Arctic Silver Ceramique conductive?

[DrFragaTron]

I had put on an aftermarket cooler on my 6800nu and all was fine for a month but yesterday my PC crashed at any sight of 3D models.

I decided an RMA was in order and I pulled the card apart and replaced all the stock parts. As I did this I noticed some of the AS Ceramique was on one of thoes tiny transistors (or resistor or whatever) beside the GPU core. I thought nothing of it (it was a very small ammount) but I cleaned it off so that everything would look fine to the Mfg.

After getting it all back together I booted with it to see that all was well and tested Doom3 for 3 hr. ! and it was fine...so far at least.

Any ideas? is it possible that it was bridging that connection and causing a crash? Why now after a month...it was like that for that time period.

 

[brazzmunk]

OH MAN, you should see what i did to my poor radeon 8500.. basically it's tost and i get BSOD every 12 h. Vram was covered in AS5 which i beleive shorted the heck out of it

 

[CheesePoofs]

He's talking about arctic silver ceramique, NOT as5. ASC is not conductive, as5 is slightly conductive.

 

[AWhackWhiteBoy]

AS5 is not conductive, its slightly capacitive

 

[brazzmunk]

yeah that's true, sorry about that, ceramique is totaly unconductive
and YES AS5 is conductive, even slightly it could cause significant damage

 

[DrFragaTron]

Yeah. that's what I thought... drives me nuts to not know what was wrong..

 

[AWhackWhiteBoy]

Originally posted by: AWhackWhiteBoy
AS5 is not conductive, its slightly capacitive

^^^^

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: DrFragaTron
Yeah. that's what I thought... drives me nuts to not know what was wrong..

Are your whiskers flame retardant?

 

[AWhackWhiteBoy]

Originally posted by: DrFragaTron
Yeah. that's what I thought... drives me nuts to not know what was wrong..

who knows, maybe just re-seating the card in the slot helped.

 

[brazzmunk]

i hear if you have a little lock on back of AGP it helps not locking it all the way

 

[Rock Hydra]

I put AS5 on the cooler for my VGA card, and it works fine. Just needed to estimate to make sure that the AS5 wasn't getting all over with the pressure applied to the video card and making sure I didn't make a mess (wiht finger smudges and whatnot) and getting it all on the capacitors.

 

[brazzmunk]

Originally posted by: RockHydra11
I put AS5 on the cooler for my VGA card, and it works fine. Just needed to estimate to make sure that the AS5 wasn't getting all over with the pressure applied to the video card and making sure I didn't make a mess (wiht finger smudges and whatnot) and getting it all on the capacitors.

yeah i learned the hardway not to smudge it all over the place

 

[Richardito]

Originally posted by: AWhackWhiteBoy
AS5 is not conductive, its slightly capacitive

To correct you being 'slightly capacitive' IS to be 'conductive'. So AS will conduct burst of electricity when the conditions are right (too much silver particles lining up and transfering those electrons). The term 'slightly capacitive' is just another made up term that Artic Silver uses to sell their products. As fake as AS3's 'Polysynthetic' term. Do not believe junk marketing, this stuff is conductive.

 

[TheStu]

Originally posted by: Richardito

Originally posted by: AWhackWhiteBoy
AS5 is not conductive, its slightly capacitive

To correct you being 'slightly capacitive' IS to be 'conductive'. So AS will conduct burst of electricity when the conditions are right (too much silver particles lining up and transfering those electrons). The term 'slightly capacitive' is just another made up term that Artic Silver uses to sell their products. As fake as AS3's 'Polysynthetic' term. Do not believe junk marketing, this stuff is conductive.

Well I always thought that capacitvie meant that it had the capacity for electricity.. i.e it held it in. where as conductive simple is a means of conveyance.... so the way I understood it is that if a charge go into the AS it could stay there and if the conditions are properly met it could then discharge... however it wouldn't necessarily allow a charge to go directly non-stop from one component to another...

