How to use thermal paste?

I prefer the * method: 4 thin lines criss-cross-wise. I just recently had to re-seat my cooler, due to CPU heating up after more overclocking. Found the old compound had dried up, and never even covered 1/3 of the CPU...

Which brings up 2 other, related issues:

1. Thermal Paste vs. Thermal Compound .. Paste is "glue", Compound is "not glue" .. Thermal Paste can cause the CPU to be pulled from the socket when trying to remove the cooler, where Compound does not "adhere" so grippy-like, and makes seperation much easier.

2. Hone your Heatsink! The reason, I found, that my compound had not spread over one full third of the CPU is that the heatsink base was not FLAT. A few minutes of honing on a piece of 1000 grit wet/dry paper on a piece of glass, and my CPU now runs a cool 50*C under load ..compared to bluescreening at 70*C+ prior.

I would not ever "hone" my heatsink base with sandpaper, ever

KingConrail76 said:

I prefer the * method: 4 thin lines criss-cross-wise. I just recently had to re-seat my cooler, due to CPU heating up after more overclocking. Found the old compound had dried up, and never even covered 1/3 of the CPU...

Which brings up 2 other, related issues:

1. Thermal Paste vs. Thermal Compound .. Paste is "glue", Compound is "not glue" .. Thermal Paste can cause the CPU to be pulled from the socket when trying to remove the cooler, where Compound does not "adhere" so grippy-like, and makes seperation much easier.

2. Hone your Heatsink! The reason, I found, that my compound had not spread over one full third of the CPU is that the heatsink base was not FLAT. A few minutes of honing on a piece of 1000 grit wet/dry paper on a piece of glass, and my CPU now runs a cool 50*C under load ..compared to bluescreening at 70*C+ prior.

Click to expand...

That must've been one cheap heatsink. The ones I've used by Thermaltake and Cool Master have a mirror-like finish on them that doesn't need that kind of treatment.

The terms paste and compound are used interchangeably for the most part. I think you are referring to the thermal tape, which is found on video cards and other permanently stuck deals such as some cheap computers. HP and E-Machines comes to mind. These have that problem where the tape will actually rip the CPU or GPU right off the circuit boards and destroy the motherboard in the process.

On the other end of the spectrum, I dealt with a machine that a coworker gave me to look at because it kept blue-screening. I opened the case to find that somehow the clip that holds the heatsink to the CPU had come off and was dangling by the fan wires. I was quite surprised that for one the CPU didn't cook completely, and that the heatsink hadn't shorted out something else nearby.

While I used to have to do this many years ago I have to say even with a MacBook Air I haven't done it since.

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I'll just add a couple of items I came across recently. There is now a company making thermal pads. They are some sort of space age material that transfers heat more efficiently than paste. They are also reusable. They come sized for your CPU. Just lay them in place and mount the heat sink or fan. Best of all they are non-toxic.

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Innovati...YngJ7b4dbOFv4Ip3g7Tvt1CVwW9rQTuxoCFWAQAvD_BwE

To clean off old paste, nothing is better than good old isopropyl alcohol and a Q-tip Then a blast of canned air to remove any fibers from the Q-tip. Or you can use a microfiber cloth to wipe the surfaces clean.

William

wreeder said:

I'll just add a couple of items I came across recently. There is now a company making thermal pads. They are some sort of space age material that transfers heat more efficiently than paste. They are also reusable. They come sized for your CPU. Just lay them in place and mount the heat sink or fan. Best of all they are non-toxic.

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Innovati...YngJ7b4dbOFv4Ip3g7Tvt1CVwW9rQTuxoCFWAQAvD_BwE

To clean off old paste, nothing is better than good old isopropyl alcohol and a Q-tip Then a blast of canned air to remove any fibers from the Q-tip. Or you can use a microfiber cloth to wipe the surfaces clean.

William

Click to expand...

That's a great find and they cost about the same as a snot-sized tube of goop.

I sure won't miss the goop. Back in my younger times, I built circuit boards for a living. I was responsible for the power supplies and had the honors of gooping up voltage regulators and gigantic heat sinks. I still remember having more thermal compound on me than was on the actual parts.

Yeah, I worked in the datacenter of an ISP for the last 4 years before I retired. Replacing fans was a regular part of the job. When a 2 U server with 4 CPUs would lose a fan, we would replace all the fans on the belief that the others were near failure too. I would scrub my hands after working with thermal paste. Scary stuff.

William

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Static electricity is not conducted through the gloves. But latex gloves will hold a charge and discharge when in contact with metal. Better to work with your bare hands than to use those gloves. Even if you are wearing a wrist strap to ground your body, the gloves can hold enough of a charge to zap a CPU or worse the mother board. Remember the trick of rubbing a latex balloon with a piece of wool until you built up a charge strong enough to attract your hair to the balloon?

William