Parts on new PC are coming in today but I'm worried about thermal paste.
What's the ideal coverage for thermal paste? Do I cover the whole processor or aim for just a nice big circle?
I didn't order any thermal paste but I think some will come with my cooler. Should I wait and order some Arctic Silver?
Other urls found in this thread:
youtube.com
youtube.com
pugetsystems.com
youtube.com
youtube.com
youtube.com
archive.benchmarkreviews.com
youtube.com
youtube.com
s.pikabu.ru
twitter.com
Take a pea, and cut it in half. That's more than enough.
Just drop one pea sized blob in the center, then put the heatsink on.
If you're using a stock heat sink you shouldn't have to add any.
I'm kinda of an idiot when it comes with thermal paste, but i have two ways of putting it.
With square base heatsink, like aftermarket/performance etc, i do put a small layer all over the CPU IHS. Then a "rice grain" in the middle.
That helps my autism sleep at night being sure that there is paste all between the two contacting surfaces.
Another method is with round base heatsinks, like Intel stock.
Since those have a circular surface that doesn't cover all the CPU IHS, and i don't want extra paste taking dust over and over, i do the spread + grain rice BUT on the round base surface.
I am sure this way i cover all the contact surfaces without any eccessive/dripping stuff.
Usually the heat sink will come with thermal paste pre-applied. There are some aftermarket one that come with no paste. If that is the case for you carefully drop a pea sized blob in the center of the CPU like the others have suggested.
Do not worry about using too much paste. Worst case scenarios it will be too much paste for the heat transfer to be optimal and you will have higher temps.
Good luck faggot.
>put tiny dab on of it near top center
>use credit card to evenly distribute out into even super thin surface
>wipe off rest
>put on thing
remember that thermal paste is only to eliminate any gaps of air or whatever the fuck that might arise between your heatsing and cpu. you want as little of it as possible.
hold your credit card vertically against the surface, push it slightly towards the surface so it bends a tiny bit and pull it across the surface. makes the shit spread out evenly.
...
looks to me you need to do some required watching
youtube.com
itt people spouting outdated information.
X method is the best. pugetsystems.com
Whatever you do, don't do this
The difference between x method and rice sized dot is .50 degrees
X method uses way too much paste, just put a damn dot in the middle and you're done.
If it cools better than it's not too much, is it? Thermal paste it cheap. That .50 degrees might turn into 5 degrees if you're going for a heavy overclock.
Don't forget you have to clean up that thermal paste too, the more you put on there the more it is likely to leak all over the socket too.
Pea method is by far the best and most economical.
Shit I had to replace my evo cooler paste a couple of times because reasons. Anyways I would just put some in the middle, set the heatsink on top and wiggle it around a bit, then lift it up and check out the coverage. It looked good so I put it back on and tightened the screws.
dont lift it. if you lift you basically have a shitty business card spread
Basically just look at the image you posted and that is how much you need
no fuck off
Damn, makes sense because of the way it blobs and spots unevenly when I separate it.
I was being anal about it too because I just can't seem to place the sink square in the middle of the cpu and always have to slide it into the center.
This is the only correct way.
Aim for an even coverage about 5mm thick. I usually use a knife to spread it.
Putting just a dot is a meme, it's thermal insulation paste and if you don't cover the whole socket you will get some heat leakage = lowered thermal performance.
Yeah that's important, you just want to put it down and leave it. Don't lift, even wiggling isn't necessary at all.
Bullshit, it's been tested, the dot gives the same temps as spreading.
>5mm
Do you realise how ridiculously thick that is? The spreads I put on toast isn't that thick.
>5mm
mate thats like spreading butter, 5mm thick... baka
>That helps my autism sleep at night being sure that there is paste all between the two contacting surfaces.
Unfortunately your autism is fucking retarded.
The point of thermal paste isn't to create an entire layer between the heatsink and CPU/heatspreader. It's the FILL IN THE GAPS (microscopic as they are). If both surfaces were perfectly flat (beyond a mirror shine), you could mount it directly, without paste at all, and it would perform better.
fortunately MSI has a pretty good tutorial. highly recommended:
youtube.com
Oh god
sliding is fine, it wont introduce air bubbles, so dont worry if you dont put it down dead center and have to slide it into place
My confidence in MSI just dropped significantly.
I just worry about it pushing some extra off the side, also, who's to say that the paste won't just flow out when it gets warm anyways? It sure seemed like it could get runny when I pushed it out of the tube.
There's two more:
youtube.com
youtube.com
i have no idea how these managed to make it on their youtube channel originally, but someone eventually realized at one point they should be removed.
fortunately someone realized this would happen and held on to them for posterity.
Reminder if the heatsink uses direct touch heat pipes you want to apply the thermal paste to the heatsink not the CPU so you fill all the gaps and shit
>Take a pea
Do amerifats really put vegetables in their computers?
I guess you gotta use those greens for something.
youtube.com
Plus this ^
Funny how the number one thing everyone in here says not to do is the second coolest. Also, if you`re using a carbon based paste, you almost HAVE to spread it.
Depends on the paste some spread under heat / pressure, some don`t. As far as it spreading out onto other components. As long as the paste is non conductive, you should have nothing to worry about. Everyone itt should remove the cooler from their GPU, and see the discusting pool of grease that smothers everything.
Only the vegetarians. Real 'Murricans use lard or butter or bacon grease.
That's the worst way to do it.
