Is this crazy or what...?

I decided today to start taking apart my failed computer system to see what happened.

After replacing the CMOS battery it did boot, but it wouldn't stay running.

I found that after removing the heatsink, there wasn't hardly any paste visible on either the die or the heatsink. In addition, the copper cooling fins were in bad shape flow-wise.

I used some electrical contact cleaner to completely clean the heat sink vents out like new. I also cleaned all of the fans (not too dirty though) and removed the ATI 9800 Pro card and cleaned it too and the fan. This looked fine too upon removal.

Now I was stuck. I forgot to buy thermal paste before this undertaking.

Off to Google to try and find a temporary substitute. I came up with toothpaste with zinc oxide as one of the ingredients. It turns out that the active ingredient in thermal paste is zinc oxide.

I found some Colgate white with this ingredient and then for good measure took the finest file I have and filed up a batch of aluminum power to mix with the toothpaste. It ended up looking very much like Arctic Silver after mixing in the aluminum powder.

The system has been re-assembled and started succesfully. It's running at a stable core temperature of 42°C at idle for the last hour and a half. :D

Unbelievable. :o

You can bet I'm going to be getting the proper paste come Monday. Nothing is open today and I live 40 miles from the nearest shop, but this sure did fix it for now. Nothing but a heat related problem.

I love it... what ingenuity, fabulously done Mike, as always :) :) :)

Matt Olieman

Thanks Matt.

Core temp is now at 40°C at idle. The stuff must be working.

Only Mike would think to brush a computers teeth lol :):):) just imagine if it develops some sort of stuffed up rear end type problems I can only imagine what Mike may use in that scene lol

Tim

Give it a shot of anti-biotics to keep it virus free.

The paste in the heat sink paste is just there to keep the conductiong materials where you want them. The only other major difference between them and your toothpaste is they are designed not to dry out. Other than that, you have pretty much the same exact thing as what you would buy. Of course, yours has that minty fresh feeling to it...

Nice idea. I personally prefer thermal heat paste to toothpaste when brushing my teeth. Good if you're bored of mint!

Well, to tell you the truth, I can't even believe it worked. I don't like fooling around with untried stuff when it comes to a computer.

I'm just happy it's is working and the temp on the die is still stable at 40°C at idle. I haven't tried to load it down yet, because I don't really use this computer any more except to pull data from on the network.

Mostly ITunes or my photos.

So Andy, I guess it didn't hurt any that I mixed in a bunch of fine aluminum powder along with whatever zinc oxide is in the toothpaste? I know aluminum is a good heat conductor.

Nope. That did not hurt a bit. It helped actually.
I forget the ingredients right off my head, but like I said, thats pretty much the same thing the thermal pastes are made of.

So next we expect to see you invent something new with a toilet seat...:D

Something soft, yet not sticking to the bottom when you stand up? Eh?

I'll see what I can do. :D

Core temp hasn't moved from 40°C since this afternoon. I'm going to monitor it until I get the Arctic Silver.

I'm pulling music off of it for I-Tunes right now, but I don't think that creates much of a load.