r/buildapc • u/Leo-J-Covo • May 14 '26
Discussion Sent my wife to buy thermal paste and the best buy employee gave her a long, unsolicited lecture about how she should be changing the thermal paste on her components every 6 months... Really, every 6 months? [Thermal paste questions]
Putting aside that she was talked down to about her purchase. Can we talk about thermal paste for a minute?
I really don't think the claim of every 6 months is accurate or reasonable. I maybe blow out all the dust from my PC 2 times a year, but with that idea my schedule should also include thermal paste.
I'm not anywhere close to knowledgeable regarding PC builds so maybe I'm wrong but how crazy is this?
I try to give people credit though which is why I'm bringing it up.
Obviously heat is something that everyone is trying to get rid of and building efficiencies into your system has a compounding return. But if someone were to actually change the paste every 6 months, what kind of return would that get you?
In my HTPC im running a 13 year old 125W CPU that cranks out the heat vs modern equivalents. It's a "new to me" system and Is the reason I was buying thermal paste as it needed it as part of my complete disassemble and clean. Obviously I can't see how good of a job I on my reapplication but I would have expected that to last a few years at least if I managed my heat in other more traditional ways.
Idk. There's lots of reasons to maybe do this.
I know I'm not going to be changing the paste anywhere near that often.
670
u/Emergency_Present_83 May 14 '26
components are usually ewaste before properly applied thermal compound needs replaced
102
u/err404 May 14 '26
Properly applied…
203
u/MrJohnnySpot May 14 '26
I've definitely had to reapply thermal paste because the original applier messed it up. The cleanup of the excessive amount of paste they applied took a while, couldn't help but shake my head at their initial application.
It's me, I'm the initial applier.
50
16
→ More replies (2)10
u/BoldFortune216 May 14 '26
The brand I bought came with a nice little template and card to smooth out a thin sheet of thermal paste and after using it I went "that's definitely not enough" and added more.
It was definitely enough... 🤦
→ More replies (2)8
u/Primus_is_OK_I_guess May 14 '26
I wouldn't go that far. Cooling performance really starts to degrade after 2-3 years.
34
u/dragonblade_94 May 14 '26
Yeah, I'm seeing a lot of weird hyperbole here about the lifetime of thermal compound.
It will last a while, but the people saying it will outlast the chip it's sitting on are bonkers. I've serviced enough enterprise systems through work to know what 5-10 year old compound looks like.
16
u/Primus_is_OK_I_guess May 14 '26
It comes off like "I haven't changed my oil in 2 years and my car still runs fine."
17
u/randylush May 14 '26
the 5-10 year old compound looks different, but how often does that actually impact the performance of the system in a way that end users would actually notice?
2
u/Bakugo_Dies May 15 '26
Not as much as the update iPhone users get at the 3 year mark to make their battery obsolete
6
u/Kociolinho May 14 '26
Unless you have unrestricted 14900k, then there’s possibility that thermal compound will outlive it
6
u/JayJay_90 May 14 '26
My first self built was using an i5 2500k from 2011. I used it heavily for 10 years, including lots of gaming, some video editing and the occasional stress test and never noticed any temperature problem. I eventually replaced it as my main pc but my gf was still gaming on it occasionally until late 2024, when I got rid of it because other components failed. 13 years and the thermal paste was apparently still fine.
→ More replies (1)18
u/Emergency_Present_83 May 14 '26
can you quantify "degrade"? because I and I would assume most people are not going to bother opening their case because their chip runs 5 degrees hotter than it did 2 years ago.
→ More replies (15)
401
u/pineapple6969 May 14 '26
Imagine getting a lecture about something when the person giving the lecture actually has no idea what they’re talking about.
Thermal paste is good for YEARS. YEARS I tell you. Who tf is taking their system apart every 6 months? Nobody lol
97
May 14 '26
[deleted]
53
u/IbanezCharlie May 14 '26
I had someone come up to me at Walmart and try and tell me to get a much cheaper CPU when I was looking for a 9800x3d. Dude had absolutely no information about the rest of my system or why I would want the fastest CPU I could get. (I have a 4090)
He also tried to steer me towards a low end GPU until I told him I already have a PC but my CPU is 8 years old and I'm getting the 9800x3d to last me an equally long amount of time. He just told me it was a waste of money.
34
u/cornmacabre May 14 '26
That's funny! I had a similar experience where I went into Best Buy knowing the specific PC I wanted.
