Arctic Silver 5 site says “Arctic Silver 5 should be kept away from electrical traces, pins, and leads. While it is not electrically conductive, the compound is very slightly capacitive and could potentially cause problems if it bridges two close-proximity electrical”
I never want to have that kind of concern.
Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut claims to be non-conductive but has no mention if it is capacitive. Does anyone know if it is non-capacitive and safe to have spillage?
Are there any other thermal compounds out there that have good thermal conductivity but no risk to electronics for those of us who are sloppy?
Why do you even use “silver”?
I have been using Arctic MX2 for a looking time and in absolutely happy with it.
AFAIK it have silver particles in the paste, so it’s more thermally conductive. The definition of capacitor is literally two conductors with non conductive material Inbetween them.
Basically if the paste do not have metal particles in it it should not cause any issues.
Honestly, unless you drown your CPU or GPU in thermal paste even the silver should not be causing any issues.
Everything has some level of capacitance, even the traces on your motherboard. If you believe you’re going to get thermal compound all over your motherboard then I would seek a doctor.
Well the silver has silver in it so in theory if all the silver particals line up and touch a couple somethings the somethings could bridge. I dont know what the grease in arctic silver actually is and I cannot judge if it is capacitive or not or if they just say that in case the stars align between two components and so does the silver. I would imagine the grease is non conductive.
How ever I have used arctic silver and I have never had a problem. If you use it responsibly some bleed out is still to be expected. How ever Arctic Silver isn’t really that good compared to thermal grizzly if you can use thermal grizzly, use it. I’m not calling Arctic silver bad but Im also not calling it good.
the thing with any thermal paste is just to spread a thin film of it.
too thick a film and it retains heat instead of conducting it away.
ive used arctic silver and its a good product. But ive also seen systems brought into my shop that were a mess from too much compound.
in most cases if electrical damage hasn’t occurred a plastic safe contact cleaner such as CRC plastic safe will loosen dissolve the gunk without too much fuss
plastic safe cleaners will not damage the enamel covering the traces as it dries quickly.
Noctua NH-T1 i believe is what i used.
Never had an issue with that.
Artic silver has metal in it, so combined it could indeed be capatitive.
But that shouldn´t be a problem, because you just put a dot on the center of the cpu.
So it shouldn´t come out of the sides anyways.
