Cooler Master Redesigns its TIM Packaging so Parents Don't Think Their Kids are Doing Drugs

[btarunr]

Applying thermal interface material (TIM) properly is a simple task that is under-documented or sometimes even misrepresented by the press. A bad application harms, rather than help your thermals. Their application varies from either the "pea drop" method, where you squeeze the TIM syringe or sachet to put out a tiny pea size blob onto your chip, letting the pressure from the heatsink spread the TIM out; or using an included spatula or plastic card to spread the TIM out to a very thin film. Of course when minors have plastic cards and syringes lying around in their rooms, parents sometimes get the wrong idea.

Cooler Master, in a tweet confirmed that it redesigned its TIM packaging to address exactly this: that TIMs supplied in syringes that look and function identical to medical syringes, make parents think their kids are doing drugs. "We didn't change the shape of the syringe to make applying thermal paste a lot easier, but because we we're getting tired of having to explain parents that their kid isn't using drugs," reads the Cooler Master statement. The new packaging by Cooler Master looks closer to a highlighter or Play Doh tube than it does a medical syringe. It still uses a syringe-like manual piston to dispense TIM, but the nozzle is wide and flattened to put out a layer of TIM directly on your chip. It's no longer round, and you can no longer attach injection needles. This nozzle also takes away the need for plastic cards or spatulas. The design, however, has a downside: the "pea drop" application is impossible, and a somewhat sub-optimal method is being forced upon users. Did Cooler Master just give in to pressure from an uninformed section of the market? Could a printed disclaimer on a conventional round syringe have helped instead? Tell us in the comments below.



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[natr0n]

Parents who can read labels and recognize a tube/syringe sitting in a pile of pc parts are perhaps intelligent parents.

 

[R-T-B]

I agree the packaging is suboptimal. But I also don't give a crap, as the difference is negligible. If it's chiefly minors who make up coolermaster's marketbase, maybe it's a good thing.

Parents who can read labels and recognize a tube/syringe sitting in a pile of pc parts are perhaps intelligent parents.

Maybe they don't always sell to intelligent parents. Just a thought.

 

[Ferrum Master]

Does it come with a price increase?

 

[Cheeseball]

Well, can't jack up anymore.

 

[hat]

Uhhhh... yeah... reminds me of this:

Is Your Son a Computer Hacker?

Anyway, this is complete and total nonsense. Any idiot should be able to see past it...

1. Thermal compound, by comparison, is cheap. I don't think I can get a syringe full of any street drug for $7.99?
2. Street drugs do not come packaged in the same way thermal compound would. How often do you hear of dope dealers selling clean syringes full of their, erm, product, complete with plastic clamshell casing?
3. Street drugs do not come with directions for applying them to CPUs and whatnot.
4. I've never heard of a drug dealer named "Cooler Master"...

I mean, my god... is April 1st early this year?

 

[btarunr]

My suggestion to our minor readers is: when you buy a TIM in syringe, leave it in its blister packaging, show the blister-packaged TIM to your parents, inform them what it is and what it does, ask them to look up the product on the Internet, and then unpack your TIM in front of them.

 

[R0H1T]

My suggestion to our minor readers is: when you buy a TIM in syringe, leave it in its blister packaging, show the blister-packaged TIM to your parents, inform them what it is and what it does, ask them to look up the product on the Internet, and then unpack your TIM in front of them.

And then sniff it just for lulz

 

[BizSAR]

This was sent as a joke and you guys totally fell for it! LOL!

 

[Lorec]

Uhhhh... yeah... reminds me of this:

Is Your Son a Computer Hacker?

OMG this is soooo cringe!
Dr Su would be disappointed reading those things haha

 

[GlacierNine]

@btarunr CM have been using this packaging for months and the tweet is obviously intended to be comedic. What are you doing?

 

[Vayra86]

My suggestion to our minor readers is: when you buy a TIM in syringe, leave it in its blister packaging, show the blister-packaged TIM to your parents, inform them what it is and what it does, ask them to look up the product on the Internet, and then unpack your TIM in front of them.

I really hope you're joking.

I really hope the article's a joke

This is beyond stupid and if there are seriously these parents, the apocalypse is very close, it just has to be. WTF

 

[Crackong]

Next One:

We changed our packaging again so kids won't treat it as a SNACK bar.

 

[W1zzard]

This was sent as a joke and you guys totally fell for it! LOL!