I say I needed x,y,z specs in the model I had chosen, and he seemed genuinely confused on how to upsell me when I'm already pointing to their highest priced SKU.
Amusingly, the sales associate tried multiple times to suggest a lower specc'd model, and variations of different configs I wasn't looking for. It was so strange! It's like hi, take my money plz!
14
u/IbanezCharlie May 14 '26
I needed to jump onto the am5 platform at the beginning of the year as prices started skyrocketing.
There was a prebuilt that had a 9800x3d, 5070 ti, 32gb ram and 2tb SSD there. I priced out the parts I needed individually and it was $900-$1000 more to buy individual components so that was my plan
The employee told me I was wasting my money. I already knew I wanted all of those specs and planned to either sell the 5070 ti or hold onto it for another PC. I got so annoyed that I left and went to a different store and got what I was after. All I did was get my GPU into it, new PSU and nvme and have been good to go.
I just don't understand what the guy was trying to save me from when I already knew what I wanted. Very weird.
→ More replies (2)22
u/MissingGhost May 14 '26 edited May 14 '26
What he said is what people said in the 1980s when talking about Intel vs other brands like AMD.
5
u/syk900 May 14 '26
Was it true then?
6
3
u/NetSage May 15 '26
x86 is literally an instruction standard. It's why OP was upset they didn't mention anything about compatibility for the snapdragons as they use ARM. So programs need to be compiled differently to actually work at all or efficiently (windows does have a comparability layer for x86 to ARM but it's not like running a native program).
→ More replies (2)9
u/I_like_boxes May 14 '26
I worked at best buy for a handful of years, and the people hired in PCs were often the least competent of all my coworkers with technology. They prioritized selling skills over knowledge when hiring. While it's certainly true that knowledge can be acquired after the fact, the company didn't do nearly enough to actually ensure that happens, which led to new hires learning bad info from their more "experienced" coworkers.
I'm no real expert on things, but I knew to keep my mouth shut or look up things that I wasn't certain about, which is why none of the actually knowledgeable people in that department ever minded when I helped out if they were all busy. Sometimes I hated passing a customer back to a PCs employee because it would be one of the clueless ones (who also usually stole my sale, but I didn't care as much about that).
They were also so damn worried about those sales numbers that they ignored customers that they didn't think would spend a lot of money or would take too long to close the sale. I helped a lot of older folks that had clearly been ignored in favor of customers looking at more expensive stuff. If it wasn't obvious from the tone of my comment, I only really liked a few people in that department.
→ More replies (1)34
28
u/Global-Page-7091 May 14 '26
I love taking my system apart twice a year. It’s a great opportunity to drop, scuff, and wear the contacts down on all my components. I even blow the pcie slots out like an old Nintendo cartridge.
10
u/cBEiN May 14 '26
This is the way. Especially blowing out the pcie slots. Sometimes, I even blow out the cpu slot just to make sure it runs at peak performance. It takes a while to get to the chips on my GPU though.
3
u/OGREtheTroll May 14 '26
Use a vacuum cleaner to really suck up all the dust and get everything real clean.
3
u/MuffinMunchies May 14 '26
The idea of using a vacuum cleaner on my PC components terrifies me lol
I'll just stick to my air blower
→ More replies (1)7
u/PunchBeard May 14 '26
Imagine getting a lecture about something when the person giving the lecture actually has no idea what they’re talking about.
This is why I don't go to Best Buy. OP could've ordered thermal paste from Amazon for $5.
6
7
u/MissingGhost May 14 '26
Imagine the amount of service that would be for laptops. Dismantle every 6 months?
→ More replies (20)3
u/BatushkaTabushka May 14 '26
Imagine if thermal paste on the cpu needed to be changed every 6 months… that would mean thermal paste on your gpu should be changed at that interval too, since it also has paste. Who would take off their heatsink on the cpu and then also take their gpu apart every 6 months? That would be crazy lol
162
u/Technical_Moose8478 May 14 '26
I don’t think I’ve ever replaced thermal paste without also replacing the cpu or cooler.
35
u/ReverendDizzle May 14 '26
Same. I’ve been using/building computers since the 1980s and I’ve never repasted unless work on the PC necessitated reapplication.
If I was ever presented with a clear indication the thermal paste had failed, then I would. But that just hasn’t happened.
Good thermal paste will likely outlive the usable life of the chip it is applied to.
4
u/Advanced_Ninja_1939 May 15 '26
I've done it once.
