Hi everyone,

I’m looking for some advice from people who own, repair, or have experience with the newer ASUS ROG Strix SCAR 18, especially anyone who has dealt with liquid metal, vapor chamber/heatsink contact issues, or converted their laptop from liquid metal to Honeywell PTM7950.

My laptop is an ASUS ROG Strix SCAR 18 – G835LWG-SA375.

I’ve been troubleshooting serious thermal/performance problems for quite a while now, and at this point I’m starting to believe the problem may not actually be the thermal interface material itself, but rather heatsink mounting pressure/contact with the CPU/GPU dies.

Here is the full story.

Original problem

The laptop started showing serious thermal behavior under heavy loads.

I experienced:

• CPU temperatures rapidly reaching the thermal limit
• Thermal throttling under sustained CPU workloads
• Performance becoming inconsistent under heavy load
• Extremely high temperatures even when the cooling system should have been capable of controlling them
• Sudden complete shutdowns while gaming

These were not normal game crashes to desktop.

The entire laptop suddenly powered off.

This happened to me during demanding gaming sessions, including Rainbow Six Siege, and it also happened multiple times while playing graphically demanding games at very high/Ultra settings.

That was one of the main reasons I started investigating the cooling system.

First thing I did: completely opened the laptop

I removed the bottom cover and eventually removed the entire cooling assembly/vapor chamber.

What I found was concerning.

The factory thermal putty/gap-filler material around the VRAM/VRM areas looked:

• partially melted/deformed
• fragmented
• unevenly distributed
• generally in poor condition

The factory liquid metal on the CPU/GPU also did not look particularly uniform to me.

Some areas appeared to have significantly more liquid metal than others, and I became suspicious that the contact pattern between the dies and cold plate might not be ideal.

So I decided to completely service the cooling system instead of simply closing it again.

Cleaning

I carefully removed the old factory thermal materials.

I used isopropyl alcohol (IPA) to clean the CPU/GPU contact surfaces and surrounding areas.

The factory liquid metal was completely removed.

The old deteriorated thermal putty/gap filler was also removed.

I also thoroughly cleaned the cooling system.

The fans, heatsink/vapor chamber and internal areas were cleaned of accumulated:

• dust
• debris
• cat hair
• general contamination

I also used an electric high-pressure air blower to remove accumulated dust.

The laptop had basically received a much more extensive cooling-system service than a normal fan cleaning.

Thermal materials I purchased

After researching the cooling system, I bought high-end replacement materials rather than cheap thermal paste.

For the CPU and GPU, I bought:

Thermal Grizzly Conductonaut Extreme

For the VRAM/VRM and other components that originally used thermal putty/gap filler, I bought:

Thermal Grizzly TG Putty Pro – 30 grams

My intended setup was:

CPU → Conductonaut Extreme

GPU → Conductonaut Extreme

VRAM / VRM / power components → TG Putty Pro

I did NOT use TG Putty Pro directly on the CPU or GPU dies.

The goal was essentially to restore/improve the factory cooling configuration with high-quality materials.

After reassembly

After everything was cleaned, replaced and reassembled, I expected a significant improvement.

Unfortunately, the fundamental problem is still there.

We then performed controlled testing using Cinebench and HWiNFO.

I specifically tested different ASUS performance profiles.

Performance Mode

During the sustained Cinebench test, the CPU still eventually climbed into approximately the 95°C+ range and started showing thermal throttling.

This was after several minutes of sustained load, not simply a one-second temperature spike.

The laptop could initially look acceptable, but after heat saturation the temperatures would climb and thermal throttling would return.

Turbo Mode

I then repeated testing in Turbo Mode.

Again, I monitored temperatures, CPU power behavior and throttling through HWiNFO.

Despite the more aggressive fan behavior, the fundamental thermal issue remained.

In other words:

New liquid metal + new premium thermal putty + completely cleaned fans/cooling system did NOT eliminate the thermal throttling.

That is what is bothering me.

Why I’m now questioning the heatsink contact

Conductonaut Extreme should not be incapable of transferring enough heat in this laptop.

The SCAR series is already designed around liquid metal cooling.

So if:

• the fans are clean
• the heatsink is clean
• the vapor chamber is clean
• fresh Conductonaut Extreme is installed
• fresh TG Putty Pro is installed
• airflow is not obstructed

…and I am STILL reaching thermal throttling territory, I am starting to think the problem may be more mechanical.

Specifically:

Could the vapor chamber/cold plate simply not be making proper contact with the CPU/GPU dies?

For example:

• uneven heatsink mounting pressure
• slightly warped cold plate
• uneven vapor chamber
• poor factory tolerances
• CPU/GPU cold plate not sitting perfectly parallel to the dies
• one side of the die receiving more mounting pressure than the other

Another possibility I’m considering is the thermal putty itself.

TG Putty Pro is obviously not a bad product.

But I’m wondering whether too much putty on one or more VRAM/VRM components could prevent the vapor chamber from fully seating against the CPU/GPU dies.

