When do you need new thermal paste?

[Gunky]

I received a broken 2001 1.0 Xbox for free. I removed the clock capacitor, rerouted some trace rot. After that, it seemed to be working great besides terrible disc reading (even after a pot tweak). I ignored the often suggested thermal paste replacement thinking "don't fix what ain't broke" and bought a new laser, after all, I got the thing for free. It's working great as far as I can tell.

BUT the lingering thought of thermal paste wormed it's way into my brain, after all, most people seem to suggest it (sometimes to do it just cuz). The combination of so many people suggesting it, and some of the counter-arguments to it on this forum made me pretty anxious about the whole ordeal. Especially after investing money into this.

SO when does one know when, or if they should change the paste? I basically have the oldest OG Xbox possible, and it seems to work fine. I noticed the fan area in the back can get warmish when reading discs - but I've never had an xbox, and this could be normal. I haven't modded it, so I don't know its temps. Should I be worried? or bothered? Should I mod the console just to see the temps, just to be sure? Is the Xbox good enough at knowing when it has overheated to reliably leave it alone until theres a tangible issue? 

TLDR; I'm overly paranoid about my newly acquired 1.0 xbox, and don't know how necessary it is, or when I should replace the thermal paste.

Thanks for any replies! It's much appreciated.

[fox]

I think they automatically shut off like any PC if either processor reaches critical temperature (80c iirc), so your box is probably not in danger of a meltdown if you've ran it and auto-shutoff hasn't happened. But if you're worried just buy a high quality paste from a reputable seller and change the stuff, it's not gonna make your box run worse, and who gives a crap what other people say?

Let the thing run for a good while though to get the factory paste warm so you don't risk tearing a processor off the board.

[Bowlsnapper]

Basically it's when you are showing temperatures in software that are much hotter than what you feel when you put your hand on your heatsink.  It is no longer efficiently transferring heat from surface to surface. IR thermometer would be useful in this.

@Gunky

[FrostyMaGee]

3 hours ago, Gunky said:

I received a broken 2001 1.0 Xbox for free. I removed the clock capacitor, rerouted some trace rot. After that, it seemed to be working great besides terrible disc reading (even after a pot tweak). I ignored the often suggested thermal paste replacement thinking "don't fix what ain't broke" and bought a new laser, after all, I got the thing for free. It's working great as far as I can tell.

BUT the lingering thought of thermal paste wormed it's way into my brain, after all, most people seem to suggest it (sometimes to do it just cuz). The combination of so many people suggesting it, and some of the counter-arguments to it on this forum made me pretty anxious about the whole ordeal. Especially after investing money into this.

SO when does one know when, or if they should change the paste? I basically have the oldest OG Xbox possible, and it seems to work fine. I noticed the fan area in the back can get warmish when reading discs - but I've never had an xbox, and this could be normal. I haven't modded it, so I don't know its temps. Should I be worried? or bothered? Should I mod the console just to see the temps, just to be sure? Is the Xbox good enough at knowing when it has overheated to reliably leave it alone until theres a tangible issue? 

TLDR; I'm overly paranoid about my newly acquired 1.0 xbox, and don't know how necessary it is, or when I should replace the thermal paste.

Thanks for any replies! It's much appreciated.

Honestly if you’re running for a few hours and still in the 45-55C range you’re probably fine. The 1.0 has the case fan and a fan on the gpu and tends to run cooler than the aforementioned. 
 

Should you want to replace the thermal though just be sure to do a few things. 

-as fox and thairanny mention be sure to heat up the cpu/gpu by either letting it run for ten or so mins or using a heat gun. The cpu heat sink will probably fall off on its own after the clip is removed. The gpu heat sink almost always sticks hence the needed heat. Do not try and pry them off or force them off. You can irreparably damage your system doing this. If there’s still resistance it needs to be heated up a bit more. You should easily be able to slightly twist them loose. I use a heat gun and it usually takes less than ten secs on a low temp before it comes loose. 

