Question about my thermal paste habit, I was way off

For 4 years I slopped a pea sized blob on every CPU and called it done, until a Dell OptiPlex on my bench in Tucson ran 12C hotter than the one next to it with the same chip. Tore it down and my spread was barely covering half the IHS, so I switched to a thin line and a quick twist and temps dropped right away. How are you all checking your coverage before you bolt the cooler back down?

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hugo2381d ago

The "thin line and a quick twist" bit is the part I'd build on. Before you even bolt it down, do a test mount: press the cooler on, give it that same quarter twist, then pull it straight up and look at the footprint. You want a thin even film with maybe a little squeeze out at the edges, no dry patches. I started doing that on every rebuild, especially on those old OptiPlex boards where the mounting pressure is uneven, and it caught two bad cold plates that looked fine. Your mileage may vary with the thicker pastes, those don't spread the same on a test pull.

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