Question about applying thermal paste

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Dec 23, 2005
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I've never applied thermal paste before, but I read allt he do/don't and did it - if I did it improperly and the chip were going to die as a result of its improper application, how quickly would it happen? Right away, or a few days/months/etc.....?

It's been running several hours and temperatures seem okay, but I tend to be a worry-wart when it comes to things I've never done before!
 
Your chip should be just fine if you have stable temperatures. If you applied it improperly, you'll notice it immediately with the difference in idle and load temps--they would be at noticeably higher values than normal. Generally, you should try to keep the temps below 50-55c.
 
I've never applied thermal paste before, but I read allt he do/don't and did it - if I did it improperly and the chip were going to die as a result of its improper application, how quickly would it happen? Right away, or a few days/months/etc.....?

It's been running several hours and temperatures seem okay, but I tend to be a worry-wart when it comes to things I've never done before!

you should be fine.

I used to take a credit card and make sure it was spread evenly over the chip in a thin layer.

Lately though I have just followed the guideline of putting a small dot about the size of a pea in the center of the chip and my temps are pretty much the same as before.
 
you cant screw it up really unless you dont put enough on, but really something the size of even half a grain of rice will get squished out to cover the cpu if the heat sink on on right

ive been using the small blob in the middle method for years, everytime i remove my heatsink the cpu is covered perfectly, the odd time the outer edge might have a little excess, nothing a qtip and alcohol wont clean.
 
Well just to let the OP know, I did a mini spiral on my QX6850, there really isn't a wrong way to do it as long as you put it on there. I my idle temps are around 33C on a QX6850 which is really good, and I didn't follow the diagram from AS.
 
Some people spread it evenly across the heatspreader, some pop the heatspreader off, some put drops, some put swirls. Honestly it doesnt really matter to much because it gets pressed so hard your pretty patterns dont matter anyway. Some people are weird about it touching other parts of the chip, but honestly the stuff wont do much. It's non conductive so theres no real issue with it bridging components, and its an excellent conductor of heat, so there is really never going to be an issue with ovearheating due to insulation.

Overall it's pretty harmless stuff and you shouldn't really be afraid of it, especially with the protections in place on CPU's these days.
 
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