PSA: I thought my thermal paste was fine until a laptop in Austin started shutting down after 5 minutes.

I was working on a gaming laptop for a friend, and after cleaning the fan I just reused the old paste, figuring it was okay. The laptop would overheat and power off every single time we tried to run a game, so I had to open it back up and apply fresh paste properly. Has anyone else had a simple re-paste job go this wrong on what seemed like a basic fix?

2 comments

2 Comments

brookebailey18d ago

Why assume the paste was the only problem? Could be a bad fan, or maybe the heatsink itself got bent when you took it apart. Old paste can still work fine if it wasn't dried out completely. You might have just put it back together wrong, like the heatsink screws weren't tight enough in the right order. Sometimes a laptop that old is just too far gone and no paste will fix it.

rubybarnes18d ago

Seriously, a laptop in Austin is your proof? That's one computer in hot weather. How do you know the paste was even the problem and not just a loose heatsink or a fan that's about to die? Old paste can still work okay if it wasn't totally crusty, maybe you just messed up the reassembly. People act like thermal paste is some magic goop that fails overnight.