Searched but no find: Thermal Paste

  • Thread starter PLmatt91
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PLmatt91

PLmatt91

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I am still a bit confused on what to do with it, I am getting Artic Silver 5 and I know to add a little dab of it and spread it out neat and flat so it's not all over the place, then you add the heatsink and fan (if you have one). Is that all I need to do or what? A bit worried so I don't fry a $300 processor or a $150 board... Please direct me to a thread already with thermal paste answers and close this one if found 👍
 
basically, just put a thin smear on, and make sure that it gets full coverage, and is even.

And as MachOne stated, too much, and it won't boot, as too much heat paste acts as an insulator. All you need is thin covering, to fill in any pits and minute scratches in the surfaces.
 
Thermal paste is just there to increase conductivity between the Heatsink and CPU die. It doesn't actually help cool it. It just fills in any spots on the heatsink that aren't contacting the die (many of these spots can't be seen by the human eye). It's quite simple. Just put a 1mm thick layer on, spread it nice and even with a credit card edge or razor (be careful with sharp objects, they can scratch the die). Apply the heatsink, and whalla.
 
1mm is too thick. It should just be a very thin coat haze on the processor, especially with AS5 which is thick stuff.

Put a pea-sized drop on the processor and spread that out over the surface .. should be just the right amount.
 
MachOne
1mm is perfect general size. Just seat the heat sink very good.
Click to expand...

1mm is way too much for modern processors. maybe on older processors and heatsinks, that aren't machined very smooth, but newer ones only need the thinnest of smears.
 
Hmm, I might add just under 1mm of the arctic silver stuff I bought. And then I'll take my library card and just smoothen it out and get it thin. Thanks guys.
 
I normally just go by the instructions on the Arctic Silver site. Just be careful when you apply the stuff that you don't get the AS 5 to make contact with any of the pcb circuitry. The stuff is pretty conductive and it could fry something if you overdo it. Thankfully, the newer cpus have a full chip heat spreader which makes that almost impossible to happen 👍

edit: I gotta say Daan, after following that link you posted, I was pretty full of it when it came to cooling two years ago :D
 
1mm of paste is going to leave you with either a 1mm thick layer of thermal compound between the heatsink and CPU, which is a lot less efficient than having as much direct contact between the 2 objects as possible, or it's a lot of excess gunk that's going to ooze out over the side of the CPU.

The article contradicts itself. At first he says 1mm thick and then says so thin that it barely coats the surface. For comparison sake, a CD is just over 1mm thick.

A 1mm thick layer of thermal compound is definitely far too much.

edit: From emad's link to the Article Silver instructions: "Stock processors and/or heatsinks with normal surface irregularities will require a layer 0.003" to 0.005 thick as shown below to fill the resultant gaps". 0.003 to 0.005 inches is about 0.08 to 0.12 mm. So 1mm thick would be about 10 times as much compound as necessary.


KM.
 
Thanks for the specifics KM .. I couldn't come up with the exact specs for it but I was damn sure that 1mm was waaaaaaay too thick.
 
KieranMurphy
1mm of paste is going to leave you with either a 1mm thick layer of thermal compound between the heatsink and CPU, which is a lot less efficient than having as much direct contact between the 2 objects as possible, or it's a lot of excess gunk that's going to ooze out over the side of the CPU.

The article contradicts itself. At first he says 1mm thick and then says so thin that it barely coats the surface. For comparison sake, a CD is just over 1mm thick.

A 1mm thick layer of thermal compound is definitely far too much.

edit: From emad's link to the Article Silver instructions: "Stock processors and/or heatsinks with normal surface irregularities will require a layer 0.003" to 0.005 thick as shown below to fill the resultant gaps". 0.003 to 0.005 inches is about 0.08 to 0.12 mm. So 1mm thick would be about 10 times as much compound as necessary.


KM.
Click to expand...

And you are supposed to measure that how? :lol:
 

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