Yes, Noctua’s NT-H1 and NT-H2 thermal pastes can be used in laptops or notebooks. Many applications use relatively low quality thermal grease, so the thermal interface between the heatsink and the CPU (and, if available, GPU) is not ideal. In these cases, many customers have found that replacing the original paste with a high quality compound like NT-H1 or NT-H2 can lead to significantly lower temperatures, which allows for more overclocking headroom or lower fan speeds and quieter operation. 

As most notebook processors don’t have integrated heat-spreaders (IHS), the paste is applied directly to the small CPU DIE, so only a minimal amount of paste (a drop of around 1-2 mm size) is required.

In some configurations, however, using silicone-based thermal compounds (including our NT-H1 and NT-H2 thermal pastes) in laptops may not yield the desired long-term improvements due to the so-called pump-out effect. Caused by the different thermal expansion coefficients of the heatsink and the CPU die, this effect can lead to thermal paste being pumped out from between the CPU and heat-sink over time, which will decrease overall cooling performance. Whether the effect occurs depends on a number of factors, such as surface shape and structure of both cooler and the CPU or GPU, as well as mounting pressure and temperatures. Unfortunately, these factors make it difficult to predict if the pump-out effect will happen in advance. 

If an issue does occur, we recommend using specialised cooling solutions such as thermal pads or liquid metal.  

Please note, however, that liquid metal based thermal compounds are electrically conductive and therefore can be risky to use in laptops because applying just slightly too much paste can result in short-circuits.

NT-H1 and NT-H2 are not electrically conductive and therefore 100% safe to apply in laptops even if too much paste is being used and the paste makes contact with other components.