[SOLVED] Thermal Adhesive

[aewhistory]

So I am going thru my old Pc stuff looking for parts for my new builds and I was looking for my old Arctic Silver Thermal Adhesive. I could only find part B of the mixture (what the hell did I do with part A!?) and a tube of Arctic Silver 5 (could this be part A? It isn’t labelled as such and the online directions don’t look like it) so I went online and this stuff is gone. It seems like it is still made, according to the AS website, but no one seems to stock it. Well, at least not Amazon and Newegg and Performance PCs (though PPCs search is a PITA).

So my first question is why is this stuff so hard to find now? There are some no-name brands on Amazon, but otherwise it seems like thermal adhesive has disappeared. I’ve been out of computer building for a decade so I am wondering if something happened that I don’t know about. Like does this stuff cause cancer? Headaches? Genital enlargement? (In which case excuse me while I smear it all over…) Or is it something else?

My other question is why does seemingly regular thermal grease keep showing up when I seqrch for thermal adhesives? Do some of these newer grease formulations have adhesive properties? It would make some sense since the old AS Thermal Adhesive is permanent, which can be a real disadvantage, whereas a temporary adhesive would be better so long as it doesn’t allow the cooler to just fall off during use and fry the device. Anyway, here is the search oddity I am curious about:

https://www.amazon.com/arctic-silver™-thermal-adhesive/s?k=arctic+silver™+thermal+adhesive

or

https://www.newegg.com/p/pl?d=Thermal+adhesive

With only a few exceptions these aren’t adhesives so far as I can tell, but maybe I am missing something.


PS-almost forgot to say that what I was hoping to use the adhesive to attack some small heat sinks to things like cheaper m.2 drives I could use on a pcie controller for an older MB build.

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

I could only find part B of the mixture (what the hell did I do with part A!?) and a tube of Arctic Silver 5

Arctic Silver 5 is a single application thermal paste.
there is no part A & part B to mix:

whichever Arctic Silver version you may have, your Part B mixture is no good without the Part A so you may as well just dispose of it.

thermal paste can also age over time and your applicator/paste may not apply with the same consistency and be able to handle the same temperatures or the same longevity as when it was fresh.

i recently replaced my >8 year old tube of Arctic Silver 5 with a new package of Prolimatech Pro PK-3 and CPU temperatures dropped ~5-6°C in all scenarios with no other changes.

 

[aewhistory]

Yea, I thought I had remembered the Arctic Silver 5 that way, but it is nice to have that corroborated. I’m still going thru some boxes, to maybe the part A will show up, but if not then it will be chucked sadly.

If the AS5 seems okay do you think it’d be okay for an older build? Things like 423/478/775 CPUs? OCing isnt an issue, I just need to stretch the supplies I have on hand for awhile until we pay finish the home reno and then I can put money into the PCs again.

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

do you think it’d be okay for an older build?

perfectly fine.
my previous i7-8700K was using my 8 yr old tube of AS5 and it performed good enough.

 

[geofelt]

Thermal adhesive is not appropriate for cpu coolers which have a pressure retention system.
Once on, it would be the dickens to ever get the cooler off.

AS5 is still good. There are no two parts.

I think heat sinks on m.2 drives are mainly marketing fluff.
m.2 only heats up under sustained sequential accessing.
After perhaps 30 seconds.
Even then, there is no danger since the drive will slow down to protect itself.

 

[dwd999]

Highly rated:

https://www.amazon.com/Thermal-Griz...7MZ45X9G,B08Z7MJ9V3,B07MZ4JJWX&srpt=HEAT_SINK

 

[aewhistory]

perfectly fine.
my previous i7-8700K was using my 8 yr old tube of AS5 and it performed good enough.

That is great to hear. I know it is just $10, but you probably know how this goes. Ten bucks here, twenty there, a hundred another place, and before long you’ve spent a few hundred or more. It is why I am trying to get so much mileage from this old hardware. So long as it suffices for the games my kids want to play it can last a few years. By then we will have finished the house renovation and I can build them something new and killer.

Thermal adhesive is not appropriate for cpu coolers which have a pressure retention system.
Once on, it would be the dickens to ever get the cooler off.

AS5 is still good. There are no two parts.

I think heat sinks on m.2 drives are mainly marketing fluff.
m.2 only heats up under sustained sequential accessing.
After perhaps 30 seconds.
Even then, there is no danger since the drive will slow down to protect itself.

I think in my inelegant verbosity I wasnt clear. I absolutely agree that a thermal adhesive is the wrong thing for a CPU. The pressure clamp would suffice. However, thank you for reiterating that. In regard to the CPU I was mainly concerned if the AS5 would still be good. I looked at it today and it looks fine, but still I will test it. John’s post above gives me hope.

In re: to the adhesive, I was mainly interested in having the option to attach cooling fins to places they might be useful. It so happens I have about ten pounds of these things laying around—a lifetime ago I used to build computers for lots of people and hordes parts so it won’t cost anything if i can find the part A of my thermal adhesive. With what you’re saying, I think maybe I will skip it If it will cost me any money. I had thought that m.2 drives had some serious heating issues or something given all the heat sinks people like to attach! Thanks for the information.

I do have a follow up if you don’t mind. Would the same thing apply to all of the different m.2 drives? I’m completely ignorant on the subject, but I believe that nvme a much faster than standar m.2 and hence, may be hotter? Or is this a poor assumption? Thanks!

Highly rated:

https://www.amazon.com/Thermal-Grizzly-Kryonaut-Grease-Paste/dp/B011F7W3LU/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=kryonaut&qid=1637109805&qsid=135-0968684-5306069&sr=8-3&sres=B011F7W3LU,B08R6QG2CQ,B08T1K4NJ1,B07HWPS9KC,B07S1P9GSX,B07RZLP13Q,B0927W5PWN,B0927W1F9P,B00ZJSXE2Y,B00ZJS78VW,B07PHN2ZNY,B002CQU14A,B017SBFHGA,B07MZ45X9G,B08Z7MJ9V3,B07MZ4JJWX&srpt=HEAT_SINK

Thanks DWD! I have this added to my cart now.

I cannot wait until I can do a second round of nicely built machines for my kids. After looking at current tech I think I will budget around $1000-1200 for each machine. The only fly in the ointment is the graphics card prices. With hope that comes back down from the stratosphere in a couple years.

 

[Nine Layer Nige]

In the olde days, some early pcs (the beige ones) had the heat sinks STUCK to the cpu, so thats when thermal adhesive would work.
Modern pcs newer than....most of you, have retention brackets to hold down the heatsink so thermal paste is used.

 

[aewhistory]

In the olde days, some early pcs (the beige ones) had the heat sinks STUCK to the cpu, so thats when thermal adhesive would work.
Modern pcs newer than....most of you, have retention brackets to hold down the heatsink so thermal paste is used.

now you’re talking my era! I can’t wait to build by faux Atari ST emulator machine. I even bought an Atari STe badge from leftover 1990 stock.