Source? I see nothing on their Twitter timeline about this being a joke

Back in the days my mom actually started "the syringe talk" with me

 

[Tsukiyomi91]

ugh...

 

[silentbogo]

LoL. Our nation-favorite TIM mix of crayons and vegetable oil, called КПТ-8, still comes packaged in actual generic pharma 1ml/2ml/5ml syringes in retail. I don't think my grandma ever thought of it as drugs, when I used this crap extensively back in college. I'll make a pic once I get to my office. I still use it for FETs in power circuits.

Spoiler

Kids, don't do drugs

 

[GlacierNine]

Source? I see nothing on their Twitter timeline about this being a joke

Back in the days my mom actually started "the syringe talk" with me

If you're seriously suggesting that CM should have ended it's tweet with "DISCLAIMER: THIS IS A JOKE" then I think you might well be advocating for the end of comedy.

CM's twitter is full of referential humour and jokes like this. Not 10 tweets down from this they advertise their Respawn mouse with the line "Hey, as long as reboots are in these days, we might as well get in on the action too. ". Below that they shared a picture of a white-themed PC with the joke "This PC is so white, the windows startup sound is a coldplay song".

CM's twitter is full of humour in exactly this vein, and if this were serious marketing copy, and not just a twitter joke, I'd have hoped CM would have thought to proofread it, instead of saying "We we're tired of".

 

[SomeOne99h]

I really hope you're joking.

I really hope the article's a joke

This is beyond stupid and if there are seriously these parents, the apocalypse is very close, it just has to be. WTF

I assure you that many if not most people, don't even know that "thermal pastes" exist. They could know there is a CPU and memory mostly for a computer. So for them to see those tubes along side computer parts, they will be like; "Those don't belong to computer parts?!" .. They then could just ask or push the paranoia even further which is not bad in my opinion. They want to protect and make sure their sons are okay.

 

[GlacierNine]

I assure you that many if not most people, don't even know that "thermal pastes" exist. They could know there is a CPU and memory mostly for a computer. So for them to see those tubes along side computer parts, they will be like; "Those don't belong to computer parts?!" .. They then could just ask or push the paranoia even further which is not bad in my opinion. They want to protect and make sure their sons are okay.

Just gonna point out you're treating this as a serious method of disseminating product information when the same twitter account constantly posts things like this:

 

[windwhirl]

I really hope you're joking.

I really hope the article's a joke

This is beyond stupid and if there are seriously these parents, the apocalypse is very close, it just has to be. WTF

You do realize there are anti-vax movements around the world, right? With parents not allowing their children to get vaccinated against a bunch of stuff because they think the vaccines are dangerous, a control system by the government or something? Why would "parents thinking their children are doing drugs because they bought thermal paste in a syringe and have credit cards or similar things lying around covered in such paste" be all that strange?

 

[GlacierNine]

You do realize there are anti-vax movements around the world, right? With parents not allowing their children to get vaccinated against a bunch of stuff because they think the vaccines are dangerous, a control system by the government or something? Why would "parents thinking their children are doing drugs because they bought thermal paste in a syringe and have credit cards or similar things lying around covered in such paste" be all that strange?

Because it's a sudden, serious issue of parenting and drug abuse being brought up by a twitter account whose purpose is marketing and making jokes?

 

[damric]

This may make me innerflect on my life choices for a day, but probably won't deter my TIM habit in the long term.

 

[Dr_b_]

Parents who think thermal paste in any packaging are drugs, should not be reproducing

 

[Vayra86]

You do realize there are anti-vax movements around the world, right? With parents not allowing their children to get vaccinated against a bunch of stuff because they think the vaccines are dangerous, a control system by the government or something? Why would "parents thinking their children are doing drugs because they bought thermal paste in a syringe and have credit cards or similar things lying around covered in such paste" be all that strange?

Yes, and flat earthers. Its just more evidence of Darwin's evolution theory. They're not the fittest and it will pass.

Where it gets problematic is when we start accomodating them, in doing so, we create our own evolutionary failures and enlarge them.

Strange mix of hilarious and frightening, isn't it.

 

[oxidized]

That honestly sounds like a joke, a joke to cover most likely a price increase, besides thermal past should never be spreaded, and with this they're basically forcing me to. Not that i'd ever buy CM thermal past since there's better at the same cost, or cheaper at the same quality...