A very basic component for cooling your computer is thermal paste. Although no one deals with it, there are cases where replacing it solves all your problems.
And there comes a time when your good old computer starts to overheat until it shuts itself down. Your first move, of course, is to thoroughly clean it and see if its fans are spinning properly and without gambling.
You did all this, the computer literally blinks in its middle but the overheating problem continues. If you've thrown your hands up and are ready to replace him, don't do it just yet. An inexpensive way to fix the problem is to replace the thermal paste.
Thermal paste is a thick paste that sits between your processor and its cooling unit and helps transfer heat from one object to another completely.
Heat from your processor is transferred to the heatsink, which is in turn cooled by a fan. Without the paste the contact of the processor with the heatsink will be incomplete since the two materials do not have absolute contact at the level of microns (thousandths of a millimeter).
How imperfect the surface of both materials is can be seen under a microscope, but as strange as it may sound, this imperfect flatness makes it possible to trap tiny pockets of insulating air between them. Thermal paste fills these gaps and facilitates the transfer of heat to their contact.
Without thermal paste, the processor would not be able to dissipate its heat sufficiently. Your computer may overheat and shut down or slow down. Worse, you risk permanently damaging your processor.
Your computer already has thermal paste applied when it was first assembled. And while the materials used in the manufacturing plants are slightly lower quality than the thermal paste you'll find in stores, it's good enough to last about three to four years.
So most of the time you don't care about the thermal paste, because after four years you have a bunch of other, different problems with it.
The thermal paste on the laptops needs replacing
Your computer's CPU is designed to operate up to 90°C, although the critical temperature varies by processor manufacturer and model.
When your computer is working hard for extended periods, it will generate a lot of heat and your CPU will automatically reduce its clock speed and voltage to prevent overheating.
We call this process thermal throttling. In truly catastrophic situations, when thermal throttling alone cannot lower the temperature, the laptop will shut down to prevent permanent damage.
Especially in laptops that, due to their construction, do not have the sufficient spaces of a desktop, the temperature is higher for the same tasks. And because your laptop is constantly at high temperatures, the thermal paste dries out faster over time.
When this happens, it can no longer do its job as efficiently because it can't fill the tiny gaps between the CPU and the heatsink, and it loses some of its thermal conductivity.
Probably every three to four years it would be good to replace it. Of course you can do it every year, but you won't see any difference. But you will definitely see a significant difference if you keep your laptop free of dust and debris.
Use a can of compressed air once or twice a month to give the inside of your laptop a quick clean and you'll be fine.
Replacing the thermal paste can make your laptop run faster. This is because your processor automatically boosts its clock speed if it's running cool enough, and will maintain those “boost” speeds for longer.
On the other hand, opening a laptop to replace the thermal paste can be a dangerous process. It has a lot of sensitive parts, like ribbon cables, small circuit boards, a battery, and lots and lots of plastic parts.
If you are not careful, you can cause permanent damage to your laptop, so it is best to have this procedure done by a technician at a certified service center if you are not good at hardware.
How to tell if you need new thermal paste
You will understand the need to replace the thermal paste from the high temperatures that will prevail in your CPU. Kprovided that you have fully cleansed your machine from dirt and dust.
Read: Laptop and overheating. Guide for Beginners
Putting your hand in the vent and trying to tell if it's hot or not is not a scientific way to check.
The correct and easiest way to check your CPU temperature is to install a free temperature monitor. We recommend it Core Temp for core monitoring or HWMonitor or the HWinfo, which can also check the temperatures of both the CPU and GPU (if available as a separate component).
After these programs, you can see Tj. Max (the maximum safe operating temperature), current, minimum and maximum temperatures for each core.
Look up your CPU model on its manufacturer's website to check its maximum temperature. At the same time to have a good idea of what is happening in your machine it is better to activate a demanding program. Start a video game, a video editor, or even a web browser with multiple tabs open.
After using the computer for about 15 minutes, check the current temperature on the CPU cores. Peak speeds and frequency speeds that fall below the base clock indicate that your computer is overheating and either needs cleaning or the thermal paste needs to be replaced.
We have analyzed the best way to apply the new paste in the article: How to change CPU thermal paste
