In a forum where people discuss using diamonds, silver and superdupermegamixcompoundsofawseomness for thermal goo I feel a little bit un cultured with this question. But about a year ago, I was building a computer for a friend, and between RMA's and other issues it was the day to take it away, come to seat the cooler and I've been sold an empty tub of TIM. In a flash of brilliance (?) I decided to use stuff that seals pipes, like actually on the thread to another pipe, not bathroom sealant . It can be used on steam pipes so is good up to 110C, and it's sillicon based so it ticked both boxes, but I was wondering if I'd done anything really bad. Now his PC's clogged with dust, I'm gonna dismantle and clean it, so now would be a good time to put some real thermal paste on if there's anything wrong with it. For reference the idle temp is ~41 in a case with nearly 0 airflow under the stock HSF, on a Q6600. As it's not broken shall I leave it?
Well it seems to work ok... If it ain't broke, don't fix it. On the other hand it's not exactly ideal. If it were me I'd take the heatsink out to clean it, then throw some proper TIM on there afterwards. Any specifics on what it actually was that you used? I wouldn't have pegged pipe sealant as a candidate for a TIM.
I am surprised that works... using something designed for sealing pipes in place of something designed for conducting heat but as Krikkit says... Nice find!
Hehe thanks It does work, I tried a quick Prime95 at stock speeds, and with both his side intakes blocked, his CPU fan blocked it reached 71. I've ordered some ArtiClean and AS5, my only worry now is that if it doesn't have similar properties to TIM it could react badly when I put ArtiClean on it... :S Wish me luck
