Vent: Wasted 2 years using thermal paste wrong on every build

I used to put a pea sized dot in the middle of the CPU and call it good. Then last month I pulled off a cooler from a 6 month old Ryzen build and saw half the chip was barely covered. Temps were hitting 85C under load and I thought that was normal. Turns out I needed to spread it thin across the whole IHS for my specific cooler. Now I do a thin spread with a plastic card and my temps dropped to 68C. Anyone else have a 'holy crap I've been doing this wrong' moment with basic stuff?

2 comments

2 Comments

uma_baker881d ago

Wait the pea sized dot method is actually fine for most coolers though, you just need enough paste and proper mounting pressure to spread it. Some coolers even have preapplied paste that works the exact same way. If yours was barely covering half the chip you probably just needed more paste rather than spreading it yourself.

nancy8241d ago

Honestly that brings back memories of my old build where I used toothpaste once as a joke because I'd run out of thermal paste and wanted to see if it worked. It did for like two days then my CPU started thermal throttling so bad I couldn't even boot into Windows. Took me forever to clean the crusty residue off the IHS after. Definitely stick with the pea method though if you're not trying to be dumb like me.