Effects of Liquid Metal After 9 Months
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- Опубліковано 11 лип 2019
- Effects of Liquid Metal After 9 Months - About 9 months ago I upgraded the thermal paste on my Xbox One X to liquid metal. The liquid metal definitely seemed to keep the Xbox cooler but I got a lot of comments on my last video wondering if the liquid metal would damage the console. So now I'm taking that same console apart to see if the liquid metal has damaged the heat sink or any other components.
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About This Video: In this video I'm taking apart my Xbox One X that I previously removed the thermal paste and applied liquid metal for increased cooling. 9 months after it was applied, and with minimal playing of this console, it does seem like the liquid metal may have integrated into the copper as I wasn't able to remove all of it from the heat sink. However, after reapplying the thermal paste and putting everything back together the console still seems to work fine.
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Who spotted the easter egg?
Is that your wife? haha
You painted your fingernails?
who's the lady eh? ;+)
Black finger nails ftw
I've seen it ;)
PS5: *liquid metal*
PS6: *solid snake*
I really hope its reliable tbh kinda worried ngl
@@izzy8609 Sony has put a few yrs in the testing and they have designed the cooler to be used with liquid metal.
@@gamingdad2549 let's hope it pans out ok
@@izzy8609 Well the people who buy it at launch will be the beta testers.
@@homelessguy7944 I'm contemplating on doing so cause of the hype ngl, its super tempting so I could just have it in my hands on day one
It's not damaged. Liquid metal is mainly gallium, which creates alloys with other metals easily. It's completely normal.
Yep, LM my Xbox One X. No regrets.
So i guess to simplify, it basically stains the copper, but doesn't damage it.
@@TakeNoShift It creates an alloy with it . IF you count that as damage or not is up to you.
Well check Galiums reaction with Aluminium... if its an Alloy, it gets other properties, even for "heat transport" you dont want alloys to form.
@@TakeNoShift no it corroded the heat sink mixing metals will always cause corrosion
You do not want to scratch the liquid metal off the heat sink it does virtually nothing at all (in terms of performance degradation) might as well leave it on since it's easier. On a side note liquid metal does react with copper but not seriously it will absorb some of the gallium which is why liquid metal tends to dry out. Long story short the gallium in liquid metal and copper are both attracted to each other and the gallium ends up soaking into the copper some. This is a good thing tho if you plan to reapply liquid metal, like I said they are both attracted to each other (copper has 29 protons and 29 electrons while gallium has 31 protons and 31 electrons) they both balance each other out and that layer stuck on your heat sink creates a neutral charged zone where (once a sufficient layer is built up) they no longer attract preventing the liquid metal from drying out on the second application.
In terms of liquid metal that layer is a good thing and actually improves the liquid metals performance over the first application as the copper will absorb a lot of the first applications gallium causing it to slowly dry out until they have both built up a sufficient neutral charge preventing the gallium in the liquid metal from reacting further with the copper.
This should be top comment, thats exactly what I noticed when I wanted to put Liquid Metal on my stained cooper cooler again from my AIO, it didnt stick at all so I reapplied it just on my CPU IHS and have perfect temps again after 1 year, I guess it wont dry out anymore now on my IHS.
So in terms of a second application, clean it off the APU but leave it on the copper and then re-apply?
What about the GPU die....Cause it seems that it got a slight damage on it...
so its not damaged then? its normal that the copper heatsink looks like that after long term liquid metal use? im planning to use it on my Zephyrus laptop but im concerned about the looks of the heatsink in many videos :(
Mostly true, except that the copper gallium alloy is actually less thermally conductive than copper alone, but the difference is not big. When applying liquid metal on bare copper you always need to reapply in a few months because of the gallium and copper reaction making the liquid metal "dry out"
7:16 did your wife want to help ;)
😉
lol
What is up with the Winking Faces
@@WantBadtime 😉
He got his mum to help him :).
The mad lad injected the T-1000 into his game system.