-also mentioned was to take care when removing the clips. They’re old and can be brittle. The best way is to use your finger or thumb to press in on the smaller side of the clip and gently work the main (larger) side of the clip loose with your other hand. This is the nice way and tends to have less of a chance to break than using a flathead on the clip ends. Just keep in mind that sometimes they can still break due to age and material. Go slow and don’t force it. 
 

-get a good quality thermal paste and be sure you’re applying the correct amount. 
 

-as for cleaning off the old I personally like the ArtiClean 1 + 2 package but there are other ways. That’s just my preference. 
 

Edited January 18 by FrostyMaGee

[Gunky]

8 hours ago, FrostyMaGee said:

Honestly if you’re running for a few hours and still in the 45-55C range you’re probably fine. The 1.0 has the case fan and a fan on the gpu and tends to run cooler than the aforementioned. 
 

Should you want to replace the thermal though just be sure to do a few things. 

-as fox and thairanny mention be sure to heat up the cpu/gpu by either letting it run for ten or so mins or using a heat gun. The cpu heat sink will probably fall off on its own after the clip is removed. The gpu heat sink almost always sticks hence the needed heat. Do not try and pry them off or force them off. You can irreparably damage your system doing this. If there’s still resistance it needs to be heated up a bit more. You should easily be able to slightly twist them loose. I use a heat gun and it usually takes less than ten secs on a low temp before it comes loose. 

-also mentioned was to take care when removing the clips. They’re old and can be brittle. The best way is to use your finger or thumb to press in on the smaller side of the clip and gently work the main (larger) side of the clip loose with your other hand. This is the nice way and tends to have less of a chance to break than using a flathead on the clip ends. Just keep in mind that sometimes they can still break due to age and material. Go slow and don’t force it. 
 

-get a good quality thermal paste and be sure you’re applying the correct amount. 
 

-as for cleaning off the old I personally like the ArtiClean 1 + 2 package but there are other ways. That’s just my preference. 
 

Thanks for the advice!
How much thermal paste would you say is the correct amount? I've seen people add relatively little, and some quite a lot. I've heard people say "you can't add too much" and some say that too much will break your Xbox. It's definitely one of the more ambiguous parts of this to me, as I've never dealt with thermal paste.

[Gunky]

8 hours ago, Bowlsnapper said:

Basically it's when you are showing temperatures in software that are much hotter than what you feel when you put your hand on your heatsink.  It is no longer efficiently transferring heat from surface to surface. IR thermometer would be useful in this.

@Gunky

Great idea! I never would have thought to use an IR thermometer, I should be able to borrow one over the weekend. I assume I can leave the case closed? Sorry for stupid questions, but this has been my first big electronics project, learning as I go : ) 

[Bowlsnapper]

35 minutes ago, Gunky said:

Great idea! I never would have thought to use an IR thermometer, I should be able to borrow one over the weekend. I assume I can leave the case closed? Sorry for stupid questions, but this has been my first big electronics project, learning as I go : ) 

Nah. I would open the case and point the crosshair at the very bottom of the block. I am honestly not sure how accurate a heatsink reading would be or what the temps should look like, since it is already cooling to the atmosphere.

As frosty said, your temps should be within a certain range. if they are higher, that's pretty much your sign right there that the paste isn't doing its job since the processor temps are usually pretty consistent, under a load or not. Use a pea size amount of thermal paste and no more. That will be plenty by the time you've pushed down the blocks and flattened the paste. When you open it, It would be cool to see how hot the sinks run when on for a while. The only problem is, without the drive bays covering the heatsinks, there is not proper airflow to cool your processors and something could overheat, especially the GPU, so I don't know if I want to recommend that! Good airflow will make your heatsinks pretty cool, in the first place. (thinking about this all now)

[Bowlsnapper]

4 minutes ago, Thairanny said:

The heat sink would need to be at steady state for the thermometer to matter. Using a soldering iron or heat gu. Should only take max like 10 seconds to heat it enough to remove it. It’s really the exact same a changing a PC’s thermal paste. In this case, it’s just a PC from 2001. My mom’s 2006 prebuild had virtually concrete for thermal paste, and I change it back in 2014. It what the really cheap white China paste. 

