Applying Thermal Paste to Xigmatek Dark Night

[Bigwillis]

I just built a new PC with an i7 920. My HSF is the Xigmatek Dark Night.

I'm having trouble getting this cooler to effectively cool my CPU. The temps I'm seeing are basically dead-even with the temps I was getting with the original stock HSF from Intel. It seems that my thermal paste (AS5) isn't spreading adequately across the entire surface of the CPU.

I've tried two different application methods -- first a straight line across the length of the CPU, and then a dot in the middle of the CPU. With both applications, I twisted the Xigmatek back and forth a bit on the CPU before screwing it in place. However, upon removing the HSF after seeing higher-than-desired temps, I've found that the AS5 hasn't really spread much on the CPU. Probalby 50% of the surface has been clean with both applications.

So with all that said, does anyone out there have a better suggestion for how I should apply my thermal paste? I don't know if I should use some other technique that would work better with this specific HSF.

 

[mMike01]

I have the Dark Knight cooler as well, and you have to apply it differently to the direct heat pipes.

You can refer to this article to see how they applied it to a direct heatpipe heatsink: http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=170&Itemid=1&limit=1&limitstart=5

I didn't lap the base like I think they do in the article, I don't think it is necassary, i have good OC'd temps w/o doing that. The goal is to fill in the gaps between the heatpipes where the aluminum spacers are.

I didn't follow the article and tried my own way and it seemed to work. First, i used Arctic Cooling MX 5 paste because it is non-conductive and the technique, although not messy, seemed messier than just a dot on the processor.

I put 2 lines of paste along the aluminum spacers, I then put my finger in plastic wrap and spread it all around the base of the heatsink (heatpipes and spacers) filling in the gaps. I then took my Babie's R Us keychain rewards card (i'm sure any hard plasic thing will do) and put it on the heatpipes and scraped off all the excess just leaving the gaps where the aluminum spacers are filled w/ a coat of paste that is even to the heatpipes. The heatpipes were clean of paste at this point. I then put a bb sized dot of paste on my processor and made a nice very thing even coat of the paste using above card. I then mounted it.

Idle temps are low to mid 30s, and at an OC of 3.5ghz doing stress tests, the 4 cores usually hover around 57-60 degrees C.

 

[Bigwillis]

Awesome, thanks for the tip. I will give that method a try here soon and see how it works for me.

 

[RADEoN]

Bigwillis, your best bet is to get an old credit card or even your keychain card, and put a dab of AS5 on the middle, and spread it as evenly and thinly as you can around the top of the CPU, disposing any wasted paste.

Unless mMike lives in a refrigerated room, his motherboard is reporting inaccurate temperatures. I run my i7 920 @ 3.6 when I'm really into playing games, 4.0 if I'm benchmarking, and 3.2 if I'm not into a game and just web browsing.

At the 3.6, I idle around 34-37, and can approach 77 when I'm using Prime95. The temps were roughly 1-3 degrees higher as per CoreTemp when I used the dot and squeeze method.

 

[Zero82z]

Bigwillis, your best bet is to get an old credit card or even your keychain card, and put a dab of AS5 on the middle, and spread it as evenly and thinly as you can around the top of the CPU, disposing any wasted paste.

That method only works well if both mating surfaces are completely flat (which, unless they are both lapped, is basically impossible). If one or both of the surfaces are not flat, the ideal method is the blob/line/x method, or with HDT coolers, the method outlined in the link that mMike01 posted.