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Shoutout to the guy who told me to swap thermal paste on a 6 year old PC
Had a client bring in a Dell Optiplex last month that was running like a jet engine and crashing during Zoom calls. I figured it was just dust, so I blew it out but the temps were still hitting 95C under load. Ended up pulling the heatsink and the thermal paste was basically dust, hard as a rock in some spots. Replaced it with some Arctic MX-4 I had laying around and the CPU dropped to 65C max after a 30 minute stress test. Client messaged me later saying it was quieter than a library and asked what kind of voodoo I did. Has anyone else seen that big of a temp swing from just repasting an old office PC?
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samflores1mo ago
My old gaming rig had paste that looked like dried clay chips, I swear I could have used it as sidewalk chalk. Replaced it with some generic stuff from Micro Center and the temp drop was so dramatic I actually checked my software to make sure it wasn't glitching. Guess I was basically cooking my CPU for years without even knowing it
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price.ben1mo ago
Jumped in on a friend's old Optiplex, same gen as yours. Thought the fan was dying, had that same jet engine noise. Pulled the heatsink and the paste was flaking off like old paint. Cleaned it up and slapped some cheap stuff on, I think it was Cooler Master paste I had from a build. Dropped the temps from 92C just sitting on the desktop down to 45C idle and 70C under load. This was a Core i5 4590, so nothing special, but it ran like a whole new machine. It is wild how much of a difference a fresh layer makes on these older office boxes.
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