PSA: That thermal paste you're using might be 5 years expired

I cracked open a tube of Arctic Silver I found in my drawer from 2019 and noticed it was all dried out and clumpy. Has anyone else run into old paste ruining a CPU temp reading during a build?

3 comments

3 Comments

felixhenderson12d ago

bro that sucks. "I cracked open a tube of Arctic Silver I found in my drawer from 2019" - yeah i feel that. i had a tube of Noctua paste from like 2018 i tried using last year and it was basically a crumbly mess. temps were spiking like crazy and i thought i screwed up mounting my cooler. turns out the paste was just dead. wasted like an hour troubleshooting for nothing lol. its annoying how they dont put an expiration date on the tube either. i keep a little post it note on my paste now with the month and year i got it.

nathankim12d ago

its annoying how they dont put an expiration date" - nobody checks the inside of the tube for mold either.

ray_sullivan12d ago

Yeah the "crumbling mess" thing hit close to home. I found a tube of old Cooler Master paste in a box last month that looked fine on the outside but when I squeezed it out it was like squeezing dry clay. Temps were hitting 90C on idle and I spent a solid 45 minutes reseating my cooler before I realized the paste was the problem. Now I just throw out any paste thats been sitting around longer than two years, its not worth the headache.