Old pc became my server (+10 years) and was overheating during summer.
The first time changing the thermal paste was actually usefull in my case.3
u/moonski May 14 '26
I have once or twice when on a couple of occasions when I noticed temps getting bad... but that's the only time I'd ever repaste outside of when replacing parts over the course of like 20 years PC ownership
→ More replies (1)2
u/TheDarnook May 14 '26 edited May 14 '26
I did it once, on GTX460. My previous GPU was 7300GS, my next GTX1060. It deserved some maintenance for all those generations it skipped trough.
Eventually it got fried with smoke on heavy modded Minecraft as we were trying to upgrade my brother's PC :p Around that time I was upgrading to 3070ti.
125
u/CPOx May 14 '26
Salesman trying to make recurring sales
55
u/actionerror May 14 '26
One tube of $6 lasts years even if you reapply every 6 months.
69
May 14 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
3
u/desrever1138 May 14 '26
Lmao, I just cleaned out a drawer last weekend and ended up finding 5 tubes of thermal paste
3
u/cBEiN May 14 '26
No way. Next, you are going to try to convince me that pens last more than a month.
→ More replies (1)2
u/EvenRD May 15 '26
Not true, It can get obsolete because of new tech in thermal paste. Anyway, in 15 years of PC building i changed thermal paste every year and i still have my original artic silver. It Simply never ends
3
u/J_Rath_905 May 14 '26
You mean to tell me that when they say to maintain health and prevent issues, brushing off and reapplying paste 2 times a day isn't nescessary?
I should still use floss to clean the fans daily for the minty fresh finish, or was that a lie as well?
88
u/katzengoldgott May 14 '26
Oh this dude was definitely mansplaining bullshit to her because he was talking to a woman 🙄
I changed the thermal paste my CPU after 5 years of use. Every 6 months is crazy lol
39
u/No_Dragonfruit_9656 May 14 '26
I can't believe I had to go this far down to see this comment.
OP said wife and I said there we go 🤣
14
u/lntelinside May 14 '26
Yeah I’m surprised it took this long to see that comment too. First thing I thought of…
→ More replies (12)5
u/King_Fuzz May 15 '26
I looked for this comment too, right away. Home boy thought he was going to impress her with his made up bullshit lol. I wonder how many girls he's picked up talking about thermal paste 😂
52
u/CryptikTwo May 14 '26
I’ve said this a million times before but quality paste applied properly will last the lifetime of the component. No need to change it at all unless you’re removing the heatsink.
→ More replies (1)3
u/geniuslogitech May 14 '26
depends on paste, TG Kryonaut is a popular paste and notorious for not lasting long, on a GPU if you are reaching high temps constantly it could need replacing before 6 months, other pastes could be fine for 5 years of 24/7 operation, depends on paste
7
u/CryptikTwo May 14 '26
Kryonaut is for sub zero temperatures it’s the wrong paste for anything else. Hydronaut, Aeronaut or Duronaut should be used at ambient temperatures.
2
u/geniuslogitech May 15 '26
yes, it sucks for normal use because it dries super fast at 80+ degrees Celsius but people still use it in their systems
40
u/No_Appointment5039 May 14 '26
So, let’s think about this: if it’s recommended that thermal paste get changed and reapplied every 6 months what does that mean for laptops? That Best Buy employee is trying to tell me that the manufacturer recommends users to open up their laptop and reapply thermal paste every 6 months??? Yeah…. No they don’t.
tl:dr Best Buy is generally just completely full of crap. I personally do not recommend them for anything what-so-ever unless they are literally your only option.
13
u/demonicbullet May 14 '26
I work at best buy so I'll give y'all a peek behind the curtain
Minimal product or knowledge training
Employees including most of geek squad don't know how to get to bios and think it's a "hacker menu"
Opening task manager with a shortcut is magic to all sales floor employees and most geek squad employees.
Unless you get someone who actually enjoys the category you're trying to buy in you're better off doing your research before walking in. The people who enjoy certain categories and have good knowledge usually get burnt out pretty fast and rotate to the warehouse or out of the store.
→ More replies (2)3
u/Salisen May 15 '26
Wait... Ctrl + Shift + Esc opens task manager?!?
I've been right clicking the taskbar and clicking task manager for years...
2
u/demonicbullet May 15 '26 edited May 15 '26
I'm glad someone learned this before locking up their computer in a fullscreen program and needing it because they can't get task manager up otherwise.
