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Thermal Paste: Spread it or Dollop It?

Forum CPU & Components : CPUs - Thermal Paste: Spread it or Dollop It?

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I read the proponents of each style of applying thermal paste and offer evidence of the results of my experience, for whatever it's worth:

I applied a small pea sized dollop of thermal paste to the CPU and let the heat sink squish it down and spread it around. A few days later I pulled the fan to deal with another issue and found what's recorded in the embedded image. Doesnt look very evenly spread to me. When I reassemble I will use a card to spread it thinly and evenly across the CPU and the heatsink.

EDIT: sorry about that. Im not seeing how to just embed a decent size image in the forum here. The thumbnail below the tiny pic links to the file on webshots. I'll happily accept a suggestion on how to do this more effectively.

[img][/img]

Message edited by built_one on 10-02-2009 at 02:55:03 AM

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That picture is like 100 pixels wide, so I can't see anything other than small blobs.

It depends on what type of heatsink you have (smooth, polished surface, or rough/ direct touch heat pipe), and why kind of thermal paste you have.

For polished surfaces, use a thin paste, like Arctic Silver, and just put the drop in the middle and let the heatsink do the rest.

For rough surfaces or direct touch heatpipes I would use a thicker paste, such as IC Diamond, and spread it out.

Reply to jedimasterben

Think about where the die is on the chip. Looks like you didn't have any temp problems caused by thermal paste.

Message quoted 1 times

Reply to Newf

the picture is too small, but usually i use a razor and spread it without touching the cpu

Message quoted 1 times

Reply to ryohei

Newf - I didnt run the system for more than a few hours before taking it down for another issue. It seemed to run well but the hardest I pushed it was just some online videos and some DVDs. I didnt have any temp monitoring apps set up in Ubuntu, so I didnt know what the temps were. But I did hear occasional short system beeps and some of them were followed by a brief burst of fan speed. Didnt get a chance to see which fan was running faster, tho. Maybe there was more of a heat problem than I thought. Tx for the suggestion.

Newf wrote :

Think about where the die is on the chip. Looks like you didn't have any temp problems caused by thermal paste.

Reply to built_one

ryohei wrote :

the picture is too small, but usually i use a razor and spread it without touching the cpu

That works. I usually take a plastic sandwich bag, insert my hand, and use it to evenly spread a very thin layer on both the cpu and the heatsink.
Then again, I use generic transistor heat transfer grease rather than the exotic stuff sold for overclockers. It works just fine also.

Reply to Newf

i use both methods.

put a piece of cling film on my finger and spread a very small amount over the cpu, just to make sure it all has a thin coating, then ill put a small blob in the center that the HS can spread out with its (not inconciderable) weight.

Reply to welshmousepk

I use a knife.

Reply to amdfangirl

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Thermal Paste: Spread it or Dollop It?

Forum CPU & Components : CPUs - Thermal Paste: Spread it or Dollop It?