>Grain of rice
>Use the cooler to spread it out
>Spreading it out yourself risks creating hotspots
>And assumes you can mount the heatspreader evenly on the first try
>Bare heatpipes are a bit trickier and require a combination of additional paste and creative applications
>Some people even recommend polishing the heatspreaders and heatsinks with the actual paste
>Hands down, the best way to remove paste is with rubbing alcohol and an anti-static cloth you can throw away
>Removal kits are nice, especially if you accidentally make a mess, but not necessary
All of you fucks are gay. If you have non-conductive paste, it doesn't matter how much.
youtube.com
Starts at the 5 minute mark.
Liquid Metal is hands down the best, but one of the most obnoxious pastes to apply and remove and increases the likelihood of frying any of your parts and corrodes bare copper, no joke.
If you don't need bleeding-edge results, Liquid Metal is largely not necessary.
See >Polishing the IHS and cooler with the paste itself.
Never heard of this, pretty clever idea. Wonder if it would actually amount to any improvement in temperatures.
...
Stock heatsinks come with thermal paste pre-applied dingus
Yeah, I just picked a random bench with a long list of tests. Point I was trying to make is how marginal the difference between the majority of tims is. Liquid ultra is actually not an issue with copper as much as aluminum, which it actually eats.
s.pikabu.ru
Linked gif because I can`t be fucked to reduce the size. Plus it allows me to post an example of what your GPU looks like under the cooler straight from the factory.
The paste is usually bottom tier garbage.
There are a bunch of ass-backwards techniques, including lapping, that theoretically improve results, but the reality of it is, the temperature difference is often negligible, or worst yet, completely negated by a shitty mount.
Among the other things I listed.....
>A good rule of thumb is that it's better to have more paste than less
>It's better to get pastes that don't need to set or bake
>Pastes that need to set usually dry out faster
>Removing paste when the cooler is warm (not hot) makes removal ten times easier
And above all else
>You should be concerned more with having a better cooler and proper airflow than worrying about paste and proper application
I'm still using stock heatsink with pre-applied paste and idle at 32 degrees after 5 years of use. Thermal paste is a meme.
Agreed--pre-applied paste is not terrible, and I would rather have that than have to worry about proper application.
Maybe I'm wrong here but when using a cooler with direct-touch heatpipes (that has all the small gaps between the heatpipes and the cooler's base), I find that a pea is not enough and results in incomplete coverage (30% of the heatspreader) . In that situation I find myself doing a thin line 75% the length of the heatspreader, going across the directions of the heatpipes. This results in better coverage with no spilling.
this pretty much.
I'm gonna check my rig anyway when I get it going again and see if any paste has flowed south due to gravity. I just don't like the idea of it getting on other things and feeling a need to clean it off with alcohol and q-tips.
Glad my 212 meme cooler doesn't have (much for) gaps. Why don't other coolers just do this? Duh!
I have a TX3 Evo (no need for anything more, non-K i5-3570) and I do the 75% line. A pea was insufficient. Load temps dropped over 3C with the line across the heatpipes method.
>muh 30$ gayman premium artisan paste
Just fucking lol
MSI was already pulling some shady shit, but this just tops it off, gonna avoid them from now on
>tfw you could've just used cream cheese instead of buying $20 thermal paste
>You will never wear cool gloves while assembling your computer.
Ok kid, see how the results go to shit after being run for 12 hours. Literally any paste will do, though.
fuck you Sup Forums for giving me the autism about my thermal paste now, I'll always wonder what could have been
I have lapped an IHS and cooler before, not even an intensive polish. Just get the surfaces roughly flat. It did make a temperature difference, but I wouldn`t necessarily say it is worth it. Unless you`re an enthusiast and want to squeeze every last minute bit of cooling out of your system. Otherwise you`ll spend a good 30 minutes, or even longer for a few degrees difference.
Never considered doing a warm up on the removal part, but I do know some pastes are best applied warm. One thing I tend to do if working with a carbon grease like thermaltake, is actually apply and spread to both the cpu and the cooler, just to make sure I don`t have any gaps. I do this because that shit stiffens as you agitate it and it airs. It does not spread at all by simply installing the cooler either.
This graph gets me every time.
The cheap insignia silicon grease at best buy works perfectly fine, and it applies amazingly easy.
The stuff that comes with your cooler is probably fine.
I always use the stock thermal paste the first time I install a cooler, but if I ever switch out the CPU, or re use the cooler on another build I use GELID Solutions GC-Extreme Thermal Compoind. Its the type that comes with a spreader, but I just apply it using the pea method. Both work great, the GELID thermal compound lowers my temps by like 2-3 degrees when used though.
CPUs confirmed for being semen demons
Literally doesn't matter.
If it's a laptop, paint the top using the tube since tiny air bubble are better than it not spreading over all of it from the shitty clamps. Otherwise use a dot, line, X, X with 4 dots at the cardinal directions, a simile face, or paint it.
Cream cheese only raised by 3 degrees after 12 hours.
>12h later
I want 12 months later numbers.
look at what cisco recommends for their blades.
Just a small drip and spread it around the center of the IHS.
Thermal paste is meant to fill in the tiny air-gaps between the IHS and the HSF.
>not refreshing your thermal paste every 12 hours
Can I use semen as thermal paste? Anyone tried it?
Thermal paste is a meme, I just put a nice dab on my cpu and spread it a little with the heatsink while I pressed it down on top. Only an idiot can fuck it up. I also used the thermal paste that came with my HSF. The only gripe I have is my HSF turned out to be too big so I couldn't angle it to dump into the exhaust fan, nor could I put my gpu in the 16x slot. Mostly cause the ram slots are directly to the right of the cpu, wtf gigabyte?
The manual for your mobo will tell you exactly where to put it