Thermal Paste, spread it manually or let HS do the work?

baldrik said:
I let the headsink do the work.
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Dozens of mounts on various CPUs. Always have done a dot or rice grain, and let the HSF do the spreading. I tried the spreading it manually trick, never got as good a result as consistently and always ended up using far more TIM to do the same job.
 
BlackThought said:
And he does it a way ive never considered.
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He does it the way most HS and TIM mfg's suggest, which is letting the HS push out the TIM, spreading the TIM before hand can introduce air pockets as the matting surfaces of the IHS and HS base are not perfect, which is the whole reason you are using TIM in the first place. The only TIM that I would suggest you spread out before hand is something like Coollaboratory Liquid Pro, but that is without a doubt an exception and not the rule.
 
Learn something new every day...... i guess i'll try that method when i give cable management another got.

Thanks guys/gals
 
The 'dot and squish' method is my preferred method. It's fast, easy, and works well.
 
Depends on the type of TIM. AS5 in my experience gives best results both 'tinting' the HS and using the line method. MX4 on the other hand works equally well spreading it with a plastic bag over your finger or using a small drop and letting the HS do it.
 
graysky said:
Depends on the type of TIM. AS5 in my experience gives best results both 'tinting' the HS and using the line method. MX4 on the other hand works equally well spreading it with a plastic bag over your finger or using a small drop and letting the HS do it.
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With the thickness of the AS5, im worried it wont actually spread and cover everything.
 
BlueFireIce said:
The only TIM that I would suggest you spread out before hand is something like Coollaboratory Liquid Pro, but that is without a doubt an exception and not the rule.
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This TIM is a new one for me. Has it been around long? Is it any better than the old standbys?
 
I do a small dot in the center and a tiny drop closer to each corner of the CPU. I then mount the heatsink to let it squish the paste out. I then remove the heatsink and add tiny drops where where it didn't squish to. This is always near one or more corners.

The second mount usually finishes covering the CPU.. tested it a few times the first couple times I tried this method.

From my experience this gives a very thin layer, even when using the thicker pastes like IC7, which is my current paste of choice.
 
x509 said:
This TIM is a new one for me. Has it been around long? Is it any better than the old standbys?
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It has been out for some time, it is a liquid metal, as such you have to be careful how you apply it, as it is conductive. However I noticed a good few C drop over the best TIM's I have used, and there have been a few sites that did the deliding of Ivy chips to change out the TIM on them, and noticed a large drop in temps with good TIM's and in some cases 10C cooler than those with liquid pro.

I was using Shin-Etsu MicroSI X23-7783D before I tired out LP, and I got a 2-5C drop on all cores.
 
I've read that LP can damage parts if you attempt to remove them after months of usage as it will literally bond the two metal surfaces together. Is this fact or rumor?
 
graysky said:
I've read that LP can damage parts if you attempt to remove them after months of usage as it will literally bond the two metal surfaces together. Is this fact or rumor?
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It will not bond/solder anything together, its best to remove the HS while it's still warm, other wise you will probably need to twist the HS to remove it.
 
BlueFireIce said:
It has been out for some time, it is a liquid metal, as such you have to be careful how you apply it, as it is conductive. However I noticed a good few C drop over the best TIM's I have used, and there have been a few sites that did the deliding of Ivy chips to change out the TIM on them, and noticed a large drop in temps with good TIM's and in some cases 10C cooler than those with liquid pro.

I was using Shin-Etsu MicroSI X23-7783D before I tired out LP, and I got a 2-5C drop on all cores.
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So it sounds like if you want to use Cool Lab's products, you might want to apply tape around the edges of the CPU, same as if you wanted to get a straight trim line if you were painting say a wall?

I'm not clear about the de-lidding of Ivy chips. Are you saying that after you delid an Ivy chip and put on some good TIM, you get 10C improvement over using liquid pro on the Ivy lid? I guess you can't use a conductive metal right on the processor chip itself. :) The lid is that bad a conductor of heat?
 
I think I've only spread thermal paste once or twice with a credit card back when I was using Arctic Silver 5. Since then, though, I've adopted the rice grain method and its worked wonderfully.
 
x509 said:
So it sounds like if you want to use Cool Lab's products, you might want to apply tape around the edges of the CPU, same as if you wanted to get a straight trim line if you were painting say a wall?

I'm not clear about the de-lidding of Ivy chips. Are you saying that after you delid an Ivy chip and put on some good TIM, you get 10C improvement over using liquid pro on the Ivy lid? I guess you can't use a conductive metal right on the processor chip itself. :) The lid is that bad a conductor of heat?
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There is nothing to mask off, you are covering the whole IHS, you just don't want to go squirting it all over the mobo.

Most intel CPU's such as SB chips have the IHS soldered to the die of the CPU, while on IB chips they went a cheaper route and used TIM under the IHS. So people started removing the IHS and replacing the generic TIM Intel used with better TIM's, such as AS and Shin-Etsu etc, which saw upto 8C cooler temps and LP saw 11C cooler temps (link here)
 
I always let the heatsink / water block do the spreading for me as I tightened it gradually by turning each mounting screw 1/4 turn until tight.
 
cyclone3d said:
I do a small dot in the center and a tiny drop closer to each corner of the CPU. I then mount the heatsink to let it squish the paste out. I then remove the heatsink and add tiny drops where where it didn't squish to. This is always near one or more corners.
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I don't think think this is how you're suppose to do it. Once you put pressure on it and it spreads, taking the heatsink off to apply more on areas that that isn't covered will introduce air pockets in the parts that already has the paste. You can physically see that once you take off the heatsink, the thermal paste is uneven. This is why ever time you take off a heatsink, you must wipe off the old paste and reapply, not put more on lol.
 
HDT gets a light layer with the razor to fill in the gaps, then the rice grain in the middle to spread out

Flat bases just get the rice grain sized drop
 
I dont know why url can't be pasted but here's a link i found useful...

www.
benchmark
reviews
.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=170&Itemid=38&limit=1&limitstart=5
 
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