As for the heat sink retention arms, they are keyed slightly differently on each side. If I remember correctly, you want to unhook the side that does not have a tab pointing at it first. I will get a small star bit or something on my screwdriver that fits between the mounting bracket and the little  cylindrical peg, then gently move one side out of the socket, the switch to the other side and the whole thing pops out. I’m sure there is a good video online.

I wanted to point tout that when heatsinks and the adhesive are that hard to remove, what's being used is likely thermal GLUE, not just paste. Meant to keep that heatsink there no matter what happens!  It comes in handy when you don't have a way to clamp the heatsink down in some situations, like the CPU upgrade for this console.

[prtscn]

Never.

xbox doesn't use thermal paste, its more like a thermal compound that will outlast your lifetime. Not sure about CPU, i seen similar rubbery stuff on old pentium 3s.

 

[Bowlsnapper]

32 minutes ago, prtscn said:

Never.

xbox doesn't use thermal paste, its more like a thermal compound that will outlast your lifetime. Not sure about CPU, i seen similar rubbery stuff on old pentium 3s.

 

I've never needed to do it. I know that. lol. That stuff is bulletproof.

[Raidernick]

1 hour ago, Thairanny said:

Has anyone ever used liquid metal?

That would be a great idea if you want to destroy the console. The heatsink and die have to be specifically designed to use liquid metal. You might be able to use a clear coat of paint or nailpolish or uv mask or something over the entire interposer of the cpu and then install some kind of sponge around it like on the ps5. That wouldn't solve the problem of the heatsinks being aluminum, which will absorb the liquid metal over time(actually corroding them), drying the area out and basically causing it to act like it has no paste/liquid metal on it. It will also cause the die to oxidize on top which prevents the liquid metal from even adhering to the surface, it will actually travel away from the die and surround the outside of it rather than sitting on top. Finally, you have the issue of the gpu, it's not even metal but plastic. Liquid metal does not work on plastic.

This is all besides the point that the xbox doesn't even get hot, the liquid metal even if it worked wouldn't make any meaningful difference to temperatures. Stick with paste.

Edited January 19 by Raidernick

[HDShadow]

The existing thermal paste used by the manufacturers is meant to be rock hard at room temperature as others here have said.

I've done test case thermal paste replacement and seen no significant improvement in the real or reported temperatures. I only trust XBMC and its variants; UnleashX and EvoX are both unreliable in that respect but still can inform you reliably if there is some unusual temperature rise from whatever 'normal' range you get. That varies with ambient temperature, console location and Xbox version.

If you do decide to replace the paste for whatever reason then use guides for PC CPU chip heat sink thermal paste application. Basically you need two ultra clean surfaces and minimum thermal paste use. The recommendation is a small pea size blob in the centre of the chip but there are various alternatives methods that can work as well.

Tinting, which is applying a thin pre-coat of paste on the chip and heat sink contact plate then wiping it off not using any cleaner is said to help fill the imperfections in the two contact surfaces better. It is debatable whether it has any significant effect but I do it anyway.  

Main thing is not to use too much thermal paste however it is applied. So if it squirts out around the edges of the heat sink then you're using far too much. If the paste is a conductive type, just like solder splatter, that can be bad for the same, obvious reason.

[Gunky]

I appreciate all the response's. Though, I'm still on the fence about doing it. Obviously many, many people have changed the thermal paste with no issue at all and have been fine. I'm also skeptical that even if the used substance isn't normal paste that it wouldn't need to be replaced at some point as well, but, there is also something worrying about replacing with a different substance than intended. So I think I'll wait until I know my xbox is for sure having heat troubles...

So, is there any other tips on finding xbox temps besides IR Thermometer? I don't really plan on modding my xbox until the harddrive gives out personally. (I know softmodding is how most people measure temps) I'll try the IR for fun, but if that's not accurate am I sort of screwed on knowing for sure? 
 