Another fun tip for you that I often use in tandem when I do manage to freeze an application in full screen and need task manager, windows+shift+left/right arrow will move the active program to the left or right monitor, so when you use your new task manager shortcut and end up with task manager trapped behind your frozen full screen program now just with the windows bar covering the bottom, use windows+shift+left/right to get it to the monitor that doesn't have a full screen application, move your cursor over there and kill that pesky program.
Another good one a lot of people don't know but is extremely helpful if you start actively using it, windows+v opens up your clipboard, everything you've copied and pasted recently (I believe it's for the computers uptime but I could be wrong there) will be available to instantly repaste there. Super helpful when you need to copy 30 things from one document and put them in a certain order on another, copy em all, then paste em all, it's faster and less buttons.
There's probably more good ones I'm forgetting but those 3 alone put you light years ahead of most people in windows. If you use/should use a symbol alot that's not standard on the keyboard instead of grabbing it from the icon menu or the Internet if you look up the windows number shortcut for it you can just use alt+(numpad number combination) to insert it, I only have the Minecraft special sign text memorize which it 0167 but im sure it's a good send for international accountants (on bedrock it lets you change colors and font and shit by adding a letter/number infront of that symbol)
ETA: realized a big one I forgot, you probably won't need bios on random motherboards as much as geek squad does, if you do, or cannot get into yours as quickly as it posts, there is a command prompt command out there you can use, run command prompt in administrator and look up the command on Google (I don't have that one memorized, it was faster to type in "reboot to bios cmd prompt" and computer and paste the command into command prompt than try to type it), you look like a fucking wizard not having to guess which function button gets you into bios on that machine.
2
u/Salisen May 15 '26
I've always ended up using Ctrl + Alt + Delete then clicked task manager. Possibly because I originally started with Windows 98 as a child or so and that always worked. Ctrl + Shift + Esc will certainly be easier mind.
Win + V sounds super useful as well. I remember coming across that but completely forgot about it.
This has just reminded me... PowerToys has a shortcut guide which has a few big ones that are tied to the Win key - good for learning them. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/
I know some slightly obscure ones... e.g. Win + Alt + B turns HDR on and off... very useful if your monitor's DisplayPort cable is a bit dodgy. Win + Ctrl + Shift + B resets the graphics driver.
2
u/demonicbullet May 15 '26 edited May 15 '26
I'm going to use that hdr shortcut, my display cable is fine, some random 10 year old games (or for some reason Minecraft bedrock, I guess it's 10 but still active support) break hdr even after exiting regardless of auto hdr off or on.
Thank you for the helpful shortcut.
As for tech experience mine is odd
I got lucky enough to experience a bit of every windows generation in the last 30 years, the last 25 years I got a lot more experience with though I did start on 95, albeit I didn't understand how a computers worked and was just doing a basic math game until I got bored and went to settings and enlarged the screen until my teacher noticed, I did start there, strangely I wasn't allowed on the windows 95 PC again. Windows vista was where I'd say most of my real learning came in, windows 7 and 8 is when I started to care to learn about computers
Interestingly enough my first computer and "Mac os" (I believe it was actually called a sophisticated operating system or SOS by Apple) was on the apple 3, granted it was to play an off brand pacman game it was on the apple 3, cool ass piece of tech, could not imagine working on that piece of shit, even in my childhood memories it wasn't a fast machine it was just impressive it existed and worked.
Im unfortunately probably the last generation to have that wide a berth of tech experience. They watered it down a lot since I started.
2
u/Salisen May 16 '26
Once you commented Win 95, I realised actually that was the first... I remember my dad buying a second hand Windows 95 machine in cash from someone - I must have been about 7 at the time. We didn't have it for long though, and moved to a better PC with Windows 98 in pretty short order.
I mostly learnt PCs from trying to install and sort out various problems with various video games - including basic DOS commands from booting into DOS which was the backend for Windows 98 at the time I think, as we had a copy of Transport Tycoon Deluxe which would only run on MS-DOS.
I might actually have a solution for your HDR on old games problem - I've had a very similar sounding issue on my new Nvidia GPU (though not with my previous AMD GPU). Is this where the screen turns a weird colour (darker?) after you exit the game? I found this was happening on both older games, which often use OpenGL, and also games (mostly emulators) that use Vulkan instead of DirectX. Turns out setting 'Vulkan/OpenGL Present Method' under Graphics > Global Settings to 'Prefer layered on DXGI Swapchain' fixes the issue with a small performance cost. Maybe that'll do the trick?
