What's the best brand for thermal pads?

My gaming laptop has been suffering from thermal throttling in general for almost 1.5 years now, but only in recent months has it gotten noticeably worse. I know that having a laptop for almost 5 years means that the components will eventually go bad, but I didn't expect it go like this. It's mainly my CPU and my main M.2 SSD that overheat, while my GPU, RAM, and 2.5" SSD are fine.

Back then, my CPU would be 30-50C while on battery, 40-60C charging but not under load, and 70-90C under load (except in the summer or if under extreme load). Now even while using a cooling pad during the summer and now with cooler temperatures in the fall, it's 40-60C on battery, 50-70C charging and idling, and 75-95C under load. I'm getting noticeable lag in pretty much everything on battery, while charging I get random lag spikes that can last up to several seconds in CPU bound games (and no, everything else I tried doesn't work). I have switched over to Windows 11 since June which has made things somewhat worse, but even back on Windows 10 it got worse too.

So far, I'm considering to either go for OwlTree, Thermal Grizzly, or Arctic as the brands, and I'll be buying the pads from Amazon probably during Black Friday to Cyber Monday. I have considered getting thermal paste, but since I also wanna cool down my SSD, I don't think that's really a good idea to. If you have any other brands to suggest to me, I'll look into it and tell me of your personal experiences if you do.

Gaming Laptop Specs
Acer Nitro 5 AN515-54
Windows 11 Home 23H2
i5 9300H 4C/8T 45W
Nvidia GTX 1050 MaxP
Intel UHD Graphics 630
3GB GDDR5 96-Bit
16GB DDR4 2666MHZ
250GB M.2 2280 SATA
250GB 2.5" SATA SSD
DirectX12 + Vulkan V1.3
FHD 15.6" LED IPS 60HZ

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th3r0n · 41-45, M Best Comment

It's not a cooling pad you need

The thermal paste on the heat syncs needs to be replaced

If you don't know how to open the laptop get someone with skills, it usually takes less than 30 minutes to open the bottom case, take off the heat syncs, scrape off the old thermal paste, and put Arctic mx-4 or higher (same brand, so mx-5 etc)

I recently purchased a crazy gaming laptop but it was playing like crap even on older games, I took out the battery that is no good and replace the thermal paste and now it is able to play most games on the max settings at 1080P and it does not have any heat problems at all

uikakarotuevegeta · 26-30

@th3r0n yeah i already opened it many years ago to swap out the slow ass HDD for the current fast SSDs that i have, and opened it other times to clean the dust from the fans and to upgrade the RAM (originally had 1TB WD Blue and 8GB DDR4 2666MHZ).

so why should i go for thermal paste instead of thermal pads? i don't see myself needing to use thermal paste for another few years, unless i get lucky and can work to live on my own.

for the battery, do you think i should replace it or just hold off on it, until the wear level goes down to like 60%? HWInfo tells me it's currently depleted permanently by 38%.

th3r0n · 41-45, M

@uikakarotuevegeta 38% isn't awful, but frankly if you're getting bad thermals that's what it needs

Generic thermal paste usually lasts around 3 years before it comes off in chips rather than being a paste, there's no hardware failures, it's literally just dried up thermal paste that's causing your whole issue

You can put a cooling pad under the laptop but that's like putting a bandaid on it

uikakarotuevegeta · 26-30

@th3r0n lol i'm surprised my laptop hasn't died on me for using it for almost 5 years without ever changing the thermal paste

th3r0n · 41-45, M

@uikakarotuevegeta it doesn't for it just starts getting hotter and hotter until it's nearly useless

The processor will lower its speed to reduce the heat when it needs to

uikakarotuevegeta · 26-30

@th3r0n yes yes, I already know that's what thermal throttling means

Do you think I should undervolt after I re-apply thermal paste

th3r0n · 41-45, M

@uikakarotuevegeta no, if you clean out the fans and heat syncs again and switch the thermal paste it should ever so literally run exactly like it did when you got it