Even a very small difference in height could potentially matter because liquid metal is meant to create an extremely thin thermal interface.

If the cold plate is being held slightly above the CPU die because another component/putty layer is resisting compression, adding better liquid metal obviously would not solve the actual problem.

This is also why I am considering PTM7950

Several people I’ve talked to online, including other gaming-laptop/ROG users, recommended that I stop using liquid metal and try:

Honeywell PTM7950

I know PTM7950 does not have the same theoretical thermal conductivity advantage as liquid metal.

That is not really my point.

My thinking is that PTM7950 may create a more consistent real-world interface if my laptop has slight imperfections in:

• mounting pressure
• flatness
• cold-plate contact
• thermal expansion
• die-to-heatsink alignment

I’ve seen multiple laptop owners say that they actually obtained better and much more consistent temperatures after replacing liquid metal with PTM7950.

That makes me wonder whether liquid metal is simply exposing an underlying contact problem in my particular unit.

What I’m thinking about trying next

My next configuration would probably be:

CPU → genuine Honeywell PTM7950

GPU → genuine Honeywell PTM7950

VRAM / VRM → Thermal Grizzly TG Putty Pro

and completely removing the liquid metal.

But before doing that, I’m also thinking about inspecting the contact/imprint pattern very carefully.

For example, mounting the heatsink once and removing it again to see whether the TIM compression pattern is even across the entire CPU/GPU die.

If one section shows significantly different contact than another, that would probably indicate a heatsink pressure/flatness problem rather than a TIM problem.

My questions for SCAR 18 owners / repair technicians

Has anyone with this generation of ROG Strix SCAR 18 experienced the same thing?

Especially:

• persistent CPU thermal throttling despite replacing the liquid metal
• strange or uneven factory liquid-metal contact
• poor heatsink/vapor-chamber mounting pressure
• warped or uneven cold plates
• excessive VRAM/VRM putty affecting CPU/GPU contact
• sudden power-offs during heavy gaming despite apparently normal operation beforehand

And most importantly:

Has anyone converted a SCAR 18 from liquid metal to genuine Honeywell PTM7950?

If you did:

• Did temperatures improve?
• Did CPU temperature become more consistent?
• Did hotspot/core deltas improve?
• Did thermal throttling disappear or decrease?
• Did sustained performance improve?
• How has PTM7950 held up long-term?
• Did you also keep thermal putty on the VRAM/VRM?
• Did you notice an uneven contact pattern when removing the factory heatsink?

At this point I don’t want to simply keep buying progressively more expensive thermal materials.

Conductonaut Extreme is already one of the better liquid metals available.

If fresh Conductonaut Extreme cannot solve this, I think I need to determine whether the actual problem is the physical interface between the dies and the vapor chamber.

I’d especially appreciate input from anyone who has personally opened and repasted/repadded this exact generation of SCAR 18.

If you have before/after HWiNFO screenshots, Cinebench results, mounting/contact photos, or PTM7950 results from the same machine, I would really like to compare them.

Thanks.

So everybody is exhausted and sick of it huh?

This is not intended as FUD. I think Kaspa has built one of the most technically interesting proof-of-work networks in the industry.

Kaspa is already operating at 10 blocks per second, has no premine or insider allocation, and has demonstrated that proof of work does not necessarily have to mean slow settlement.

But I think there is a more uncomfortable question the community needs to address:

Who is actually responsible for turning Kaspa’s technical performance into sustained adoption?

Kaspa’s fair launch and community-driven structure protect it from many of the problems associated with VC-controlled networks. However, the official Kaspa Wiki also describes the project as largely volunteer-driven, with development initiatives commonly funded through community donations rather than permanent paid positions or a large centrally controlled treasury.

That may be an ideological strength—but could it also be Kaspa’s biggest adoption weakness?

Marketing is not simply advertising or paying influencers.

Real adoption requires continuous execution across multiple areas:

- developer relations and grants;

- stablecoin and liquidity integrations;

- wallets and consumer-facing products;

- merchant onboarding;

- institutional pilots;

- exchange and custody integrations;

- legal and regulatory work;

- documentation, support and business development.

These activities require capital, coordination, continuity and accountability.

Kaspa has built an impressive settlement engine, but the broader application layer is still maturing. Toccata programmability is being tested ahead of mainnet activation, developer tooling is still evolving, and full vProgs remain a future direction rather than an established application ecosystem.

So is Kaspa’s main bottleneck really “poor marketing”?

Or is the deeper problem that Kaspa currently lacks a permanent and accountable adoption organization whose job is to convert protocol capability into developers, applications, users, liquidity and institutional demand?

A decentralized project should not depend on one company. But complete decentralization does not automatically produce coordinated distribution either.

Bitcoin could grow primarily as a monetary asset without a complex application ecosystem. Kaspa appears to have broader ambitions involving payments, high-speed settlement, programmability and potentially institutional infrastructure. Those goals may require a much more active go-to-market and ecosystem-building strategy.

My main questions for the community are:

Who owns Kaspa adoption today?

If the answer is “everyone,” does that risk meaning that nobody is ultimately accountable for it?

