I use Arctic Silver Ceramique 2 paste in a 25 gram syringe. It is ceramic based and is not electrically conductive nor capacitive. It is easy to use, not runny and sticks well. Never had a problem in the "mess" department with this stuff. The Ceramique 1 compound was runny and messy.. so that is why there is version 2 (as claimed on the website!).
Arctic Silver CMQ2-25G Ceramique 2 Tri-Linear Thermal Compound - Amazon - $8.00
Not to be a smarty pants, a Debbie downer, or insinuate anything upon anyone... if you're using thermal pads on a laptop in which there was originally paste then you are doing a great disservice to your customers. Firstly, thermal pads are
much worse at thermal dissipation than a paste, this is why you will find them used primarily on supporting chipsets, on-board memory, and power FETs that surround the CPU... these components are less hot thus less critical. Second, and this will be more or less important depending on the laptop model/type, because the pads are thicker they can lift the cooler assembly too far as to cause other contact points to lift.
The best thermal dissipation happens when things are as close as they can be, and
metal on metal is best.
The job of a paste is only to fill in the microscopic pores, gaps, and scratches between the cooler and die of the chip. The arctic silver above has a particle size of 1/1000.. a bit smaller than a pad of any kind.
Finally, not all pad compounds are the same, you need to be aware of the Thermal conductivity properties of the material.. the Pads that Steve202 listed is only rated at 2.88 - a lower or middle of the line thermal conductivity. The stuff I use is TP-250 in the 1.2mm (most used) and 2mm from
Shanghai Chooyu Chemical Co. Ltd and is rated for 5.0 W/mK and is better by an order of magnitude than Steve's listing. Not all pads are created equal and BEWARE of a seller that fails to list the properties of the pads. Happy cooling!
