Yes, You Can Use Toothpaste As Thermal Paste 

I did that a few years ago after moving and forgetting to pack thermal paste. It worked rather well for a couple of months and then one day my PC overheated. After that I scraped out the dried up toothpaste, but I got permanent scorchmarks on the IHS.

I have found that 5 years is a pretty good replacement time frame for most thermal paste renewals. Most people don't flog a computer like hardcore gamers so it doesn't dry out too fast.

What about Thermal Paste as Toothpaste?

As a biologist, I can say life is quite literally mostly filling holes

LOL I can confirm this works too! I once had to use it to cool my 3 leg inverter setup for a 1600W continuous brushless driver. It was at an international event too. xD Worked like a charm. Also reason was: I FORGOT! ALL THE 10 TUBES HAD BOUGHT AS REDUNDANCY! Luckily, the local refreshment stall had that and sunblock, worked out.

I've done this a few times but I'd only recommend doing it with low power components. It worked fine for me on a 15w laptop CPU and old dual core Athlon CPU despite having a huge overclock from 2.2 to 3.95ghz though

Can we take a huge minute to appreciate how thorough but quick to get to the point this video is? I finished watching went to the next recommended one and then realized how good this one was so I came back to give the like and provide this comment.

I once had to use toothpaste to test friends CPU. He brought me his PC with loose CPU cooler, but I did not had any thermal compound around so I tested if it still works with toohtpaste under heatspreader :D Works like a charm

I love seeing all of the different comments of what people have used for alternatives. I might throw in my story too then! I had a time I had to reapply paste but ran out. I ordered some but it was going to take a week to arrive so to test the system and make sure it was at least working I grabbed one of my jars of Vegemite and used that for a temporary thermal compound and it worked well enough. The pc smelled a bit funny for a short bit after to the surprise of no one.

I did this once in the 2000s because I didn't have anything else and it worked great. So great in fact, that I forgot about it until I replaced my old PC...

So far, I have actually done well using lubricating greases as thermal paste, so that tends to be my goto if I don't have the right stuff on hand. I also see lithium grease also is fairly thermally conductive.

My thermal paste dried out so i put Vaseline in it and mixed it well with the dried thermal paste and re-installed the stock cooler and it worked well on my pentium gold g6400 with a maximum temperature of 62° (81° with dried thermal paste)

Mixed fresh engine oil to my fluoride free toothpaste to the ratio of 1/99 back in 2020 fall for my office computer and to this day works like well oiled machine!

Sounds like something Mryeester should have done, anyways great video!

0:52 this is gold

Toothpaste with a few drops of vegetable oil or a high temp cooking oil works amazingly . Used this compound for a solid month whilst waiting for my thermal paste to be delivered to me in remote Alaska :) .

The answer to all these paste videos that surface every year is what Linus said a few years ago in a similar video. “Just about anything viscous will work but for how long is the real question”

There's a computer store right outside my street, I just go up there. Literally a cheap no brand tube of thermal paste is good enough for basically any consumer system. Don't need to shell out for the high end stuff.

I love the minty freshness you get while crushing skulls in doom

I used dielectric grease for my dad's pc that was over heating due to the fact his thermal paste never been changed over the course of about 8 years. He's still rocking that pc from 2010 or 2011. AMD phenom II

I used to use toothpaste on my 3ghz pentium 4 back in the 2000s. It worked great, but it had to be replaced regularly. That was fine though, because I was in and out of my case on almost a daily basis

"There's more to life than just filling in holes" - are we sure about that?

Always brush your CPU 3 times a day

I actually used to run toothpaste and Vaseline in my old gaming build, it ran pretty good. I did have a good cooler and it was an fx cpu but still.

And here I was... thinking that life was all about filling holes! Thank you for clarifying!

I did this two years ago when I was messing around with a few old optiplex 360's and I didnt have any thermal compound to spare. It worked surprisingly well.

I just upgraded from Colgate whitening strips to Colgate baking soda and peroxide. Frosty mint finish that turns into a very thermally conductive powder afterwards.

