Just put toothpaste on a pocessor

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kccp

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Jun 16, 2013
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So my old dell cpu fan was getting really loud. It was all housed in plasic casing so i took a couple screws off and the whole heat sync came off the processor. Had i known the heat-sync was hooked to the housing i would have left it. I do not have any thermal paste on hand so I had to do something..... I cleaned all the old paste off the processor and heat sync with rubbing alcohol. cleaned the fan and motherboard, that was just filthy under the housing. And put a pea sized dab of toothpaste on the processor and re installed the heat sync. so..

What do you think the chances are of it lasting until the proper thermal paste gets here on the 17th?
 
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umm like probably not.you gonna have a minty fresh smoked processor! But hey ive heard alot of strange things i thought to try my copper never seize compound. I'd just wait or hit up a radio shack for some cheap thermy paste or just hit up a computer shop for a sqeeze they'd probably you help out for the sheer amusement of trying to use toothpaste lol good luck
 
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Well if ya do a little research first .... you will find that the quick "funny" answers are quite a bit off base. It's commonly done in TIM tests where items like toothpaste, vegemite and peanut butter are used for a bit of humor but results are quite contrary to what ya might think. It actually works exceedingly well, betetr than Artic Silver in fact, problem is it dries out fast

http://www.overclockersclub.com/news/24766/


Can You Really Use Toothpaste To Cool Your CPU?

While that may appear to be a rather silly question, the surprising answer is that in fact, you can!.....
Click to expand...

http://www.dansdata.com/goop.htm

It's water based, which makes it inherently useless as a real thermal transfer agent, because it'll dry out quite quickly. It may also cause corrosion.

There was nothing besides common sense stopping me from doing a quick test with the stuff, though, so I spread some on the 6Cu+'s base. The toothpaste I chose turned out to be slightly runnier than Arctic Silver 3, in case you care; it's pretty easy to spread it very thin. I put on a thicker layer, though; "optimising heat sink toothpaste application" is not something I intend to put on my curriculum vitae.

Firing up my Minty Fresh Thermal Transfer Experiment produced, rather hilariously, an excellent score - 0.47°C/W.

That's right - Toothpaste Superior To Arctic Silver 3! Film At Eleven!

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.

But in the short term, and assuming you don't bridge any contacts with it (it's sufficiently conductive to cause problems), it would seem that toothpaste works just fine as thermal compound. If you're almost out of genuine thermal goop, can't get any more right away, and know you're going to be reseating a processor cooler umpteen times as you fool around with whatever it is with which you are fooling around - well, you can probably make do with toothpaste.
Click to expand...
 
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Haha, unfortunately there are no computer stores near where I live. so I had to order it online. The fart in the gas tank thing I must try!!,

The toothpaste computer has been running about a hour and a half now with a 45 degree idle temp.
 
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You're getting a lot of well earned grief on here - you really have messed up.

However I will extend a helping hand.

In all serious, I read only the other day that Nutella apparently works very well as a temporary thermal paste. You NEED to get the toothpaste off your CPU, and FAST. Then either wait until your thermal paste arrives, or give nutella a go.

Link to prove I'm not lying about Nutella: http://www.geek.com/chips/coolermaster-demonstrates-how-to-use-nutella-as-thermal-paste-1615280/
 
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on a more serious note, even without any paste what will happen is that the cpu will reach a temp such as 50-60 on idle, then reach 80-90 and then the safeguards are gonna kick in to prevent damage. it will lower clock to avoid damage. what i would do is to just downclock it myself (sort of like a reverse overclock) and use it without any paste, cleaned properly till the 17th.

or use it a bit less then usual, 2 days without a pc aren't so bad.
 
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As much as your links proved that they all work, it didn't give any evidence to long-term damage. I can imagine the high levels of Flouride in toothpaste will cause at least some damage to the CPU, whether it be through corrosion or oxidising.

Nutella isn't likely to do that.
 
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Yeah, Well I will figure something out I guess. I really need the computer running until then. I figured the worst would happen is the computer would start to over heat and slow down a bit. I figured I would start seeing the warning signs before anything to bad happened. I dont know now....

Starting to feel the toothpaste is going to ruin the processor which i dont want.
 
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I should really delete this but instead, you sir win one internet for making a mod laugh. :lol:



 
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Nutella all the way man!
 
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I found this thread and just thought i would share now. They say toothpaste will last 6-12 hours. There are other things on the list i might see if i can get a hold of tomorrow. Specifically Dielectric Silicone supposedly has a longer life spam

http://forums.overclockersclub.com/index.php?showtopic=164465

Although there is not a computer store near hear. There is a hardware store. So i might be able to get silicone for now.
 
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There was nothing mentioned about long term damage. Original post says:

What do you think the chances are of it lasting until the proper thermal paste gets here on the 17th?
Click to expand...

Given the hour, we are talking about 60 hours from now which is by no means "long term". As for corrosion, copper is very resistant to corrosion and I can tell you from lab experience, flouride and even chlorine have little short term impact. Most public water supplies are flouridated and in over half a century of this practice, we don't have any residential / commercial plumbing systems showing any damage.
 
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That's thread from my 1st link above .... the 2nd link went into a bit more detail but the think I don't understand.... no Radio Shack, Best Buy, Walmart by you ?

http://www.radioshack.com/search?q=Thermal+Compound
http://www.walmart.com/search/?query=Thermal%20Compound
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/searchpage.jsp?st=Thermal+Compound&_dyncharset=UTF-8&id=pcat17071&type=page&sc=Global&cp=1&nrp=15&sp=&qp=&list=n&iht=y&usc=All+Categories&ks=960&keys=keys

 
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Believe it or not at the moment no. Our local radio shack has shut down. (which was the only electronic store near me.) Walart+best buy Are both close to each other in the same area. Which happens to be about a hour and a half drive. Which I did not feel like making for thermal paste.
 
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Damn.... I live out in "farm / winery country" on eastern long Island and I could walk to the local RS (@ 1 mi) which is still open despite the bankruptcy filing. I certainly wouldn't drive 1.5 hours for a $5 tube of Sin Etsu ... heck, i wont drive the 40 miles to the nearest Microcenter to save $100 on a CPU :)
 
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This cpu was actually a core 2 duo, Any in case anyone was curious, I did run toothpaste on for thermal compound for all 3 days. The processor stayed cool enough for the computer to keep doing what it had to do and applied the thermal compound today!. So all in all the toothpaste kind of saved me. Very interesting.
 
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