Can we talk about how long I messed up thermal paste application

I used to put a pea sized dot in the middle of every CPU I worked on. Last week I pulled a 5 year old Ryzen 7 3700X out of a Dell Optiplex and the paste had spread uneven, leaving a dry corner. That's when I realized my method was failing on smaller chips. Has anyone else found a better pattern for these tiny laptop CPUs?

2 comments

2 Comments

drew5520d ago

I mean, the "pea sized dot" thing always felt like a crapshoot to me too. On my old laptop I started doing a thin spread with a plastic card, like you're buttering toast, and it actually covered the whole IHS better. Never had a dry corner after that, but I'm still not sure if I'm just getting lucky or what.

robinf5120d ago

Start by saying I gotta disagree with @drew55 on the buttering toast method. In my experience spreading paste with a card pushes air into the mix and you end up with tiny bubbles that hurt thermals over time. The pea dot works fine for desktop chips but for those tiny laptop CPUs you're better off with a thin line down the center and letting the heatsink pressure do the work. Your mileage may vary of course but Ive pulled apart enough laptops to see uneven coverage from pre-spreading.