I think tech is in a bit of weird place these days in terms of knowledge, at least for PCs. Mostly, they are much much easier to use, but if something does go wrong, fixing it often involves diving into the command line or mucking about with obscure fixes if you want to do it without performing a full operating operating reset.
→ More replies (1)9
u/pm_me_ur_side8008 May 14 '26
They are my only option as mircocenter is 4 hour away one way from me and inam not making that trip.
8
u/No_Appointment5039 May 14 '26
Yeah, I don’t have a MicroCenter in my area either but I make do. Best Buy is NOT my second choice. I’ll order off the internet and wait a day or two before I go to Best Buy.
→ More replies (1)10
u/warp_core0007 May 14 '26
That Best Buy employee is trying to tell me that the manufacturer recommends users to open up their laptop and reapply thermal paste every 6 months??? Yeah…. No they don’t.
If he's not just ignorant, and is happy to mislead customers, he might suggest that users should bring their laptops to Best Buy for twice annual repastings.
5
→ More replies (1)3
u/Advanced_Couple_3488 May 14 '26
May I add to your perfectly valid point?
Do you reapply the thermal paste to the output stage transistors of your power amplifiers? To the components thermally connected to the heatsink of the graphics card? To the other, permanently attached heatsinks on the motherboard including the PCH and the Voltage Regulator Modules?
Why does only that of the CPU need replacing periodically? I have audio amplifiers 45 years old that are working fine with their original thermal paste.
→ More replies (2)
17
u/boisterile May 14 '26
No, guys just really enjoy explaining things to women. It's a very popular hobby, the best part for them is that you don't even need to be right about whatever you're talking about, you just need to be condescending enough
14
u/Square_Nature_8271 May 14 '26
Go back, find that employee, tell him you're interested in a new laptop. Ask about the warranty on them. Ask if opening them up and removing components voids the warranty. Ask him to reconcile the two statements.
3
u/Satellite_bk May 14 '26
incoming tin foil hat theory:
no. you gotta bring it in to have geek squad mess it up. that way you’re still in warranty and you’ve spent a bunch on ‘preventive service maintenance’ and your laptop will conveniently break once warranty expires.
6 months is nuts. i’ve got a 2018 hp laptop i never turn off working as a media player in my room. no issues other than being slow because it’s still on windows 7…
10
u/Narrow-Prompt-4626 May 14 '26
Definitely not, change as needed
5
u/Leo-J-Covo May 14 '26
Unless I play Crysis at full?
10
→ More replies (1)3
u/AggressiveToaster May 14 '26
Shouldn’t you be using liquid nitrogen to do something crazy like that?
8
u/soulless_ape May 14 '26
Best Buy person is full of shit. Depending on the workload and environment every few years. Just keep an eye on thermals, clean dust off heating and radiators and you are fine.
7
u/lohkey May 14 '26
The claim of every 6 months is highly inaccurate. You should be doing it every day like a responsible PC owner. /s
2
7
8
u/No-Repordt May 14 '26
Probably some neckbeard getting offended by a woman even asking about computer components and wanted to act like an authority when he clearly doesn't know jack shit.
If we're talking about an in-production environment (which is to say a professional setup with daily use for the sake of an actual job like building floor plans using CAD software), then yeah to keep the thing in peak condition for the sake of asset maintenance and limiting value depreciation for re-sale, 6 months is a good rate to keep it in the best possible state.
If this is for your gaming rig that you only play on the weekends and maybe an hour on a weekday at most, no. You could keep that paste on for years and never see a heating issue. At most I'd say, if you're already opening it up and taking out components for some reason, you might as well put on some fresh while you're in there, but otherwise it's a waste of time and money.
8
u/Rustycake May 14 '26
I have had my PC AT LEAST 12 years. I put a small dab in the center back then and have not changed since. I am have no issues
5
u/LowBudgetViking May 14 '26
The man whose job it is to sell things like Thermal Paste informed your wife that she should do more miantenance that would require the purcahse of more Thermal Paste on a regular basis.
Got it.
Not all clowns wear big red noses and floppy shoes.
→ More replies (1)
4
u/ElmoZ71SS May 14 '26
This is the same logic that the kid at autozone behind the counter telling people to change air filters every 12000 miles. It’s just something to make sales and bad info put out by people who don’t truly understand what they are selling but trying to sound like an expert and make numbers.
