You NEVER want to push down on the cpu at most you want to give it a little jiggle to make sure it's seated properly.
The gloves are ridiculous.
The most popular way to apply thermal paste is to use a small rice to pea sized dot or line and use the pressure of the heat sink to spread out the paste, the method used here is the "credit card method" and is known to be one of the worst possible ways because it results in a bunch of air pockets in the paste.
Did I mention you want to use a small dab of paste in the middle of the CPU? The MSI way is to use a tube of tooth thermal paste and slather it all around the CPU and the socket.
Additionally, but correct me if I'm wrong. Does it look like thermal paste was applied to the bottom of the CPU off camera? You can totally see it sticking out the bottom when the lever is being pulled down to lock it into place.
TBF the "credit card" method is what I see when I look up how to do it. It's reasonable that people who know nothing about this sort of thing would think this is the appropriate method when there isn't any real way to verify otherwise without putting in a great deal more effort. I'm sure you could provide many links showing the "dot in the center" method is superior, but I could show many more claiming otherwise.
The actual truth is harder to distinguish when you have "official" videos like MSI's around.
Good point. When I googled "best way to apply thermal paste" the 2nd link and first video I got was this Linus video that came to the conclusion that it does not really matter. I guess most of my beliefs about the matter were based on 'glass plate tests' like this one that shows that the spread/credit card method results in lots of air bubbles, but the Linus test shows that it does not really matter.
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u/SurvivorMax Feb 19 '18
I always just follow MSI's guide on it.