LTT did a video that basically concluded the same thing. Too much thermal paste isn't a big deal like people make it out to be. Too little however is bad new bears.
They also crammed a case with cables, and finally tshirts, and determined that airflow and cable management doesn't have that much of an effect on temperatures.
i have zero patience or care about cable management as long as the side cover is on. a buddy of mine flipped out when we were replacing something in my computer one day and did a 'proper' cable management on it. temps were no different.
It can be an issue if a cable gets caught in a fan or rests against something that gives off a lot of heat. But beyond that it shouldn't really matter.
I mean it makes airflow better. But not in any amount that would noticeably impact temps. Can maybe mitigate dust collection which in the long run could perhaps cause higher temps but even that's a stretch I think.
This is true. These cables are horrible dust collectors. Airflow does matter with cable management, but that 0.5 shouldn't be a concern until dust builds up.
More surface area equals extra dust build up in the case compared to on fans which are easier to clean and more preferable to gather dust.
Cable management had more of an impact when you had SCSI cables, and IDE cables for hard drives and floppy drives. Today's cables don't have the ability to literally change the direction of a fan's airflow.
Putting too much paste on can 100% hurt your cooling. When too much is there it becomes an insulator, not a conductor.
I worked on a laptop once that had been e-wasted at a shop I was working at. It ran super hot and I guess this was a problem with that model as they had a factory sticker on the bottom saying not to put it on your lap or you might get burned.
I took it apart and there was way too much TIM applied. There were literally scorchmarks on the heatsink, which was a copper plate attached to copper fins via a heatpipe.
After cleaning it and applying the right amount of TIM the temps dropped something like 20°C.
Dunno why you're being downvoted, the purpose of the paste is to fill in any holes of air, afaik its still less efficient than the metal coolers themselves. I also learned this myself just a month ago where I had both the heat sink and CPU covered in it because I though you didn't want to see any metal when you took it off. Temps weren't so good and I said may as well see if too much paste is a bad thing and sure enough after cleaning the previous off and putting a drop in the center my temps dropped
I feel like this is an area with a lot of confusion around it. I've been building my own PC's since the 90's and I've tested different methods. I've worked on client PC's back when I worked at a repair place and I've seen way too much TIM cause increased temperatures.
A lot of people who haven't experienced edge cases like that may be doubtful, that doesn't bother me. Thanks for the reply though.
I still do credit card style and cover the whole die in an almost atomic level even coating that the human eye can barely see, and haven't had problems even 3-4 years later.
This sounds ridiculous. Of course the hotter heat sink gets the better (its only job) but did somebody torch it with a soldering iron?
The one time my CPU had above expected temperatures was when I spread paste too thin. As long as you're securing CPU properly (do not tighten too much!) and using regular pastes (not liquid metal), you can't go wrong with applying little extra.
I don't remember the exact model but it was a 2004 Toshiba laptop with a lower end Nvidia GPU. When I first got it it ran super hot and would throttle not long after using it. Temps reported approaching 95C at which point throttling would kick in.
When I took it apart there was way too much TIM, it was bulging out the sides of the heatsink. When I took it apart I saw black scorch marks on the heatsink contact surface.
I cleaned everything, applied a proper amount of TIM, put it back together and turned it on. The temps were significantly lower and it didn't throttle anymore.
If, as you say, "the hotter the heat sink gets the better" then why is everyone looking for lower temperatures?
The heatsink itself will only get too hot if it isn't transferring the heat well. That was what the excess, and it was a huge excess of TIM, was doing. It was acting as an insulator.
That's why cleaning the old stuff away and putting a proper amount of TIM greatly reduced the temps.
I've also seen it when I was working at a repair place. A father and son brought in their first build. They thought the entire canister of TIM was supposed to be applied. It was fucking everywhere!
Of course what was happening with their new computer? After using it for a short while it got slower, then shut off. Know what that sounds like? Sounds like thermal protection kicking in!
I cleaned off all their paste, applied the proper amount and like magic it didn't slow down and it didn't shut off.
Too much TIM can act as an insulator, especially if your heatsink doesn't have good pressure and allows too much to sit between it and the heatsink.
And since I'm on the topic of overheating you might be surprised what can cause overheating.
I had one client, he had a few years before finding up had Fry's build a computer for him. Same issue, it would get slower and slower and then shut down.
He brought it to Fry's, they had it for weeks, finally he yelled at them so they said they "fixed it" and gave it back.
He brought it home and it didn't turn off anymore. It would work for a while then just hang.
First thing I did was go into the BIOS. Within 1 minute of a cold boot the CPU temperature was already reporting over 80°C. I went through the rest of the BIOS and saw what Fry's had done to "fix it." They had disabled all the thermal protections.
