Recommended Thermal Interface Material and normal temps for P7450 CPU?

[Cubytus]

Hi there,

I still have an old laptop that has a P7450 inside (Core 2 Duo). Temperatures were rising and I could see much throttling. After opening it up, I unmounted the heatsink and found out the Gelid GC Extreme I put years ago had dried out. Time for re-pasting.

I see the Tjunction for this CPU is 90. OK, that's significantly lower than current-generation CPUs.

In this laptop, the normal idling (<10% load) is around 60, but throttling occurs a few minutes after die reaches 72 or so.

Now, about the fan. When the CPU is idling, the fan never runs at its minimum 2000rpm speed, but stabilizes around 3200rpm. As soon as the load increases a little and temperature reaches about 66, fan is pegged at its maximum 6000rpm speed, making it rather annoying. Even when temperature drops again, the fan stays at maximum speed for an inordinate amount of time (more than 20 minutes). It seems there's no direct relationship between fan speed and temperature.

As a stopgap measure, I set up a fan speed controlling software to vary its speed according to temperature. Of course, the result is wide swings of fan speed, and some throttling still occurs.

Now, a few questions.

I know laptops often have a sub-optimal thermal design and that manufacturers differ, but what is the the typical idling temperature of a P7450?

And is it normal that the CPU starts throttling at 72?

Now, I saw that Intel recommends a given TIM for its Xeon CPUs, but what would be the recommended TIM for this old CPU? Please don't give me the "whatever you find is OK" answer; TIM performance depends on CPU temp, wether or not it had time to "cure", how much pressure the heatsink is exerting on the die (here, pretty low as the heatsink had flexible springy mounts), how viscous is the TIM (more viscous= harder to press), some behave better with cooler running CPUs, etc.

Reviews around the web consistently rank liquid metal TIM as above the others, but not by so large a margin that its conductivity would make us think. Plus, I understand there may be some risks for mobile systems.

Arctic Silver 5 was the go-to paste a decade ago, but has since fallen off the charts. Gelid GC Extreme sometimes appears in comparative reviews, though not very often, and the Shin-Etsu X23-7868 almost never does, although it did measure up to the AS5. Again, that was more than a decade ago.

And I can't get a definitive answer on Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut; some reviews find it outstanding, some others on par with other TIMs.

Help needed here…

[Steven_Intel]

Hello Cubytus,

Thank you for posting on the Intel️® communities.   

Due to this product being discontinued, Intel Customer Service no longer supports inquiries for it.

You may also find the Discontinued Products website (https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/support/discontinued-products.html) helpful to address your request.  

You can get the specifications and verify this product's discontinuance status at the Intel® Product Specifications website > Product Status > "Discontinued". https://ark.intel.com/   

Please keep in mind that this thread will no longer be monitored by Intel. Thank you for your understanding.  

Best regards,

Steven G.

Intel Customer Support Technician.