Every shop I visit has the thermal paste argument backwards and it cost me a $180 CPU last week

Robin Garcia · 2026-10-02T10:05:05.088438+00:00

I had a client's gaming rig in my bench last week, an i7 that kept hitting 95C under load, and the last shop had caked on a pea sized blob of cheap white paste that had turned into chalk. I cleaned it with 91% isopropyl and a coffee filter, applied a thin line of Kryonaut, and temps dropped 22 degrees instantly, same cooler, same fan curve. Half the techs I know say the pea method is dead because of chiplet layouts, but the other half insist spreading is the only way on direct die. I ran six mounts on my own 5800X with both methods and the spread won by 3 degrees on average, but the pea was way more consistent when I rushed it. What's your go to on a customer build, and do you charge extra for a repaste?

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Every shop I visit has the thermal paste argument backwards and it cost me a $180 CPU last week | Computer Technicians - Babble Community