Live event: ask your questions about tech – 3pm 28/7/21

I will have to check with our consumer rights team on that – I’ll ask them to pop in and look at this question. On the test lab process for thermal paste, I’ll check with the lab, but I suspect we don’t: I’ve never had a problem with thermal paste failing, on either a desktop I’ve built myself or a laptop. I imagine if you could prove that the thermal paste had failed while the device was in warranty it would be covered, though.

Just coming back to this, I have checked with the lab, and as I suspected, the answer is no, they don’t test the thermal paste: they don’t take computers apart as part of the testing.

Over the years I have rebuilt quite a few PC’s, to renew their CPU cooling, by cleaning out fans and replacing the thermal compound that bonds the CPU to the heat sink and / or heat pipes.

From that, I’d say that most new PC’s and new heat sinks now actually use thermal tape not thermal paste. Both tape and paste are now available for aftermarket use too.

I’ve also discovered that Windows 10 has an advanced power setting that can be used to make a noisy PC quieter by setting a maximum limit on CPU utilisation. The downside is that this also makes the PC slower.

Usually W10 will install with this limit set to 100%, to give maximum performance and maximum noise. But, for some reason, on my ThinkPad X240, W10 sets this limit to 30% by default.

The problem with thermal paste is that repeated heating and cooling can gradually force the paste from between the CPU and the heat sink, etc. I presume this is the reason for moving to thermal tape and pads, which should continue to work without loss of performance.

I think thermal tape is also easier to use and less messy.

I spoke to the lab about this yesterday and it’s a no from them: they don’t open up laptops and desktops as part of the testing process, and in any case, by definition if you open up a device to the level of the thermal paste, you’re going to compromise its ability to do its job. And in any case, most people don’t even know thermal paste exists, never mind consider opening up their device to re-paste their CPU. I’ve built PCs and it’s not something I’d consider doing, especially not to a laptop.

See:-https://computing.which.co.uk/hc/en-gb/articles/115004416785-How-to-recycle-your-old-computer

and:-https://www.which.co.uk/news/2021/03/how-to-recycle-your-old-smartphone-tablet-or-laptop/

and:-https://ecogreenitrecycling.co.uk/broken-laptop-disposal-guide/

Where I live both Emmaus and Project Reboot will take in old PC’s for resale or ecological disposal.

During the recent lockdowns and school closures, second hand laptops were in high demand by schools and charities furnishing laptops for kids without laptops. But there was usually a limit to the age of machines they could use.

Personally, I now find that PC’s from before about 2008 will be too old and too slow to be of much use, except perhaps for retro gaming. My old broken ones were recently put out for my local council recycling collection, but were actually taken away by a passer by before the recycling collection came.

Anything later than that cut off can be UPGRADED to run a suitable Linux (e.g. MX or Mint or Manjaro with XFCE desktops). Such PC’s can be used for lighter duties at home (or someone else’s home, if they do not have enough computers already).

When I say “light duties” that includes posting on here (my 2011 W10 ThinkPad X201 says “hi”) or watching YouTube and Netflix and doing some light video editing, but perhaps not for long 4K films.

Out of support tablets and phones are hard to upgrade. In theory, an out of support Chromebook might be upgradeable to a full (and still supported) version of Linux, but I have no recent experience of attempting that.