At what point do you apply thermal paste?

[georgesun238]

I'm building my first PC soon so I have no experience with this stuff. I have a Cryorig H7 cooler and I'm not sure when to apply the thermal paste onto the CPU. Do I put the CPU into the socket, apply paste, then lock the socket? Also, should I apply it before or after I put the motherboard into the case? I would appreciate your help.

 

[nobspls]

The safest thing is to no apply the thermal paste to the CPU itself, but only apply a thin layer on the heat sink/cooling block and make sure that surface is fully coated with that thin later before putting on the CPU and locking everything in place.

Applying thermal compound before you install it into the socket is asking for bad accidents to happen, because then you'll basically have no good way to handle the CPU.

 

[J_E_D_70]

- mobo outside case on static bag it came in, insert ram, cpu, and any m.2ssd
- lock cpu
- use smallish pea-size blob of paste in center of cpu (or a thin X)
- mount heatsink/fan on cpu
- install mobo in case

This allows you to see whats happening with the Cryrig mounting system from all sides. I speak from recent experience mounting my H5 *after* installing mobo in case. Hard to line up the screw holes that way.

 

[bignastyid]

Right before you install the heatsink. As for how much you can follow the instructions for the heatsink or what I do is put a dab about the size of a rice grain in the middle of the cpu and let the heatsink spread it out as you tighten it down.
http://www.cryorig.com/inst_guide_dl.php?id=9