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The one thing people mess up on thermal paste application

I see so many builds where people glob on thermal paste like it's mayo on a sandwich. I had a buddy bring me his gaming rig last week running 95C at idle and the paste was literally dripping off the sides of the CPU. Just a pea sized dot in the middle does the trick, the pressure from the cooler spreads it even. Has anyone else run into a customer or friend who went way overboard?
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2 Comments
holly_flores79
Actually have you tried doing just a thin spread with a plastic card instead? I do that on older chips with no IHS and get way better temps than a pea dot. For regular CPUs though yeah the pea method is fine but make sure you tighten the cooler in a crisscross pattern or you'll push all that paste to one side. Had a guy last month who tightened one corner all the way first and ended up with a huge bubble on the opposite side.
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margaret_lane
margaret_lane24d agoTop Commenter
Pea sized dot is the way to go, works every time. Had a guy once put a whole tube on his Ryzen chip thought more was better, ended up having to clean thermal paste out of his motherboard pins with isopropyl and a toothbrush.
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