I was wondering if there were any "around the house" things I could use instead of thermal grease, just until I can purchase some thermal grease. Any help will be great, thanks.
Not that I can think of. Even the cheapest plain white silicon TIMs are specially formulated and manufactured to certain specifications depending on their intended applications. Honestly I would just hold off until you can get the real stuff.
I agree with AT. I've not really seen anything about people making their own homemade thermal paste. I've seen custom cases and custom watercooling setups (including the waterblocks), even customized lighting controls through the parallel port, but thermal paste...nope. Places like Circuit City and Best Buy should have them if you don't have any local PC shops that carry some thermal paste.
Don't you get that stuff on the bottom of the heatsinks ? Well i think you do with pentium 4's and Celerons. I'm :swear: if it isen't
Often with OEM heatsyncs there is a small square of thermal transfer material already applied. If not, you must have some type of TIM on your 'sync though, or you will likely overheat.
There is defenitley some there a small square, and when i took my heatsink of it was like melted. Thats a good sign i gather.
AS Ceramique is also good. Although it is inferior to AS5 in its normal state, you can mix it with extremely cheap carbon black to make a composite material that lasts much, much longer. In that state it also conducts at least as well as AS5, so it's perfect for non-overclocked systems that will be in place for a long time, such as servers, firewalls, etc.
I don't know the exact figures, and it also depends on the circumstances, but AS5 is supposed to be the most stable medium-density thermal paste AS makes. Great for enthusiasts and overclockers.
