Just found out thermal paste can go bad even if the tube is sealed

I was diagnosing a random Dell OptiPlex at a small office in Tulsa last month. CPU was hitting 95c at idle. Everything looked fine, fans spinning, heatsink on tight. I grabbed a tube of Arctic Silver I had in my bag for maybe 2 years, never opened. Put it on, temps dropped to 45c. But after a week, they spiked back up. I swapped with a brand new tube from a different batch and it's been stable since. Never knew the stuff could separate or dry out just sitting in the package. Has anyone else run into this with older paste?

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daniel5113d ago

... see I kinda gotta disagree with you there man. I've got tubes of thermal paste in my drawer that are like 5 years old, still work just fine. The key is how you store them, not how old they are. If you leave them in a hot car or a humid basement they'll separate yeah, but kept at room temp in a dry place they last forever. I think your Arctic Silver might've had a bad batch from the factory or maybe the seal was cracked letting air in, not really the age itself. And honestly a week to go bad after applying it? That sounds more like a bad mount or a weird voltage issue on that OptiPlex than the paste going south.