[Bowlsnapper]

2 hours ago, Gunky said:

I appreciate all the response's. Though, I'm still on the fence about doing it. Obviously many, many people have changed the thermal paste with no issue at all and have been fine. I'm also skeptical that even if the used substance isn't normal paste that it wouldn't need to be replaced at some point as well, but, there is also something worrying about replacing with a different substance than intended. So I think I'll wait until I know my xbox is for sure having heat troubles...

So, is there any other tips on finding xbox temps besides IR Thermometer? I don't really plan on modding my xbox until the harddrive gives out personally. (I know softmodding is how most people measure temps) I'll try the IR for fun, but if that's not accurate am I sort of screwed on knowing for sure? 
 

Temperatures will be recorded in your dashboard. When in XBMC I go to system info with the right stick button and I am showed CPU and GPU temps. This is done with a hardmod. Softmodding is janky. I wouldn't wait for a HDD failure... unless you don't feel comfortable soldering. 

I wouldn't want to mess with the thermal paste, either. Unless your system is experiencing lockups, it's really not needed. This thing doesn't get that hot when cooled with properly functioning fans. 

[Gunky]

20 minutes ago, Bowlsnapper said:

Temperatures will be recorded in your dashboard. When in XBMC I go to system info with the right stick button and I am showed CPU and GPU temps. This is done with a hardmod. Softmodding is janky. I wouldn't wait for a HDD failure... unless you don't feel comfortable soldering. 

I wouldn't want to mess with the thermal paste, either. Unless your system is experiencing lockups, it's really not needed. This thing doesn't get that hot when cooled with properly functioning fans. 

I was hoping to keep my system stock, but I heard a mod-chip would make putting a new hardrive in easy by bypassing the eeprom stuff . So I figured if my hardrive ever fails, I'll buy a hardmod and a new hardrive. Is this stupid, or bad logic on my part? That was just my plan from reading various things over the web. Either way, not sure how likely it is for my HDD to fail to begin with.

[Bowlsnapper]

2 hours ago, Gunky said:

I was hoping to keep my system stock, but I heard a mod-chip would make putting a new hardrive in easy by bypassing the eeprom stuff . So I figured if my hardrive ever fails, I'll buy a hardmod and a new hardrive. Is this stupid, or bad logic on my part? That was just my plan from reading various things over the web. Either way, not sure how likely it is for my HDD to fail to begin with.

Locking is basically a non-issue at that point, correct. Modding your system will make it a LOT more fun to use. You can install emulators on it, supporting multiplayer so you can play with friends. You can find HDD images that will come with every single xbox game ever released, as long as you have at least a 2TB drive. It basically turns it into a kind of PC. The work can end up being rewarding as well and will help you build confidence in those skills, if it's something that you would want in your life. The only trade off is that you would be learning with your only console, so you definitely don't wanna break it, as I'm sure it has sentimental value.

You have no idea when your HDD will fail, and I don't see that as any logical reason to wait to mod your system. It could still take several years. I say go for it. Are you able to solder?

[Gunky]

1 hour ago, Bowlsnapper said:

Locking is basically a non-issue at that point, correct. Modding your system will make it a LOT more fun to use. You can install emulators on it, supporting multiplayer so you can play with friends. You can find HDD images that will come with every single xbox game ever released, as long as you have at least a 2TB drive. It basically turns it into a kind of PC. The work can end up being rewarding as well and will help you build confidence in those skills, if it's something that you would want in your life. The only trade off is that you would be learning with your only console, so you definitely don't wanna break it, as I'm sure it has sentimental value.

You have no idea when your HDD will fail, and I don't see that as any logical reason to wait to mod your system. It could still take several years. I say go for it. Are you able to solder?