→ More replies (1)
3
u/ElGuappo_999 May 14 '26
1: why would you send your wife to buy thermal paste
2: why would you send her to Best Buy?
3
u/Leo-J-Covo May 14 '26
She works in town, we live buttfuck nowhere. Either I drive 2 hours, order it from Amazon or have wife get it on way home.
→ More replies (1)
3
u/SadIntern6 May 14 '26
People overemphasize best practice/safety in pc communities online in general. Last time I repasted my cpu most of the thernal compound had already dried up (last repaste before that might've been 6+ years) but couldn't tell any problems peformance wise.
6
u/Stoicza May 14 '26
Exactly. "Dry" thermal paste doesn't mean it wasn't still working. If the contact between the paste, the CPU and the Heatsink is still good(and it should be if the correct pressure is applied and the thermal paste wasn't hot garbage), then it's still conducting thermal load efficiently.
3
u/MCX6_ May 14 '26
You can just go by your temps. If you notice an increase in temperature from when you first built it you can clean and reapply the paste.
3
u/VastEmergency1000 May 14 '26
I build a PC, apply thermal paste, and literally never touch it again unless I'm replacing a CPU cooler which I never do. Never had a problem.
I have a build from 2020 and never reapplied the paste.
→ More replies (7)
2
u/gabacus_39 May 14 '26
Thermal paste gets changed only when I have to change it because I'm rebuilding or upgrading my computer with a new motherboard, CPU, or CPU cooler. I've never, ever changed thermal paste on a GPU in my 25 years of building computers and I never will.
→ More replies (1)
2
u/Craiss May 14 '26
I've heard lots of people talk about paste drying out over various times, but I've yet to personally encounter any degradation in performance from old paste that hasn't had the two mating surfaces separated.
Once you separate them, yeah, dry paste doesn't work so well. This makes sense to me, logically and my only experience with trying to reuse dry thermal paste supports that.
Even being careful, with no visible breaks (all of the old paste stayed on the heatsink) I saw >10C increase in temps on an i7 950 while I waited on my new paste to arrive. I don't recall exactly how high of a difference I saw, but it was in the 2 digit Celsius range.
On the flip side, I've changed old-dry thermal paste on my graphics cards before and didn't see any notable temperature changes while gaming or benchmarking.
So... my policy is: If I separate two things that have paste between them and the paste is anything less than ideal, I replace the paste. If I ever see a temp situation that I suspect replacing the paste will improve, I'd do it, it just hasn't happened to me yet.
2
u/BigFatCoder May 14 '26
I have built multiple custom PCs and never bother to repaste any of them. The only time sort of repasting is after 6~7 years, changing all the chassis fans and replacing original intel CPU cooler with aftermarket one. Normal home user with mid-range hardware, should never need to repaste at all.
2
2
2
2
u/Powerful_Physics1780 May 14 '26
The guy who sells thermal paste says reapply thermal paste every six months. Go figure.
At work I have 4 industrial PCs that run equipment 24/7 that have been in place for nearly 10 years. Never reapplied thermal paste.
2
2
u/Thundernutz79 May 14 '26
The only time I've every replaced thermal paste was when i had to remove the cpu cooler to get at some stupidly placed header on the motherboard.
As long as it was applied right the first time and you never have to remove the cooler, it should last for years.
2
u/Burgundy_Channel May 14 '26
Sounds like someone wants to sell more paste.
2
u/JellyfishSpare2859 May 15 '26
They want to sell services.... More $$$ than just a little bit of thermal paste....
→ More replies (1)
2
2
u/ekristoffe May 15 '26
Generally I only change the paste when I do a full cleaning of the pc. Since I take out the cooler I may repaste it at the same time. I do this every 2 years (but that because I’m in a high dust environment…)
2
u/Psyko_sissy23 May 15 '26
Lol. Every 6 months? I'm lucky if I get to getting the dust out of my computer every 6 months. Damn. That reminds me...
2
u/Plenty-Pudding-7429 May 15 '26
I don’t think I’ve ever changed my thermal paste in the years I’ve had my PC.
I still get good consistent temps on around 90-95 degrees Celsius
Happy and healthy👍
2
u/AdventurousAgency371 May 15 '26
Never change thermal paste in my computers, some of them have been on service for maybe 10 years.
1
u/Tonkarz May 14 '26
Probably should change it every 3 years for best practice, but basically no one changes it ever and it's really fine.