"A mimetic poly alloyed" x)
I use homemade liquid metal for competitive overclocking (with chilled water custom loops). It’s not going to damage the silicon but it will “soak” into the crystalline structure of the copper. This doesn’t hurt the thermal performance of the copper if you go back to normal thermal paste with the same cooler, but, it will be permanently discolored. You can usually restore the look of the cooler by lapping and polishing the cold plate. But the juice isn’t really worth the squeeze, so to speak, as it doesn’t improve the cooling capacity. I also use Thermal Grizzly liquid metal in my gaming laptop to get better performance, but this isn’t something I would recommend for 99% of users (including console gamers). You risk killing your hardware not only with the liquid metal but by handling it every time you pull it apart (I’ve killed more than one component with it). I’ve also found that conformal coating isn’t 100% effective in protecting against liquid metal. I’ve seen some brands of conformal coating turn back into gooey liquid when exposed to liquid metal allowing the liquid metal to short components. If you want to replace your factory thermal paste with something better, Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut is the best traditional thermal paste (for standard air or water cooling) that I’ve used thus far.
The gallium will migrate over time, but it's basically just a gallium plating like what is done with nickel on CPUs
Great video as always
"So, let's take it apart." His favorite part of every video. :)
I've used liquid metal with pc's and delidded processors for a long long time, that's normal and doesn't hurt the copper or performance.
Did you get yourself a hand model or just fancied up your nails for a moment? 7:06
I think that is his wife.
@@aawscoggis That was the part he recorded straight back from a drag queen party :D
(no offence meant, love the content ! :P)
So everyone here is talking about the hands but no one is talking about the liquid metal thing
common youtube coments trend to talk about anything except what the video was about
Yt comments are usually a toilet but sometimes there is gold
Hi
A few things to consider :
A. Using the console will heat up the cpu and cause the liquid metal to expand.
B. To scrape the liquid metal you should have heat it up.
Liquid metal will react with copper, forming an alloy, but the reaction is self-limiting as the layer of the alloy on the surface of copper should not penetrate deeper into the heat sink and actually form a protective layer that stops further reaction. That layer that You could not remove was exactly that. It would be completely different with aluminium, as the reaction is different and it forms a brittle and POROUS alloy taht will literally "suck" in more and more liquid metal as the alloy forms and the corrosion will continue to penetrate untill there is no more metal to react. It's a BIG ISSUE with some cheaper water cooling blocks that are made out of unplated aluminium as they will not only get brittle and porous, but may actually start to leak on to your precious electronics.
Dude. You freaked me out. I was looking around earlier on how to apply liquid metal and whether or not it would be a good long term fit. Then I look in the feed and this video was uploaded. I've never even thought of liquid metal until today.
I'm just going with Arctic MX5, thanks!
I like low temps but every video I've seen of people taking it off after some months show some low level damage to the dies.
you've got nice nails at 7:05 ;-) thanks for your videos... really nice
Awww yeah it's Friday time for another awesome episode of tronicsfix!
Glad you're enjoying them!
Little did he know that ps5 will have liquid metal coolin by default
They put on more, looks like he didn't put on enough and cooked it solid.
Anyone noticed a hand change at 7:07 ? was a female hand, with black painted nails
Warning do not get liquid metal on your finger nails-it turns them black!!!!😯🤪
I love your videos. I like that you show all the details, give some tips and advices and commenting it :).
Plus your voice and the music is very relaxing :).
Thanks!
@@Tronicsfix Thanks for making these content :)
sounds like great heatsink compound if it bonds with the surface a little.
Loving the black nail polish.....lookin good😉
Great vid, & yeah....was worrying me when started using a pick to heat sink; glad you had that disclaimer for ppl who don’t know better👍🏻
Cheers✌🏼
I spotted hands with black painted nails. lol.
the issue with liquid metal / gallium ( apart from when mixed with aluminum) is when its directly on a high wattage CPU die , as you need something spongy to handle hot / cold phases
It’s because the copper heat sink was cast formed not machined so the surface is slightly porous from the fine casting sand.
Depends on what you're applying it to - copper will corrode a little bit, aluminum will corrode a lot, but stuff like the IHS in CPU's which are nickel plated are usually fine.
7:07 Good nail polish bro
it's rare finding people who would actually go back and investigate, 2x Thumbs up dude!!
You should all know, this is one of the best out there. He knows his suff.
You can try using a 2000 grit sandpaper to lapped the heatsink if you want to remove the alloying. Dont remove too much cooper as your heatsink is a vapor chamber also use a flat surface to lap like a flat glass to ensure consistent flatness on the vapor chamber. I lapped my vega 64 vapor chamber with this method. Got a nice -5C temperature reduction as well. Im using a TG kryonaut on before and after test.
