Spent 7 years putting thermal paste on wrong. A PS3 repair video tipped me off.

I always did a pea sized dot in the middle. Figured that was standard. Then watched a guy do an even spread on a PS3 Cell processor. Put a thin layer across the whole chip. My temps dropped 12 degrees on the first boot after. Makes me wonder how many consoles I cooked early. Anyone else have a method they later found out was backwards?

2 comments

2 Comments

coleman.seth9d ago

Started with a pea sized dot myself for years, then a friend laughed at me and showed me a video from some PC builder who spread it thin with a card. I tried it on an old Xbox 360 that was running hot, and the thing went from sounding like a jet engine to barely a whisper. Now I do that spread method on everything, even my laptop when I clean it. Makes me think all those tutorials I watched back in the day were just wrong or maybe the pea thing only works for some CPUs.

angela438d ago

Oh man, the spread vs dot debate is a real thing. I learned the hard way too - used to do a pea sized dot on everything and wondered why my old Phenom II rig always ran hot. Tried the thin spread with a credit card on my next build and saw about the same drop you did, 10-12 degrees. Now I just do it by instinct, a tiny smear across the whole heat spreader. The key is keeping it super thin though, like barely enough to tint the metal. Too much and it just oozes out the sides making a mess. That PS3 Cell processor is a beast, I've heard they need even coverage because the die is so exposed.