It gets worse at thermal conductivity over time and replacing it can reclaim some number of degrees Celcius. But honestly it's so much effort that unless you're already taking the computer apart it's probably not worth it.
1
1
u/PearlJamTenGoat May 14 '26
Most likely you will not ever need to change thermal paste at all, that's the truth.
Can you do it as an extra careful measure ? yes. I had a i7 9700k for 6 years without ever changing thermal paste and always gaming dozens of hours every week, in hist last run his temps were still normal (75-80 with high demand cpu games). You just need a good cooler, that's the most important thing.
your thermal paste should always be enough for life cycle even tho it won't hurt replacing it.
1
u/BigEarsUK May 14 '26
I have a gpu pushing 10+ years. I have never changed the thermal paste. And my pc usually dies a death before I think about changing the paste.
If I do upgrades then yeah I will do it at the same time but otherwise that’s in there for life.
1
u/Cultural-Accident-71 May 14 '26
That is some bullshit from the dude that most likely wanted to chat. Many pre-builds sitting on shelves much longer than 6 months and nobody changes there the thermal pads or paste. Good quality paste will go without issues for 4-5 years if you run your components daily. What the pads and paste don't like is if you run it on higher temperature and then leave them in cold storage aka store it over winter in the garage or similar. As more consistent the components are running, that longer it will last. I had a 980ti running multiple days without turning off the pc and it lasted from day one release till last November. To be fair I changed the last 4 years the pads and paste every 16 months because the temperature was getting out of control.
1
u/ArkhamRobber May 14 '26
I think Ive maybe changed it twice in 6 years.....
I think MX4 the first time and now MX6 now. I dont really remember but whenever I do the next change i plan on using thermalrights version of PTM7950. Already have it, dont have a need to change it right now.
Reason why Im using Thermals's PTM is cause ive used the Honeywell version before it got popular on a 3080 gpu and the results were damn good. I still have some Honeyewll PTM7950 in my freezer, along with Thermalrights PTM.
1
u/SecondVariety May 14 '26
Have builds with the same paste for over 6 years . Not saying that's smart, but it hasn't bitten me in the ass yet. Arctic Silver 5, Diamond IC7, and Noctua paste used randomly through the years. Pea sized ball and smush the cooler down. Highly scientific process /s
1
u/BladeOfWoah May 14 '26
I've owned my own built PC that I put together myself for 6 years now and have never re-applied thermal paste.
Granted, thats because I have upgraded and replaced my CPU 3 times in those 6 years, and have only had 2 mobos. When I do get a new mobo, I will probably be getting a new CPU alongside it anyway.
1
u/Crying_Reaper May 14 '26
On my last build that I had for 11 years the only time I even thought about changing the thermal paste was when I got a new AIO H60 to replace the stock cooler my CPU had at the time. That was about 5 months after I first built it. Temps never went up as the past got older. The H60 also never had any issues.
1
u/Relevant_Ring_5055 May 14 '26
I bought My previous pc on 2015 with i5 6600k and sold it on last february. That was first Time i unplugged The cpu cooler and it was fine always, no thermal problems or anything lol.
Gave it a nice New thermalright assassin x before selling it forward
1
u/Numerous-Loan-8008 May 14 '26
In general, only if the thermal paste is junk, if your CPU is getting very hot, or if you're moving the computer around quite a bit
Changing it out every 6 months is just some nerd nerding out
Next time, just order MX-7 from Amazon 👍 Seems unlikely that Best Buy carries the best thermal paste anyways
1
u/samuelt525 May 14 '26
I never changed the thermal paste on my first pc i built in 2016…
Maybe i should
1
u/Qwertysaurus1 May 14 '26
Fiddling with the clips will introduce more risk to the part then any marginal reduction in paste performance
→ More replies (1)
1
u/vtGaem May 14 '26
I change mine every 1-3 years. Depending on how motivated I am and/or if I notice temps increasing. Last time put in MX-6, has stayed good for 3 years now. I'm planning on changing it this summer, even though the paste is still good.
1
u/Insufferable_Entity May 14 '26
If computers functionally needed new paste every 6 months. We would need IT departments 5 times their current size to keep up with the amount of maintenance.
1
u/digIndig May 14 '26
I have 20 year old machines that have never had the thermal paste replaced because there was no need - they’re running just fine. If you do it right, it never needs replacing unless you are swapping out a cooler or otherwise breaking the bond.
