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Copper heatsink paste trick backfired on a Dell in Phoenix
Swapped thermal paste on an old Dell OptiPlex 990 using a copper shim and liquid metal. Machine ran 10c cooler for 3 days, then shorted out the CPU VRM. Turns out the shim was too thin and shifted during mounting. Anyone else had liquid metal creep sideways and kill a board? Man, that was a $120 lesson.
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the_jake21h ago
Whoa, that sucks! This actually happened to a buddy of mine. He did the same thing on an old gaming laptop, used that Conductonaut stuff and a copper shim. It ran great for about a week, then the whole thing just started acting like it was possessed. Screen flickering, random reboots, then the smell. The liquid metal had wicked its way right under the VRM heatsink and just eaten through some tiny caps. He said it looked like the board had freaking measles when he pulled it apart. His lesson cost him a whole motherboard for a laptop that wasn't worth fixing. I still don't trust that stuff unless the IHS is perfectly flat and locked down tight.
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