Thermal Paste application

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Whitebread

[H]ard|Gawd
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Jan 28, 2002
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I have a thermalright XP-120 heatsink and in the directions, it says to apply a thin layer to both the heatsink and the chip head spreader, how do I spread the grease? Can I use the tip of the tube that the grease came in?
 
You can, but that would suck. A good thing to use is in old credit card. When I did it I used a piece ripped from a notebook cover.

Remember they said THIN layer, that's going to be hard with the tip of the tube.
 
Just practice by squeezing slightly onto a plastic baggie until you get the right pressure, than do the same onto the heatsink. To spread i just used a finger inside a plastic baggie to spread it around. Make sure your hands are clean and dry.
 
youll get air trapped in the middle doin that take the thermal paste and put a dab of it in the middle of the ihs
 
you could also use a razor for the heatsink and if your chip has an IHS, you could also use the razor.
 
Just put a dab on the chip heat sink (not the xp120) and spread it with an old credit card until you get a fine layer over the entire face. Spread some paste on the bottom of the xp120 in a circular motion as well, then clean it off with alcohol. That will fill in any microscopic grooves on the contact surface of the xp120. Then just attach the heatsink according to the instructions. I once found a really good tutorial online and I think it was through Thermalright. I wish I still had the link to that.
 
Hmmmm ... call me craZy.

Seems to me it would be prudent to know what paste we are talking about before giving instruction.
 
Arctic Silver site's instructions tell you to put a grain-of-rice-sized dab of ac5 in the middle of the heat spreader on the cpu, then carefully set the heat sink on it. This spreads the ac5 in a circle in the center of the heat spreader. It is not necessary to put in all over the top of the cpu, the chip itself is under the heat spreader in the center. This technique also tends to get rid of any tiny air bubbles in the ac5.

http://www.arcticsilver.com/arctic_silver_instructions.htm
 
I followed the instructions included with the Thermalright heatsink I bought. It said to spread a thin layer on both the Heat spreader and the heatsink. I spread it out with a plastic bag and it seems to be working fine. I haven't run over 39C with my opteron 165 yet.
 
Whitebread said:
I followed the instructions included with the Thermalright heatsink I bought. It said to spread a thin layer on both the Heat spreader and the heatsink. I spread it out with a plastic bag and it seems to be working fine. I haven't run over 39C with my opteron 165 yet.
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I just installed a Thermalright XP-90C recently and used a saran-wrapped finger to spread AS5 only on my CPU (HSF instructions said to spread on both CPU and HSF). But my temps are 24C idle/33C load on a 3200 winnie..not gonna complain too much :p
 
I have done both methods with my Si-120 and the Thermalright instructions worked better for me YMMV.
 
I allways used my finger to. :eek:

It depends on how you HS is installed. Most you have to lay one side down then tighten down the other. Instead on just laying it down flat from the get go and securing it. That is when u can get air trapped under the HS.

Same theory as when you were in Science class and got to use the microscope. You had to put your specimen on the glass slide then lay the other piece of glass on top but you couldn't just drop it directly on top, you had to lay it down from the side or else you would get air bubbles stuck under the glass.

See.. science class did help. :p
 
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