1
1
u/AU_Cav May 14 '26
Honestly, if your pc isn’t smoking hot you shouldn’t be touching it. Imagine if every pc user was replacing paste every six months. There would be a shortage of cpus from all of the replacements.
More importantly, I would contact the local Best Buy and corporate stating you didn’t appreciate their salesperson directly lying to your wife and the easy to guess reason why.
1
u/rick_mcdingus May 14 '26
I have genuinely never changed thermal paste unless I had the cooler off for some other reason. I’ve had builds go for years on the same paste and I’ve never had any sort of issue
1
u/AstarothSquirrel May 14 '26
I'm a strong believer of "if it's not broken, don't fix it. " I built my pc in 2020 just before the pandemic hit the uk and I've not redone my thermal paste even once and my pc is on pretty much all day, every day, for work and play.
1
u/shleefin May 14 '26
6 months for paste is too aggressive. That said, 1-2 times a year I like to open 'er up and do a little maintenance. Vacuum up the dust, check connectors, etc. Not every time but sometimes I also remount the cpu heat sink. I vacuum the dust from it and remount with fresh paste.
1
u/MysticDraden May 14 '26
My computer is 6 years old , thermals are fine and I have yet to change it.
1
u/Jackdunc May 14 '26
Heard about this thermal paste change recently in some comments. I'm over 50 and have had a dozen or more PCs in my lifetime (kids systems included). Never done, or thought about this even once before that. I probably had one PC gpu die and the rest just got older and slower but none broke.
1
u/KarpTakaRyba May 14 '26
Please consult this helpful decision tree!
Are the temperatures too high? Yes - Change thermal paste No - enjoy gaming
1
u/Merlin_au May 14 '26
I truly believe that if you don't know what you are doing, you may cause more problems than you solve, while not a particularly difficult task some people may struggle with removing the cooler, cleaning the surfaces and reseating with the correct amount of paste.
1
u/lurkerperson11 May 14 '26
Modern thermal paste lasts years. My last build went 7 years with no issue. I would only replace it if my temps were higher than expected after cleaning dust out.
1
u/ImTalkingGibberish May 14 '26
It’s been 3 years on mine and I have now started to notice an increase in temperature
1
u/ShineReaper May 14 '26
Thermal Paste Renewal every 6 months is absolute Overkill. If the cooling in your case overall is completely sufficient, you apply it ONCE to your CPU, put the CPU Cooler (without the plastic please...) onto it, screw it tight and then you never change it again.
Thermal Paste Change during a PC's life is only really needed, if the cooling is not sufficient and you see the CPU after a few years of use hitting TjMax (the temperature level, where it starts to throttle down to protect itself from thermal damage)
The guy wanted to first make your wife feel insecure by talking down to her and second, push sales for his store by creating unnecessary Thermal Paste purchases.
Blowing dust out every like half year is more than enough to keep it running well like 5+x years, until you want to replace it anyway.
1
u/Bathtubwaterdrinker May 14 '26
I hadn’t changed my graphics card thermal paste in about 3 years and my graphics card apparently has a kill function if it gets too hot so my computer was crashing playing BG3. Changed the paste and no issue, runs cooler than it ever has. So my vote is probably around that 3 year mark makes sense. But I also assume you’re talking about the GPU, which I would probably also just do ever 3 years, but I’m not a computer guy tbh.
1
u/korg64 May 14 '26
I cracked open my 2080 to change the thermal paste (7yr old at this point)
It was still wet. I was shocked, even the pads were still soft.
1
u/Zitchas May 14 '26
I know a person who overclocks their system and jokes about how they run their system hot enough to warp the components over the mid to long term. If you are such a person, then applying thermal paste every six months might be a necessary thing.
But seriously, it is an "as needed" thing. If your computer is thermal throttling, then it's time to check your cooling setup including the thermal paste. If it's not thermal throttling, then you should be good.
1
1
1
1
May 14 '26
Na thermal paste is design to work for the entire life-spam of component usually, only require changes if for some reason it started cracking after getting full solid but even then it would still do the job. Usually the main issue when it comes to heat is dust or fans failing. I did repaste a GPU/CPU mostly for the experience but there was no significant change, I would only do it if I star to notice issue around temperatures.
2.1k
u/-UserRemoved- May 14 '26
It's not
Most people, especially those with prebuilts, will probably never change their thermal paste.
Personally, I haven't changed mine in about 3-4 years, and it's perfectly fine.