I actually used a tube of Colgate to keep my old laptop cool for a few months before I could afford a good thermal paste

Oh Boy, back in the day I had a Duron 900 which ran with toothpaste as thermal paste. It worked fine for years (until I discarded the PC at one point). Every time I opened the case it smelled minty 😅

Thermal paste "drying out" is not a problem. The oil is only there to facilitate application and allow the particles to pack down over time for better conductivity. "Dryness" only becomes a problem when the heatsink gets knocked around hard enough to break the settled paste interface which would otherwise last indefinitely. You don't get this from improvised paste substitute since those have volatile compounds and other ingredients that aren't chemically stable like zinc and aluminum oxides.

At 2 am? Well, alternatively you could go to bed.

Here's a 2000s tech tip! Got a scratched CD/DVD? Put toothpaste on it. Let it sink in for a few minutes, then gently wipe it off with a paper towel, from the hole out towards the edge, and literally rinse and repeat until it's all gone. Huge chance you'll have removed enough material to smooth out the scratch and now you can play Twilight Princess on your Wii or whatever else you wanted to do in the mid 2000s.

There's more to life than just filling in holes ~ James 2022

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say you should probably only ever do this at the same time as under-volting and clock-limiting the cpu... then you don't have to worry about it getting to 100 degrees C or over.

Love that you just turned an old ltt video into a tech quickie. Great use of information

“There is more to life than just filling in holes” But…that’s exactly how you make life 😄

Yep, I can confirm that. I just put my Crest on my expensive $20 CPU, now the CPU gives me a brighter smile every time it pops.

i did this with my 1st AMD PC in 2003 , nobody told me ited work , thermal paste just looked like toothpaste and didnt have any when i took it apart, worked 4 years no issues

Friendship ended with Carbonaut Charcoal Toothpaste is my new Best Friend

it's 2am, and you don't have any thermal paste. instead of toothpaste/etc... what about just.... sleeping? yea, yea, i know, i'm super fun at parties, etc.

You can also use it as glue to put girly mag pics on your prison cell walls.

How did you know I have a monthly mustard budget? Are you a SPAI?

Can confirm. My PC was overheating even after dusting so I took a look at the thermal paste and it was all dried up. I couldnt for the life of me find my new thermal paste though so I used desitin and it worked like a charm for over month

next Techquickie: Can you use thermal paste as toothpaste?

I am actually using that on a Xeon server processor. Temps are normal there’s no need to even use regular thermal paste.(BUT I Will) Under load it gets to about 80°C

You can use anything as thermal paste if you are brave enough.

I used coconut oil mixed with the dried out thermal paste on my Ps4 I built and have had no problems yet I still need to open it back up and see how its doing after 2 years

I've had high zinc oxide diaper cream on an old ass Dell for years

1:33 Dammm man, I got jump-scared out of nowhere. ☹️

I feel we're all thinkig about certain "paste" but nobody gonna say it

Mustard budget!? If you want the Good stuff, it's going to cost a lot more this year.

i once accidentally bought a 5gram instead of a 1 gram pack of thermal grizzly, that's a lifetime supply.

Nah I'm ain't letting that goofy ahh disgusting toothpaste get into my computer

Put toothpaste on my 5800X. Now all the other CPUs are jealous of its clean teeth.

I have a cousin that says diaper cream is the solution to all problems, and it seems like I just keep finding more and more things it can do 😛

I did this many years back and it worked perfectly fine for years after.

I still put toothpaste on my AMD Ryzen 3 2200G

I used charcoal toothpaste, graphite from a pencil and petroleum jelly and so far so good

Well, in China, we have a meme about putting a white radish cut in half directly on cpu to prevent overheat, and it actually works if the radish is juicy. Maybe ltt can try this out.

Good video. Now make one on thermal paste as tooth paste

How about covering the pen plotter? I had hours of enjoyment watching that thing work as a kid. Watching it draw vector graphics one color at a time. Wonderful stuff.

Next Question: How efectiv is a diaper at preventing watercooling leaks?

The first thing i know about thermal paste is why it look like a cement goop? Why not rgb thermal paste?

ah yes, thermal toothpaste

my man casually gave away The Dentist's Secret... that fluoride slowly causes cavities...