And what measurable indicators should we use to determine whether Kaspa is achieving real adoption rather than simply building increasingly advanced infrastructure?

For example:

- recurring non-speculative transaction volume;

- active application users;

- stablecoin liquidity;

- merchant payment volume;

- developer growth;

- fees generated by real applications;

- enterprise or institutional deployments;

- or something else?

Perhaps the current model is exactly what Kaspa needs and adoption will emerge organically once the technology is ready.

But if that is the thesis, what concrete evidence supports it—and how long should the community reasonably expect the transition from superior technology to meaningful usage to take?

I would especially like to hear from developers, ecosystem builders and people working directly on integrations.

This is not a price prediction, and I am not claiming that XRP is officially “America’s cryptocurrency.” I am trying to explore whether XRP could eventually occupy a specific geopolitical and institutional role as global finance becomes increasingly digital.

Legacy finance is not disappearing tomorrow, but its weaknesses are measurable—particularly in cross-border payments.

According to the World Bank’s Remittance Prices Worldwide database, the global average cost of sending remittances was recently around 6.36% of the amount transferred. The BIS and the G20 have also continued to identify cost, settlement speed, transparency, accessibility and the fragmentation of correspondent-banking networks as unresolved problems.

The BIS has argued that tokenization could eventually replace parts of today’s complicated chain of intermediaries and sequential account updates with a more integrated settlement process.

This brings me to Bitcoin and XRP.

Bitcoin is globally distributed, open-source and operates without a central authority. Nobody owns Bitcoin, and it cannot meaningfully be assigned to one country. In that sense, Bitcoin belongs to the global network rather than representing the United States, Europe, China or any other nation.

XRP has a different institutional history.

Ripple Labs is a U.S.-founded company incorporated in Delaware and has historically listed San Francisco as its principal place of business in SEC filings. Ripple has deliberately focused on enterprise financial infrastructure, institutional custody, tokenization and cross-border payments.

At the same time, an important distinction must be maintained:

Ripple is a company. XRP is a digital asset. The XRP Ledger is an open-source, public and decentralized network maintained by a global group of validators, developers, companies and users.

Ripple does not possess unilateral control over the XRP Ledger. According to XRPL documentation, network-level changes affecting consensus require broad validator approval. The ledger normally closes approximately every three to five seconds, and the minimum network cost for a standard transaction is currently 0.00001 XRP.

Therefore, calling XRP an “American coin” would be technically inaccurate.

But could it become something more nuanced?

Could XRP eventually become the de facto U.S.-aligned bridge asset or financial settlement infrastructure in a digital global economy—not because the United States owns the network, but because its most prominent institutional developer, commercial ecosystem and regulatory history are rooted in the United States?

The U.S. government has already formally separated Bitcoin from other digital assets by creating a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and a separate U.S. Digital Asset Stockpile. However, the executive order did not officially designate XRP—or any other specific non-Bitcoin asset—as a national reserve asset or representative of the United States.

So my actual question is:

As global finance becomes tokenized and increasingly operates on always-on digital infrastructure, could XRP emerge as the market’s unofficial American-aligned counterpart to Bitcoin’s neutral and borderless monetary role?

Or is this thesis fundamentally flawed because:

• XRP must remain globally neutral to achieve worldwide adoption;
• Ripple’s American identity could create geopolitical resistance outside the United States;
• stablecoins, tokenized bank deposits and interconnected instant-payment systems could solve the same problems without requiring XRP;
• or institutional adoption of Ripple technology does not necessarily translate into demand for XRP itself?

What concrete evidence would convince you that this thesis is becoming real?

Would it require measurable institutional payment volume settled specifically through XRP, deeper global liquidity, regulatory recognition, government holdings, integration with tokenized assets, or something else?

I am interested in evidence-based arguments from both supporters and critics—not price predictions or slogans.

Sources referenced: World Bank Remittance Prices Worldwide, BIS cross-border-payment and tokenization publications, XRP Ledger technical documentation, Ripple corporate materials, SEC filings concerning Ripple Labs, and the White House executive order establishing the Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and U.S. Digital Asset Stockpile.

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Fakat daha sonrasında en iyi 2. Marka olan Foligain'i keşfettim ve resmi web sitesinde International Shipping hem vardı hem de 50 Dolar üstü gibi cüzi bir miktara Shipping Fee yoktu.

Hemen 6 Aylık paketlerinden 2 adet alıp senelik stoğumu doldurmak isteyip siparişimi vermiştim. Gerçekten yüreğime bir su serpilmişti gerçekten kaliteli bir ürüne bu iğrenç 3. Dünya Ülkesi topraklarından erişimim olduğu için. Ta ki 10 gün sonrasına kadar.

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105 Dolar ödeyip almak istediğim ufacık saç bakım köpüğü ürünüme resmen bir ev alacakmışım da veya satacakmışım gibi davranılıyor. Noter ve Müşavirlik için ödeyeceğim fahiş fiyatları söylemiyorum bile.

Bu ülkeden nefret ediyorum.