How much should thermal paste spread?

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Ferrin

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Jun 10, 2016
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So I cleaned my FX8350 with my stock cooler the other day and applied some Antec Formula 7 Nano Diamond compound. I put my heat sink on the wrong way and could not clip it in so i took it off. When i did i noticed how little the thermal paste spread. Granted the paste may have dried up after not using it for 3 years but just in case i put the tube(closed cap) in some warm water to refresh it. I put a little dot in the center about the size of a grain of rice and the paste only spread to the size of a dime. I dont know if its because the compound is old or because the heat sink was not on the CPU for that long but i was concerned.

Does thermal paste spread with the addition of heat or not?Anyways, i reapplied it without lifting the heat sink (dont want air bubbles) and for the first couple minutes of starting it, my CPU was hitting around 50 during web browsing when its usually around high 20's. Now a day later the temperatures have leveled off a bit to what they used to be so does the heat from a CPU make the thermal paste, more liquidy which allows it to spread a lot more?

 
Solution
Gam3r01
It probably spread a little bit more, however a grain of rice is a bit small for AMD processors.
I recommend a pea sized dot (about double you used).

I personally spread out the paste using a card that came with one tube I bought. A nice thin layer, dont have to worry about spread at all.
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Gam3r01

Gam3r01

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Jan 12, 2013
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It probably spread a little bit more, however a grain of rice is a bit small for AMD processors.
I recommend a pea sized dot (about double you used).

I personally spread out the paste using a card that came with one tube I bought. A nice thin layer, dont have to worry about spread at all.
 
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Solution
jossrik

jossrik

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Sep 26, 2002
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The last thing I saw about thermal paste is that you can have too little, but no matter how you apply it, you can't really have too much, also, it sounds like your cooler might not be putting enough pressure on the chip to spread out the thermal paste, when you take the cooler off, the paste should be very thin to non existent where the heatsink and CPU meet. It's completely all right to have it come off the sides as long as it's non conductive. I use the Nano Diamond too, and almost buy it in bulk (bought 4 of them off Best Buy cause I had a good coupon, and they were selling them like 5$ free shipping), I just recently finished the first one I bought and that was three to four years ago. (I use other pastes too, I just happen to like the nano diamond best).
 
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Suzuki@1473780084@1473780163

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Mar 8, 2015
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I've never managed to apply so much thermal paste or too little so that temperatures suffer. I've also never used anythign but regular toilet paper to remove the existing paste, not an issue ever. But, as far as heat transfer is concerned, the best thermal paste application (even though such thing is ridiculous to even mention) is to have it cover the entire heatspreader.
 
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jossrik

jossrik

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2MEAnZ3swQ

Going by this. As for too much, you'd have to have so much that it stopped itself from spreading out past the open sides of the processor. Anyway, a good watch, and good to have bookmarked for stuff like this.
 
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