHIN and NREG.gov shows how to avoid thick TIM. The goal would be try to get near .001" (.025mm) thick grease after the springs do there magic say in 1 hour time running. (as the grease heats it flattens out) To rework a dirty top chip? On old PC's scrape off the old brick hard grease using only a plastic scraper , never us metal tools to scrape $300 processors. ouch. ( use use plastic cell phone case pry tools to scrape here) If the grease is still grease as SHIN will be, use alcohol on a rag and it is gone. (Shin does not get hard, ok.?) Kids gone wild? This is like $30 of Shin grease wasted , wow ! $3x10. I guess this guy used and ice cream scooper to dollop it on? Or is this home glass window caulk? Failure modes: (easy no?)
Links: Very good. Shins best, is there, X23-7921-5 ( note this parameter "Thermal Conductivity(W/m °K), >6.0") a hard number to beat !!! Even Intel's LGA manual shows using Shin Etsu G751 here. Here is Altera (now owned by Intel) shows all pro's can cons of TIM, a great source of information on hot CPU or Hot 1000 pin gate array's. If you have time, and money and want the best there is this top grade Phase change product, by Laird TPcm 780 (tube of grease versions) The sheet 9"x9" (228mm square) is at Nework for $12 (a life time supply for most folks and cheap) same spec. as 780. In sheets called TPCM FSF-52 Avoid this grease (fake named I just invented) "Siberian Carbon/Silver/ heat sink grease" (sold at an auction not so near you, if you get my drift) this is HYPE master grease. Oddly no Diamond dust based grease sold. (diamonds conduct heat best) The best heatsinks have copper cores, as copper conducts heat 2 times better than aluminum. version 1. 7-1-2018 |