6years LM without changing it still cooling great, temps are as far as i remember the same, around the same maxed out on my cpu, like if i encode a video, 100% usage on all cores 70C, and it was like that before that, LM is pretty epic, ill use it in my next PC
I thought I was watching a video on The Wolfe Pit channel during the reassembly. :)
Great video and information, thank you!
Can you tell me what goes wrong with Modem/Routers when they quit working?
I have several that have died over the years and I always wondered why they quit.
They all start out great, then after time they start dropping the connection until they finally will not reconnect again. Thanks.
Lol I thought it was just me ..... I was about to go back and start watching all videos again did I miss those new hands on all of the other videos...
how can you tell if you never play the thing? It has to go through regular heat cool cycles to make a determination
Who spotted the hands change lol
Anyone wondering about liquid metal (I work with it regularly):
1. It does only eat through alimin(i)um. Copper is fine.
2. While it dries out on copper the cooling performance stays the same. It does stain but that does not impact anything. After removing anything with liquid metal you need to reapply it.
Do you know what material is on the PS5's SoC that makes contact with the chip and so the liquid metal?
It doesn't seem like copper
@@torqq69 Do you mean the chip itself or the heatsink?
@@mrawesomelemons I mean the heatsink
great content, great easter egg! much love
7:07 nice nails!
It also does this with nickel plated copper, had my temps rise a noticeable amount after three years. My noctua cooler had a nice dried chunk under it. Under my 4670k ihs the gallium was still perfect liquid which is amazing for three years.
But 3 years is much longer than the time to noticeable temperature increases on copper (on average 1 year?).
I see 2 possible explanations for your experience:
1) the nickel plating on the IHS (lid) is much thicker than on your Noctua cooler and/or
2) your Noctua cooler presses the liquid metal to a much lower thickness than the IHS/lid can do this and in combination with nickel plated copper on both sides the much thinner TIM on top of the lid must become hard first (due to the lower thickness there is less gallium present and this leaves the liquid metal with double the speed/to both sides).
The staining visible on nickel plated copper after long contact with liquid metal clearly shows, there is also some reaction gallium with nickel, but just staining instead of a full area discoloration on copper shows the reaction speed on nickel is much lower.
As bottom line of your experience I would say application of liquid metal on a delidded CPU (below the lid) may be OK for life time of the CPU, but applying in on top of a lid towards an air/Noctua/water cooler requires service after some time (is for enthusiasts wanting to spend this effort to get lowest temperatures).
As far as I've always known, Gallium will destroy aluminum. With copper I think it just bonds with it creating an alloy of sorts.
It's late, but I had to finish watch the video even tho I'm falling sleep
Just for laughs, I'd love a vid of you taking apart and putting back together a whole console blindfolded (applying the perfect amount of thermal paste, of course).
Already did: ua-cam.com/video/9rLBSiFah-s/v-deo.html
@@Tronicsfix 😲😎 you R O C K!
Saw a 2nd set of hands in there lol
Yep with black nail polish
idk what you're talking about 😉
That is the liquid metal reacting with the fingernails! ;-)
The liquid metal works pretty well on coil, in other metals it causes damage, sorry my english isn't so good, and my knowledge, so if I'm wrong I'll be happy to learn something new jajaja great channel, thanks for sharing
Thermal transfer paste serves 2 purposes simitaniously, one is that it helps transfer heat from one surface to the other, two it will 'make up' for imperfections between the 2 machined surfaces, both of these properties are why its used. There is a trade off in thermal transfer efficiency of the paste as the gap increases between the two mating surfaces and the types of metals used.
You've made an amalgam!
Look up what happens when you allow gallium to contact bare aluminum. Looks like the amalgam you made there doesn't affect the structural integraty of the copper.
Your hands turned very pretty and got nail polish on the reassemble lol 👍👍
scouring cream and light pressure and time. good vid as always
You should use acetone and or war up the consol a bit to make the liquid metal removal easier
Acetone dissolves plastic and there is a lot of plastic on a console and some of that plastic is highly important especially on the motherboard.