Yes! I learned to solder just to fix this Xbox, it had some trace rot. Though, I think I got lucky and it was stupid not to use flux...but it worked out. The mod chips I've seen look easy to install in comparison, so I'm not too worried about messing something like that up.
Modding definitely seems fun, and I get why people do it. But for now, a lot of the fun of old consoles to me is the original context and thrifting for games. I get really overwhelmed when I have so many choices, so limiting use to what games I can afford is more appealing to me than having everything at once. (And compared to my other consoles, almost everything I want on xbox is dirt cheap).

I'm sure modding is in this Xbox's future, just not anytime soon. : )

[Bowlsnapper]

13 minutes ago, Gunky said:

Yes! I learned to solder just to fix this Xbox, it had some trace rot. Though, I think I got lucky and it was stupid not to use flux...but it worked out. The mod chips I've seen look easy to install in comparison, so I'm not too worried about messing something like that up.
Modding definitely seems fun, and I get why people do it. But for now, a lot of the fun of old consoles to me is the original context and thrifting for games. I get really overwhelmed when I have so many choices, so limiting use to what games I can afford is more appealing to me than having everything at once. (And compared to my other consoles, almost everything I want on xbox is dirt cheap).

I'm sure modding is in this Xbox's future, just not anytime soon. : )

Do you just like collecting the games, themselves? Because you are spending money when you don't need to. But if it's about the collecting, then I suppose it doesn't really matter. There are so many games out there I just can't justify spending on it, when I could just download them all, as a matter of practicality... but maybe practicality has nothing to do with it.

Well, if you change your mind, come back here and hit us up. We will get you all sorted out. It's fun and awesome though, Im tellin ya.

[Gunky]

3 hours ago, Bowlsnapper said:

Do you just like collecting the games, themselves? Because you are spending money when you don't need to. But if it's about the collecting, then I suppose it doesn't really matter. There are so many games out there I just can't justify spending on it, when I could just download them all, as a matter of practicality... but maybe practicality has nothing to do with it.

Well, if you change your mind, come back here and hit us up. We will get you all sorted out. It's fun and awesome though, Im tellin ya.

Thanks! I wouldn't consider myself a "collector" because I sell games as soon as I know I don't like them, or won't play them anymore. But there's something a little more engaging about the whole experience to me when I don't have immediate access to everything at once. I know it's a bit odd, but hey, thats my brain I guess. I will come back if I ever need support, and I'll make some updates on the heating stuff if I can...

When you guy's play games, how warm does it get in the back during gameplay? I've been physically reaching back and feeling the console while playing occasionally (Case is on), and mine gets pretty warm. Warmer then any console I've ever owned for sure. Not sure if thats normal, or an easy indicator mine is ready for a change without exact temps or a shutdown. Everything runs fine, I was playing guilty gear for a few hours. Maybe I'm just in denial and should change the paste already, haha.

[Bowlsnapper]

28 minutes ago, Gunky said:

Thanks! I wouldn't consider myself a "collector" because I sell games as soon as I know I don't like them, or won't play them anymore. But there's something a little more engaging about the whole experience to me when I don't have immediate access to everything at once. I know it's a bit odd, but hey, thats my brain I guess. I will come back if I ever need support, and I'll make some updates on the heating stuff if I can...

When you guy's play games, how warm does it get in the back during gameplay? I've been physically reaching back and feeling the console while playing occasionally (Case is on), and mine gets pretty warm. Warmer then any console I've ever owned for sure. Not sure if thats normal, or an easy indicator mine is ready for a change without exact temps or a shutdown. Everything runs fine, I was playing guilty gear for a few hours. Maybe I'm just in denial and should change the paste already, haha.

If you're feeling heat back there, especially a lot, that means your heatsinks are doing their job and that the paste is transferring heat effectively. Your fans are then pulling air through the sinks and removing it from the case. Your only problem then would be if your processors were running too hot, but you would experience bottlenecking like frameskipping or lockups before you ever really overheated.  So you're thinking of it backwards. If you feel lots of heat out the back, then your paste is fine. But if you feel nothing but ambient air out the back but have symptoms of overheating (performance-wise) THEN you would have to worry about your thermal paste. Make sense?