I finally ditched thermal paste for a copper shim on my old laptop CPU

Everyone swears by thermal paste but I got sick of repasting my 2012 ThinkPad every 6 months when it started thermal throttling. A $3 copper shim and some thermal pad from an old GPU cooler later, temps dropped 8 degrees and stayed there for over a year now. No mess, no pump-out effect, just solid contact. Has anyone else tried shimming instead of pasting on older hardware?

3 comments

3 Comments

riverh4925d ago

I used to think copper shims were just a gimmick for people who didnt want to do a proper repaste, but trying one on an old Dell Inspiron changed my mind completely. That thing ran stable for two years straight without needing any maintenance.

jamie80425d ago

Two years? I gotta be honest that sounds almost too good to be true. I still feel like there's a catch somewhere, maybe just luck with your specific chip or something.

jana88125d ago

Copper shims just take the guesswork out of keeping things cool for years.