@@LoneWolf5841- im not saying tobspray it on the board but on qtip that logic
@@TheDarckstart still too risky if you accidentally get any Acetone on the motherboard you will ruin the console, my friend found that out the hard way. Much safer to use IPA and it works well for cleaning. The only reason it was harder to get off the liquid metal is because it bonded with the heat sink creating an alloy.
@@LoneWolf5841- or using alcool but trying to clean liqid petal dry isnt the best way
@@TheDarckstart not when it bonded to the heat sink. I use Arctic Silver 5 as it is the best thermal paste. Liquid metal seems to cause problems
Sony engineer said copper isn’t as vulnerable as aluminium, but still degrades over time.
They’ve opted for a (likely nickel) plated copper heatsink. Nickel plated copper is what’s used in proper PC builds and in some commercial telecoms equipment.
After watching some other videos like The King Of Random and The Lockpicking Lawyer playing with gallium and mercury, and watching your video now, I don't have a shred of doubt in my mind that the liquid metal is forming an alloy with the copper. That just seems to be a thing that liquid metals do. It makes a certain amount of sense, after all, since you ordinarily make alloys by melting different metals together, and liquid metals are already "melted".
Liquid Metal is mainly made of gallium. If you applied it to aluminum and the gallium concentration was high, it could eat away. However, gallium does not have the strength to break the bonds of copper and will not. Yes, traditional liquid metal doesn’t last as long as thermal paste. However, thermal grizzly and the liquid metal used in the PS5 and Series S/X is especially made for long term use.
Just subscribed because I have been watching your videos for a bit now and I like all the videos!
I wouldn't use that liquid metal because of the difficulty of removal,that's pretty crazy.I was thinking about trying it,not now,lol,I'll stick to Arctic silver.Thanks for the video,this is good to know.
I wonder how deep this amalgamation is, but I would at least have given it some scrubbing with iron wool and perhaps some polishing to make it more smooth.
Hindsight: You should have taped around the outside CPU ring of the heatsink, then took a sander and sanded it flat (lapped it).
At least, that's how you would fix uneven bevels or scratches back in the day.
LM tends to leech in to copper, does not destroy copper, like aluminum, but causes LM to loose gallium it will leave behind other metals, like tin, that is hard and brittle.
It's fine tho, but requires maintenance once a year or whenever noise/temps ramps up.
Thus it's not maintenance free, nickel plated heatsink solves the problem, the problem is electric potential: gallium is -0.53V, nickel -0.24V, and copper +0.34V, using nickel practically eliminates leeching. LM also oxidizes, that's why it's advised to seal of LM from the air.
Gallium doesn’t corrode copper and it doesn’t ‘dry’ like thermal paste does, it has a boiling point of 2400 Celsius, meaning if it did evaporate, it would probably be the last thing in that Xbox to do so. It could be the liquid metal wasn’t pure enough
Oh wow. I was like "oh cool this is why i like this channel, he scrapped all the crap of the heat sink, now I know this isn't a thing you are suppose to do. Good thing i never messed with any
Best made console this generation if not ever.
Like always, your video is superb dude
this is avery cool channel .... i got sick of linus tt and his constant gloating then i found this place.... ive learned way more that i can actualy apply then anything he vidz..... keep them coming bro :)
Best combination for liquid metal is nickel-platted copper IHS and nickel-plated coldplate on the cooler. With copper you will always see some pitting and discoloration but the thermal performance should remain the same.
Any comparisons for noise & heat with AS5? I've used it on both Xbox & PS systems for years and always noticed a decrease in noise, definitely worth the effort to apply.
Galvanic corrosion (also called bimetallic corrosion) is an electrochemical process in which one metal corrodes preferentially when it is in electrical contact with another, in the presence of an electrolyte.
I changed the thermal paste on my old Fat PS3 because it sounded like a jet engine. It helped a little but I might have to do a fan mod to reduce the noise.
Use vinegar to de-oxidize the copper and gallium hardens below 86F so warming it up will soften it and make it easier to remove.
In the PC world a process called lapping exist. You can sand the copper surface until it's shiny which will allow for better thermal conductivity. I'm sure you knew.
It does just fuse into the copper and leaves that silver stain on it. Doesn't hurt it though, my PS4 Pro had the same thing. I noticed it getting louder over time so I pulled it apart to clean it up. I went with Kyronaut the second time. It's been perfectly fine.
