Showerthought: The difference between a $30 and a $150 thermal paste is basically zero

I just redid the paste on a dozen old office PCs from a law firm in Phoenix, half with Arctic MX-4 and half with some fancy silver compound that cost five times more. After a week of logging, the temp difference was maybe 2 degrees C under full load. For normal repairs, the expensive stuff is a total waste of money. What's the most overpriced 'upgrade' you've seen clients insist on?

3 comments

3 Comments

karenm492mo ago

Wait, you found a law firm in Phoenix that still had old PCs?

ivan_fisher992mo ago

Yeah, tons of them... it's wild.

bailey.sam1mo ago

Actually got a similar haul from a smaller firm in Scottsdale last year. They had this whole storage closet full of old Dell towers from like 2012 that they were just going to toss. I asked if I could take a couple home, ended up with a bunch of pristine Optiplex 7010s. They even had a box of unopened mechanical keyboards in the back nobody cared about. Sometimes you just gotta ask around the smaller offices, they don't think to list anything online.