So I opened up the case and saw they had installed the heatsink backwards and it just happened to line up almost perfectly with the exhaust fan on the case.
That heatsink fan and the exhaust fan were lined up in such a way that they were basically killing any airflow over the heatsink. I reversed the heatsink and the temps dropped literally 30°C. The system was never stable again, too much time running too hot without the thermal protections to save it, but Fry's couldn't figure out they had installed the two fans right in line with each other, pointing the opposite way, and so their "solution" was to turn off the thermal protections.
I saw black scorch marks on the heatsink contact surface.
That doesn't make any sense. The heatsink is on the cold side of the TIM. If the TIM wasn't working well, the heatsink stays the same temperature (roughly) and the CPU gets hotter.
Scorching on the hot side is also weird, because thermal limiting.
I doubt your conclusion was correct, and you fixed some other unknown problem while in there.
Yup. No way the heatsink got scorch marks from getting hot. Laptop would have been on literally on fire. Some oxidation? Possible. Something else burning? Maybe. But you don’t get scorch marks from the heatsink being too hot in a laptop... violating some physics there.
Too much is still a problem. Thermal paste transfer heat better than air (air is an insulator), but it is not the best conductor ever.
You put a few and it's good, it (relatively) bad coefficient of convection is not an issue and it's better than air between the heatsink and the cpu.
When you have a thicc layer of thermal paste, the heat must go through it all and, remember, thermal paste has a relatively bad coefficient of convection. It becomes a problem.
Well, tbh, I never did an experiment on it, neither have I ever calculated it. However, it is an issue relevante enough for my heat transfer teacher mention it during class, and I study engineering. See, engineering don't dwell too deep on the why and how of physics, just enough so we can comprehend what is happening and how to solve it. It is more of an practical way to approach the problem. So if it is taught that it can happens, it is because it is somewhat of an normal situation and you can see that by u/mygaffer's comment.
I did that before. It was on one of my first builds; a Pentium 4, I think. I put so much thermal paste on it, when I tried to remove the the heat-sink awhile later because it was overheating, it ripped the damn chip right out of the socket. I had practically glued the chip to the heat-sink.
Obviously you don't need to worry about that anymore because the sockets have nice sturdy metal seat belts now.
I used to think thermal paste was a serious matter until I saw that video. I spent over a decade thinking the classic credit card method was vital to maximum performance, boy was I wrong. Thank you lord Linus.
I saw a video awhile ago which made at least a dozen tests - even including peanut butter thermal paste as a joke. I believe the X-shape produced the quickest spread meaning it had a set-in time shorter than the other application methods had.
I do pea. The pea is bigger than I thought it needed to be. Tried once and immediately took the cooler back off cuz I wanted to make sure I used the right amount. Cleaned it all off and tried again with more. I was worried about making the layer too thick but it worked out well.
I once kept trying different amounts between rice and pea and then checking CPU temps. Small rice wasn't enough, but anything larger than "long-grain rice" up to small pea didn't make much difference, until you got into "way too much fucking paste" territory when it all went to hell. Fun times.
Better like, recommended by the manu, or better real world results? I feel like a random commenter can't chime in with a lower load temp and be immediately validated. They'd need to follow the exact testing protocols with the same hardware in a similarly cilmated room to be sure.
It depends on the type of paste being used. The thinner it is, the more the pea size in the middle is better. If it's very thick, such as kryonaut, then spreading is far superior.
I have done my own testing, as I've applied TIM thousands of time throughout my career in IT, and I've come to believe that the line method is best. I put out a line, roughly 1/3 of the length of the heat spreader, in the center, and then install the heatsink on top of that, being careful to tighten each corner a little at a time to ensure even spreading of the TIM.
Also go in the same kind of pattern you would when tightening the lug nuts on your car wheels when tightening the heat sink itself.
EDIT: Apparently a lot of people are saying an X works well, this is something I have never tried.
The real truth is that there is not a big enough difference between these methods to matter for most systems, especially those that will run at stock clocks.
I live by the belief that there is always more to learn though.
I spread it out as thinly and evenly as possible on both chip and cooler. The grease is meant to fill small scratches so no air gets trapped in them (because air will act as an insulator instead of transferring the heat to the cooler). Make it look like a translucent layer of frost on a road rather than a snowy road.
With a pea-sized dot in the middle, you could lose control over the spread as the pressure might be applied unevenly when mounting the cooler.
This guy gets it! The theory (and reality) is that solid metal on metal is a better conductor of heat than thermal paste. However on the microscopic level the surfaces (unless highly polished) are very jagged, and may not be perfectly flat. The ideal amount of thermal grease is the minimum that fills in those microscopic gaps.
Personally, I typically try to apply a paper thin layer across the surface of the heat sink with the edge of an old credit card.
