Arctic Silver 5

[foozy]

So I'm ordering cooling components from newegg, same 'ol routine, and somehow I ended up buying four tubes of Arctic Silver 5. Don't ask me how I did it, I don't really know.

Needless to say, its gonna take me a helluva long time to use up four tubes of the stuff. Does it expire at all? Become less effective? My intuition is telling me no, but I just wanted to make sure. Thanks.

 

[Tedster]

no expiration. But keep it away from pets and kids. It is poisonous if ingested.
Sell it on ebay or something.

 

[CMH]

hmm... doesn't AS5 compounds seperate or something if left alone for a long time?

Either way, you should sell it off if you're not using it, there's really no point keeping 2 extra tubes around for no reason....

Or if you wanna keep it around, my house is a good place...

 

[Didou]

2 extra tubes ? I'd say 3 even, one tube is enough for quite a lot of heatsinks.

 

[foozy]

hmm... doesn't AS5 compounds seperate or something if left alone for a long time?

I just found an old tube of AS5 today (I keep all my cooling stuff in the same drawer, was putting away the other extra tubes) and squeezed a little bit out. It came out in sort of a liquid form, watery even, with silver substance suspended in it. Perhaps I should sell the extra tubes.

 

[KingCody]

according to the Arctic Silver 5 website:

Absolute Stability:
Arctic Silver 5 will not separate, run, migrate, or bleed.

cheers :wave:

 

[CMH]

lol.

I'm always sceptical about manufacturer's claims. You'd have to check on the details of that claim.

Either way, 4 tubes of it would probably last you a lifetime, unless you're in the business of building computers...

 

[foozy]

unless you're in the business of building computers...

I am, but I rarely run into situations where AS5 is required, since I just use stock HSF with stock paste most the time.

 

[Grafficks]

Their website does say under AS5's features that it will not separate. However, if you go to the instructions pages, the section on "Storage of Arctic Silver 5" reads as follows:

To keep Arctic Silver 5 fresh for future applications, always replace the cap on the syringe after each use. The syringe should be stored tip down so that any separation between the particles and suspension fluid will be at the back end of the syringe. Like any mix of particles that are many times heavier than the suspension fluid, there will be some separation in the compound over time when stored in the original syringe. Because all thermal compounds eventually experience some separation in storage, storing in a cool place like a refrigerator will also lessen the separation over time. However, this does not affect the performance of the un-separated or remixed compound.

They sure changed their mind pretty quickly didn't they
Now they're saying it can separate over time...

But they did include some precautions, such as storing the AS5 tip-down.
I also think that you should sell a few of them.
Or you can just start using AS5 for every computer you build, instead of the stock paste.

 

[Tedster]

I'm sure if you knead the product after it has been sitting around, it will restore any separation.

 

[CMH]

Bahh, it still separates....

I'd see if I can try to get your customers to pay for using AS5 instead of stock I mean, just an extra dollar, they get lower CPU temps, which means the life of their CPU is enhanced. Thats a fact, so you're not really ripping them off.

Or you can just be nice and say its a bonus for a couple of months

 

[foozy]

Yeah, thats an option. What I don't like about using non-stock paste is it adds a significant amount of time to CPU installation. It's one of those things that always makes me nervous, too, no matter how much I do it - like RAM installation.

As far as life of their PC... people usually destroy computers from the software side long before the hardware side, and they solve both problems the same: buy a new computer.

80% of all "broken" machines that I buy from people just need a reformat.