You should be more worried about the stains on the die itself. Those stains don't come off and if too much of them accumulate, they can interfere with heat transfer, in which case, you would have to lap the die.
The surface of the copper plate touching the APU Die is now uneven for sure, you can get away from that by sanding the plate to make it flat again - the thermals with that will definitely get worse overtime.
I would do that same to that as what I did to a 980ti I tried it on. To get the stained surface off I used a flat edge with wet and dry sandpaper. And actually took that area through to a mirror finish.
Another awesome video keep em coming!
Thanks! Will do.
It likely amalgamated into the heat sink. Liquid metals tend to chemically react with others, though idk what metal the liquid was.
gamers nexus tested this... dont use LM with aluminum heatsink, it ruins it...copper and nickel plated copper heatsinks are ok to use, the LM discolors it but performance is not effected
After how long did he tested performance for the second time?
Another great video
Any update regarding the huge pile of Xbox One S with partial power
i dont know what 'liquid metal' is made of, but if two different metals are in constant contact, there will be galvanic action between the metals.
My man Tronics did it before Sony
After that much scratching I think you definitely should have lapped the heatsink
Who had the painted nails? I saw a ring, is that your wife?
So i can tell you from personal experience running liquid metal on a pascal titan x for over a year that the metal will harden into a plating on the copper side and itll harden onto the writing on the chip. On the copper side i literally had to use rouge polishing compound with a dremel to remove it
Just sand it down with a soft sand paper. Also after than use a rotary polisher with a high quality car polish. And YES it works on both heatsink and even APU! It will bring them back to better than new 100%. Would be a great idea for a video if you want. See how good it turns out 😊
Ilove LM, fills in porous copper heatsinks and waterblocks.
If you didn't scratch at the copper heat sink there'd probably be minimal performance impact.
I know if I notice a higher temperature I'll likely end up redoing the liquid metal application on my i5 4670k. At least once I confirm that it's not just my thermal paste getting too aged.
Hello! How you doing! I really like your videos, i'm learning a lot! Have you ever tried to fix dead pc motherboards and PC stuff :O ?
Greetings from Chile!
You should have sanded the heat sink with very fine paper and water. That way the contact would be much better and it would have removed also more of the possible oxidation etc. that could deteriorate heat transfer.
Has anyone ever paid attention to his hands?
You don't really need to press hard, you just need to scrub lightly forever with the cotton swab. For large chunks, I use a toothpick. I used to think I that to press hard, but just looking at the cotton swab, you can tell it always keeps gathering a little silvery particles. Takes forever, but it does come out (of the CPU side). As for the copper itself, it doesn't matter if it integrates with the liquid metal. Zinc neither. The only danger is aluminum, because aluminum makes these long hair strings that can cause short-circuit. The copper merging with the liquid metal does not affect the thermodynamic cooling much (less than 0.5C).
I think you should give the heatsink a little heat when trying to cleat the paste from it
Gallium does slowly alloy with copper, but doesn't necessarily destroy it's structural integrity.
PS5 hold my beer
You gotta add more keywords, Xbox tear down, applying thermal paste, opening gadgets with red nail polish,...
7:20 i like your nails color😂
Makes me wanna become an engineer
DO IT!
Calm down goro we know you got four hands even if they're not on screen
What were the blue things on the heat sink? It looked like some kind of pressed in place putty rather than standard thermal pads. Also nice touch with the second set of hands during reassembly.
The liquid metal makes sort of a bond with the copper and really sticks them together it shouldn't hurt it to much but it may eventually eat into it but tuat would take awhile and also i love your nails
The moral of the story is, stick to high quality thermal compound and you won't have any issues.
True
There is no issues with liquid metal. Although the heatsink may not look very pretty it is completely fine, the gallium just starts to merge with the copper after a while. Over a ten year period the LM will perform far better than a thermal compound.
Well this video shows that you are wrong.
@@Jaymiecain1 If you use a good TM such as Arctic MX4 you should have no long term issues and will not even have to risk worrying about anything happening to the metals it touches. Liquid metal does perform better but I see it as more of something that only enthusiasts should be looking into, something for extreme overclocking and generally long term solutions, if you want a long term solution for a system that should just work, A high quality TM is still the best option I think.
Justin Buckley +100 for Mx-4