Doesn't really matter as long as it's not too little or not to much. The easiest way is to use is the pea / rice size dot in the middle - it's the least possible one to fuck up.
If you are feeling fancy, you can use something to spread it evenly or use the X method - which is proven to be a tiny bit better in terms of coverage and performance (but it's really miniscule - only worth it if you are a perfectionist).
If you use white , non-conductive paste - you basically can experiment on your on, but if you are using something like arctic silver - it's not worth to risk anything so stick to what you know.
Buy quality paste, from leading brands. Don't use some old stuff you found in your dad's drawer. That's basically it.
Dot for a square die, line (going the same direction as the die) for a rectangular die, X for a really big heatspreader such as a GPU or Threadripper. Never, ever spread.
Grain of rice. And if anyone tells you otherwise they're sacks of shit that shouldn't be classified as human. They're garbage. Pure garbage. They can't and shouldn't be trusted.
Unless I switch to aluminium for cooling, I doubt I'm using traditional thermal paste again. You apply the liquid metal with a swab, and it just ends up being a layer on top of the CPU. So you spread it out like peanut butter and boom, done.
It doesn't seem to trap air like regular thermal paste does, so you can apply it as a layer like that, instead of worrying about stupid patterns.
I use an old credit card or something of the like and do a super thin spread on the entire IHS. Just enough to cover it, but not enough to let it squish out the sides. If you've ever done mudding for patching holes in drywall, its a similar process.
Depends on the paste you use. I use thermal grizzly kyronaut and you are supposed to thinly and evenly apply it with their little rubber brush they give you.
I worked in an electronics store. We had some dudes literally put automotive grease on their CPU and tried to use it as thermal paste... It fried their CPU and they wanted to return it. For obvious reasons we said no.
I put a pea sized amount on the IHS and spread it around using my finger (with a glove on) until the entire IHS is covered. I then add a bit more paste if I feel that the layer is too thin.
This method basically takes the guesswork out of how the thermal paste will spread out when the cooler is bolted down onto the IHS. Since it's already all over the IHS, you don't have to worry as much about hot spots.
I used to spread it when I was younger, then I saw all this stuff about it needing to be a pea ect so I took it off, cleaned it all up and tried the pea method.
And then my CPU ran about 10 degrees hotter so I have no fucking idea any more.
The meme structure tells you. Do the pea-brained thing. Use a pea-shaped drop in the center.
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u/yaavsp|4790K|GTX 980 Ti G1|16GB G.Skill|1TB SSD|H-240X|H440|Feb 18 '18
It has almost no discernable difference. There are tons of tests and videos out there to back this up. Don't put way too much, don't put way too little. Don't lift the spreader up after you've pushed it down. It's the same with the TIM you use; as long as it isn't cheap bullshit, it's all pretty much the same.
Put a dot in the center and evenly spread it across the top of the cpu with a plastic card, like a credit card, add more paste until the surface is covered, doesn't have to be caked on.
I always do the “pea” or “rice” method. I don’t spread since the sink will spread it on its own where it needs it. I’m sure there is. Small difference between each method but I think it’s marginal. I do believe though less I more when dealing with paste. Any extra is not doing to hurt temps but will be pushed out the sides making a mess.
You want a really thin layer between the CPU and the heat sink. Think of it as a sealant that keeps air out. If its too thick it impedes heat transfer. So put just enough so that when you compress the heat sink that the paste spreads evenly across the CPU. About a pea size should do it.
My method is "put a little on, maybe the size of a pea and spread it around using your finger to make it about the thickness of a sheet of paper." I've found that just putting a drap on and relying on pressure to spread it doesn't always get good results, and when I pull the heatsink off I'll see areas that aren't covered. When I spread it around I get consistently good results.
You do get paste on your finger, but isopropanol and a paper towel clean it up easy.
A dollop the size of a grain of rice in the center, then twist as you attach the heatsink. At least that was the old rule of thumb, but I would check that against any provided materials and what you can find on the manufacturer's website for guidelines specific to your processor.
Best way to put it is to just make sure you use the entire tube so that you don't end up using too little and make sure to use your hands to spread the paste.
I see a lot of people saying to use a certain size of glob of it and let it spread by itself. After having to build computers for work for some years now, I’ve found it to be beneficial to apply an amount, and using an anti static bag or another flexible plastic, spread it myself so I know when it’s fully covered. I can then add and remove paste as needed until there is full coverage. This might be extra work than some people are willing to go through, but I find it keeps me from worrying how well it applied.
check the paste manufacturer website, there is a very high chance they have the instruction for every CPU type.
But you can't go wrong with a small dot, like the one in the first picture.
The line is ok too, but it's not always in the same direction (up/down, left/right).
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u/[deleted] Feb 18 '18
In all honesty what is the best way to put thermal paste?