Picked the cheap thermal paste to save a client money, regret it now

Had a customer in Spokane who wanted a budget rebuild, so I went with the $8 paste instead of the usual $20 stuff. Three weeks later the CPU was idling at 70c and I had to redo the whole heatsink for free. Anyone else ever cut corners to keep a quote low and end up paying for it twice?

2 comments

2 Comments

ninaowens1mo ago

$8 thermal paste? Man, that's not even the cheap stuff that comes with a cooler, that's the "we found this in a drawer" tier. I've seen that gray gunk dry out in like two weeks flat, it's basically just chalk dust with a sticker on it. You probably saved the client like nine bucks and then ate three hours of labor plus a free tube of the good stuff, which is more expensive than that in the end anyway. I bet that customer was thrilled though, "my PC is hot, fix it" and you're standing there thinking about that $12 difference. Ouch, I feel for you, that's a lesson we all learn once.

ryan_barnes29d ago

@ninaowens chalk dust with a sticker, that's the perfect way to put it.