 

[Algere]

Originally posted by: Richardito
As fake as AS3's 'Polysynthetic' term.

So what term would you use to label a combined mixture of artificial (not natural) chemicals?

 

[Redfoot]

Composite maybe?

 

[DrFragaTron]

Well I the answer came to me today. I was worried about this but I thought all was well after a month. The Zalman ZM-80D VGA cooler at about 1 pound was too heavy and was messing up the agp port and the cards connection to it.

Now I think I might play with the idea of shaving the valley's on the heatsink down giving it larger fins and removing a bunch of weight.... Play time!

 

[lavaheadache]

Glad you still have a working card

 

[AWhackWhiteBoy]

Originally posted by: TheStu

Well I always thought that capacitvie meant that it had the capacity for electricity.. i.e it held it in. where as conductive simple is a means of conveyance.... so the way I understood it is that if a charge go into the AS it could stay there and if the conditions are properly met it could then discharge... however it wouldn't necessarily allow a charge to go directly non-stop from one component to another...

yep, capacitive having potential to be more violent and focused.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: AWhackWhiteBoy

Originally posted by: TheStu
Well I always thought that capacitvie meant that it had the capacity for electricity.. i.e it held it in. where as conductive simple is a means of conveyance.... so the way I understood it is that if a charge go into the AS it could stay there and if the conditions are properly met it could then discharge... however it wouldn't necessarily allow a charge to go directly non-stop from one component to another...

yep, capacitive having potential to be more violent and focused.

This gives me a crazy idea.. take a larger-sized tube of AS5, and stick a couple of metal skewers (electrodes) into it.. and test whether or not it is capacitive or conductive or both. Mr. Wizard lives!

PS. In the strictest sense, nearly everything is conductive, once the voltage level applied crosses over the threshhold of the breakdown voltage. For pure metals, this threshold is very low. For "insulators", this threshold is very high. But if it can conduct ions at all, then it is conductive, at some level. (And in a pure vacuum, ions basically just keep travelling in a straight line, until they hit something. Kind of like what happens inside a CRT. At least I think so - I'm not an EE.)

I think that nearly any type of matter (even the best "insulators" at room-temp) can eventually be converted into a plasma, given enough input energy, at which point it liberates its electrons and becomes conductive. If only there wasn't the issue of containment and thermal entropy to worry about, you probably really could have a device like the "Mr. Fusion" from BTTF, feeding any type of matter into a mini-plasma-reactor.

 

[uOpt]

Time to get out an ohmmeter...

 

[uOpt]

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry
I think that nearly any type of matter (even the best "insulators" at room-temp) can eventually be converted into a plasma, [...]

If that happened to you should really scale back on the overclocking

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: MartinCracauer

Originally posted by: VirtualLarry
I think that nearly any type of matter (even the best "insulators" at room-temp) can eventually be converted into a plasma, [...]

If that happened to you should really scale back on the overclocking

I thought that was Intel's design goal for the Prescott? No?

 

[zakee00]

i replaced the stock stuff on my 6800GT with AS5 a week ago and its still working fine. i seriously doubt its as conductive as people make it out to be, espically considering how many people dont even apply it right. ive seen soooo many pics of people that plop half of the tube on the chip and dont even spread it out. anyone who has had problems probably didnt do it right
Nick

EDIT: From the AS website. I'm going to drop them an email later asking them about AS5's conductivity.

While much safer than electrically conductive silver and copper greases, Arctic Silver 5 should be kept away from electrical traces, pins, and leads. While it is not electrically conductive, the compound is very slightly capacitive and could potentially cause problems if it bridges two close-proximity electrical paths.

then again, EVERYTHING should be kept away from traces, pins, and leads...

 

[uOpt]

Physics guru question:

can something be capacitive if it is not conductive?

I know conductive depends on the voltage, so let me rephrase, if something is capacitive, doesn't it have to conduct pretty well?