Arctic Silver 5 shelf-life

[PartEleven]

I have this REALLY old tube of AS5 lying around. I know they're not supposed to have an expiration date, but this tube is almost 4 years old. Still safe to use? Or should I toss it and get a new one?

 

[apt403]

Eh, use it and see. If it's gone bad it'll take you 10 mintues and $5 to clean the stuff off and order a new tube.

 

[graysky]

I bought some back in Aug of 2003 and used the same tube on my new machine I built about 2 weeks ago. Came out fine and works fine.

 

[truromeo4juliet]

same here...

arctic silver is basically just silver paste... if silver went bad, jewelry wouldn't sell

 

[graysky]

haahah

 

[Alsone]

They say it settles out and so goes bad but I've been using the same tube for 3 years.

Provided you store it on its side (not upright) then any settlement is likely to be distributed along the whole length of the tube and so likely to get remixed on squeezing it.

I reckon the best advice was above. Use it until you can see a difference in application / results. If the application or the results suddenly look bad, clean it off and get a fresh tube.

 

[ZOldDude]

I have this REALLY old tube of AS5 lying around. I know they're not supposed to have an expiration date, but this tube is almost 4 years old. Still safe to use? Or should I toss it and get a new one?

I have a "free" after rebate tube I have never used which I have stored in my refrige.

In fact I have NEVER used AS5/AS* in the last 10 years of system builds.

TIM componds are so overrated.

Correct pre-cleaning of CPU and HS and correct TIM application is really more productive than TIM brand name in every install.

A standard "small" tube of even cheep $0.99 silicon TIM should be good for 10+ CPU/NB mounts if the installer knows what he is doing.

Sorry to those companys that advert...those ARE the facts of life.

Z

 

[aLdaRiS]

i guess its you against the bunch of people that get better temps with AS5

 

[PartEleven]

I have this REALLY old tube of AS5 lying around. I know they're not supposed to have an expiration date, but this tube is almost 4 years old. Still safe to use? Or should I toss it and get a new one?

I have a "free" after rebate tube I have never used which I have stored in my refrige.

In fact I have NEVER used AS5/AS* in the last 10 years of system builds.

TIM componds are so overrated.

Correct pre-cleaning of CPU and HS and correct TIM application is really more productive than TIM brand name in every install.

A standard "small" tube of even cheep $0.99 silicon TIM should be good for 10+ CPU/NB mounts if the installer knows what he is doing.

Sorry to those companys that advert...those ARE the facts of life.

Z

Way to go and thread crap while not answering my question.

Thanks to everyone else. Though, it'd be a bit hard to "see a difference in application/results" since I haven't built a system in a while and I wouldn't know if i was getting good or bad temps. I guess I could compare to other people's results, but then the temp difference could be due to a host of other factors, like air flow, rather than my super old AS5.

 

[graysky]

@ZOldDude - Gotta disagree with you. There are differences, does everyone care about 4-5 C? Dunno. I'll also say that AS5 "ages" very well. It doesn't dry out and need to re-applied nor does it get sticky and cause you fits to remove the HS years later and/or clean it off the HS and CPU.