0:40 like the poison in the radishes

NOOOooo, not my monthly mustard budget!!!!

I've tried mayonnaise on GTX 580, it got very cool but just last few weeks then it died.

I'm taking nothing out of my monthly mustard budget! The wife's mayo budget, however...

I am lucky to have a local Radio Shack that stocks Arctic Silver 5.

If the fluorine is the only thing that stops you from trying toothpaste, don't worry about that. They wouldn't put the highly reactive (actually, THE most reactive) chemical element in the thing people put in their mouths, and even if they did (someone actually made radium in toothpaste a century ago, but I digress), by the time the toothpaste leave the factory, the the fluorine would've already reacted with the rest of the chemicals and become inactive. Do you know what else contains fluorine? PTFE, the thing that covers your frying pan.

For my Equipment I use Thermal Grizzly-Kryonaut Thermal Paste made a great difference to my Switch and past Xbox's

How am i supposed to pay for thermal paste with a monthly mustard budget of 0????

I use tooth paste at school to teach students how to assemble and set up computers, since it will only be in the CPU for about 2 hours, we haven't had any issues yet

"There's more to life than just filling in holes" I don't know...

Now, how about using thermal paste to brush your teeth? Liquid metal teeth go "brrrrrrr"! (because you'll probably be chattering your teeth from the cold sensation, or from a toxicity induced seizure...)

Watched this while brushing my teeth.

Mayonaise also works great, yeah!!!!

So it's like using bubble gum instead of Teflon tape. It does work, just not for very long and the boss will be pissed if he hears about it.

Plus it will help your PC avoid gingivitis

I've done this too. But it wasn't a high power pc. A year later. Why is the PC overheating and shuting down? Oh yeah, I did put tooth paste. Scrap old paste and run to the bathroom for more. And done.😂

You heard it here first. Butt paste is the new thermal upgrade

This channel will never be as gangster as Life of Boris

Instructions unclear, spreading thermal paste on my hot dog.

I want to see a challenge now. Toothpaste, vs that orange shit Linus got a few years back. Anyone here remember the orange shit?

Have you guys already tried using anti-seize copper grease as a thermal paste? It has some copper in it, so I wondered how it will perform when used as a thermal paste. 🤣

thanks to this video i`m now purchasing a new thermal paste to replace the one on my 10y old atom server.

Ummm, have been using copper anti-seize for over a year now... temps still awesome cool.

This is just a rehashing of their thermal paste video on LTT and I love it.

Thing is, toothepaste is an _abrasive._ Need I say more?

I think if you could get the surface of the heatspreader and the heatsink sufficiently flat, you might not need thermal paste at all. I mean, it's designed to fill holes... so what if you could get it so the surfaces fit together perfectly without the need for paste to fill in holes?

I used toothpaste as thermal paste both on Athlon II x4 CPU, and ATI Radeon 4850 GPU, The air cooler was stock AMD The case was wide open because my country is near equator which is very hot and humid (And I dont have AC) So I just shoot the PC using room fan And in my area, dust would accumulate FAST Thats why I usually re-cleans my PC twice a year, with or without thermal paste and idiotly, I always forgot to buy thermal paste even tho i always said "I will buy it next time" lol For those period of time (5-8 months), the paste has dried, but still works just fine The PC built since 2009 intensely used until 2016ish, The motherboard broke because unstable grounding in my house After that im using laptop until 2020ish (which, the battery also broke years later lol) And now I have new PC (Using thermal on i3 12th) But Im pretty sure, if i have the motherboard, that processor still can boot up again

Toothpaste on the CPU... If only it were that easy 🤣😂

How about petroleum jelly mixing it with graphite powder, graphite can resist high temperature and it can be found on pencils at your home.

Instructions unclear. Filling holes as the meaning of life.

You should test Copper Never Seize, that stuff never dries out…lol

You didn't mention using no paste at all. Sometimes it has better performance than some goop you found in the house.

The clip of the liquid metal getting all over the laptop made my butt pucker…

Wait a second, I work at Best Buy, and I don't remember this in any of my e-learnings...

the cyber oreo simile? top notch.