Let's see if I have this straight. You are willing to risk failing a processor and possibly even a motherboard worth hundreds of dollars because you want to use something stoooopid like toothpaste? You'd be better off to get the thing spotlessly clean, and put the heat sink on there BARE CLEAN, than to use something stoooooopid like that. SURELY you must have some old computer around there that you can scrape the two drops of heat sink compound off of to get running, and SURELY you can afford to buy the junk that Radio Shack sells.

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there are dozens of homemade thermal interface ideas that will keep your cpu cool for a few hours or a few days. But real thermal paste lasts.

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I agree with Name in thinking you are risking an awful lot. Here in the UK, a local pc repair shop would give enough of the correct compound for the heatsink concerned free. If you are determined to make your own, why not try KY Jelly and the heatsink will slip in nicely! Good luck - Keep us posted.

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Toothpaste and vaseline?Well,you`ll have the cleanest and freshest smelling cpu around,and its not likely to get dry skin.Maybe ill try that new brand of toothpaste that whitens the die,and ill buy floas also to clean inside the pins.LOL!@@

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I'm gonna have to agree with every one else. Just spend $3 and get some REAL thermal paste! Symbios

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nah i'll stick to what i made :), but i did go out and buy thermal paste anyway just in case.

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"nah i'll stick to what i made :), but i did go out and buy thermal paste anyway just in case" Just in case what? You're computer craps out? Thermal compound is made for a reason people, to remove damaging heat away from the CPU. If you want to experiment by possibly throwing $$ away, why don't you send me $10 and I'll research new methods of computing using a toothbrush and lip balm. When all else fails beat the $%!* out of it!!!

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"""""""""""'Let's see if I have this straight. You are willing to risk failing a processor and possibly even a motherboard worth hundreds of dollars because you want to use something stoooopid like toothpaste?"""""""""' That's just in case (because?) you didn't read it the first time. As a person who was a RADAR tech in the navy for 6 years, was a licensed amateur operator since high school, and a person who has dabbled and worked in electronics all my life, I can tell you this. I WON'T BE USING TOOTHPASTE (for headsink compound) ANY TIME SOON!!!!!!!!!!! Let me just ask you a couple of questions: Do you have an engineering degree, in , say, chemistry? Do you know WHY heat sink compound is made the way it is? For one thing, in MOST electronics, heat sink compound can NOT be conductive. (Ya, ya, I know all about the "silver blue streak whatever bla bla, but that stuff is hype as far as I'm concerned, anyway) Do you know that whatever it is that you mixed up in your kitchen/bathroom/garage/basement "laboratory" is not conductive? Or that it even conducts heat better than metal to metal contact? It JUST MAY BE that whatever you put on there may either cause a partial electrical short, or may act as an (heat) insulator. Toothpaste contains some sort of grinding compound, you know, small ROCKS AND STONES, like you would use for GRINDING out the paint on your car??????? It PROBABLY also contains a fair amount of water.

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wow u people really take my computer seroiusly... more serously than i do...

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also there was a article some where that said toothpaste kept the cpu cooler better than arctic silver, http://www.dansdata.com/goop.htm

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quote from the article at dansdata. "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"

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The issue is four-fold: 1) Purity. No matter the final product, you need relatively pure materials (at micron-size). This is required for the proper density (and thereby thermal conductivity). 2) Paste. You need something to suspend the conducting crystals/particles in - and just the right amount. And, it needs to largely evaporate or transfer heat really well. This may be the hardest part. 3) Tolerance. Your paste needs to maintain it's composition under high temperatures to maintain conductivity. 4) Manufacture. You have to test your paste, determine what could be wrong, and then modify the mix. If you cannot reproduce the same composition ratio with every batch, you're going to be doing a lot of guessing. FYI, if you read the instructions with most thermal pastes, you would know to not use petroleum-based greases (like Vaseline) because they don't evaporate. After all, Vaseline is petroleum jelly that's left after the distillation process evaporates the oil. I think (impure) cement paste has a higher thermal conductivity than Vaseline (someone check me on that). Silver is over 400x as conductive, copper nearly as much, gold about 300x, and aluminum about 200x. I think the metals have it. (Best work on finding a suspension fluid). Interestingly someone mentioned small aggregate in toothpaste. This could be something like concrete on your CPU (I've never looked into it). Another thing, it really depends on how you measure system temperature. Which is another topic...

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I was thinking... Radio Shack Thermal Grease is mostly zinc oxide...diaper rash cream is mostly zinc oxide...hmmmm

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lol @ the last post. back to the subject though... doesnt toothpaste wear down metals and cause them to rust? someone mentioned that they have water... water + metal + oxygen = rust i've seen some pics of water cooling systems before, they're actually not as good because they created condensation around the hose and it causes all of the pieces around to get all rusted and stuff... kinda like how your processor will be in not too long. FBI_Agent

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haha lets see, ive been using the toothpaste combo for a month now, currently got a new case with more fans, so now cpu temp is down to 37c ! :P

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watch out for the rust FBI_Agent

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does the paste cotain flouride or not? interesting to see if it keeps your cpu free from tooth decay :P Woof

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I think its a great idea to try new stuff, it might be a tat risky but if in the end you come up with a good solution then thats great, dont be such a pesamist every 1, i havend had any thermal compound on my pentium 4 since 2002 and its still running fine, im going to try my hand at getting a good homemade thermal compund right now! Go Darkman ! ! ! :)

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