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Always hated thermal paste reapplication until I tried it on a 12 year old Dell
Had an Optiplex 990 that kept thermal throttling even after cleaning the fan. Decided to repaste the CPU as a last resort and the temps dropped 20 degrees. Now I'm wondering how many other "dead" machines I threw out that just needed fresh paste.
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aaron7081mo ago
Man, I used to think thermal paste was just hype until I had an old HP Pavilion that wouldn't even boot. @kareng27 I just grabbed some Arctic MX-4 from a drawer, slapped it on, and that machine ran another two years like nothing. Made me wonder how many perfectly good PCs I tossed just because I didn't bother with a five dollar tube of goo.
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Oh absolutely, this lines up with something I've noticed for years. It seems like people treat old tech like it's some kind of disposable toy instead of something that can often be fixed with basic maintenance. @aaron708 hit the nail on the head with that comment about tossing perfectly good machines. I've seen it with cars too where people junk a vehicle over a bad sensor or a clogged filter. We've gotten so used to replacing things instead of taking five minutes to figure out what's actually wrong. A little bit of effort and a cheap tube of paste can keep a computer running for years just like changing the oil in your car. It's a shame we don't teach more of this simple problem solving anymore.
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kareng271mo ago
Did you use a specific brand of paste or just whatever you had laying around? I've always wondered if the expensive stuff actually makes a difference on older hardware or if it's all the same.
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