How to apply thermal paste evenly

[Unseen]

I am having trouble getting the thermal paste applied evenly, and which is possilby causing my A64 to overheat. I have trying to get paste perfectly even out with a credit card bunch of time, and seem like it almost impossible get rid of bumps in paste. Also, its espically hard when I used only little pit of paste (size of grain of rice). Kind of seems easier when I used paste size of 1 1/2 peas or like that. I am using a Arctic Cooling Silcencer TC with the thermal paste included. I have only used retailed Heatsink with thermal pad before so I really didn't figure out how to do this before 🙁 Any help would be appericated.

 

[pat]

As long as it is not too thick, it doesnt have to be bumpless. get it about the thickness of a sheet of paper ans you will be good.

Maybe your A64 is fine and the board is simply reading the temperature innacurately. If you touch the heatsink, doens it feel extremely hot?

-Always put the blame on you first, then on the hardware !!!

 

[Flinx]

Did u clean off the old goop first ?

The loving are the daring!

 

[Crashman]

Modern pastes are so thin you don't have to worry about getting it even, just dab it on and the heatsink will smash it flat. Dab too much on and you make a mess. Fairly simple concept everyone tries to make difficult by suggesting such rediculous things as scraping it thin with a credit card, you don't need to worry about that.

I just dap a little all over the thing in a thin pointy layer and let the cooler smash it flat.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[Unseen]

Yeah I cleaned of the old stuff. It overheats on full load it seems, I believe it auto shutdown due to heat once or twice. On idle it sits at 43C, but it goes over 60C when under full load.

Anyhow, I will just try and putting a little. Possibly did make mess of it other times 🙁

 

[peteroy]

CPU can't overheat with uneven thermal paste.

Even badly put thermal paste will not let the cpu to overheat, maybe only go 1 degree higher than it should be.

I'd suggest to make sure you got a good case that has big exhaust fans.

<A HREF="http://www.clancas.net" target="_new">clan CHAOS</A>

 

[Flinx]

<A HREF="http://www.arcticsilver.com/instructions.htm" target="_new">http://www.arcticsilver.com/instructions.htm</A>

Good reading !!!

The loving are the daring!

 

[endyen]

It really only takes 1/2 a piece of rice. Just put it on the chip, then like Crashman said, let the hsf spread it around.

 

[peteroy]

You guys talk about putting the thermal paste as if it was the same way you put ketchup in a humburger.

<A HREF="http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content_type/DownloadableAssets/section5-high.wmv" target="_new">And thermal paste is no good, you need thermal pad, it works better than thermal paste.</A>

<A HREF="http://www.clancas.net" target="_new">clan CHAOS</A>

 

[Schmide]

Let me guess, you have a msi k8n neo 2 with 1.3 bios. 1.4 bios may lower the temps a bit, but that board is notorious for high temperature readings. If so try the 1.4 bios. Otherwise I don’t know.

Dichromatic for your viewing plesure...

 

[endyen]

Not really, I dont like catsup on my burger.
Thing is, it aint rocket science. The purpose of TIM, is to fill gaps that would normally hold air. Air is a dam poor thermal conductor,ergo TIM.

 

[Flinx]

I will remember to replace my paste every so often. BTW do they sell good pad material in small quantities?

The loving are the daring!

 

[RichPLS]

Wow, I did not know this...
How long will Artic Silver 5 last before it needs to be replaced?
I have a Prescott 3200, and run it 24/7

<pre><font color=red>°¤o,¸¸¸,o¤°`°¤o \\// o¤°`°¤o,¸¸¸,o¤°
And the sign says "You got to have a membership card to get inside" Huh
So I got me a pen and paper And I made up my own little sign</pre><p></font color=red>

 

[Unseen]

I am using MSI k8n Neo platinum, so could be just my stupid MB over reading temps?

I already tried placing the HSF 4 times and i just put in the retail HSF just to check if Arctic cooling HSF just didn't suck. Any my temp are still high. The unusal thing was idle temps was near 40C and then on load it maxed out near 70C, don't think 30C temp differenc can really occur...

 

[Schmide]

Get the 1.4 bios from msi. If you have the neo2 and a 939.

Dichromatic for your viewing plesure...

 

[Flinx]

Does the CPU fan spin? Does the speed increase as the cpu gets hotter?

Have you looked on your mobo CD for a tool to monitor this info?


The loving are the daring!

 

[BeyRevRa]

Yeah, you need to update the Bios on that board, I've had the same problem with mine. Just install the MSI LiveUpdate utility and run it. It will tell you that a bios update is needed and you can flash it from windows using their tutorial. As for applying the paste corretly... I just put a little in the middle and spread it out with a credit card because I want the full surface area to contact with the metal. If you put too much on then it actually has reverse effects on the CPU.

With Artic Silver 5 and Ceramique I wouldn't replace the paste too often... perhaps once every three months if that. One of the things that makes that series work so well is it's bonding characteristic which takes a little while to burn into, therefor you don't want to reapply it for a while.

AMD 64 3200+ (939) (Working on overclocking it)
MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum
1 GB OCZ El Platinum clocked at 2.5-4-4-10
EVGA Geforce 6800 GT
2x WD Raptor 74GB Raid 0<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by BeyRevRa on 12/26/04 10:54 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[shadus]

It was still gooey after I took my heatsink off a year and a half later.

Either work fine, you can use toothpaste for all it matters if you're willing to replace it alot.

<A HREF="http://www.lochel.com/THGC/php/shadus.php" target="_new">Shadus</A>

 

[Unseen]

I am running a MSI neo for 754 socket, not Neo2 for 939. I just checked the bios, and it already has the newest version with says it fixed the tempature problem...

I just ran prime95 for 8 hours straight with 0 error/warning. The CPU seems to be stable, even though the MSI ulitly still showed high temp of 66C ...

 

[Cybercraig]

After 8 hours of prime95 I don't see 66C as being real hot!

Abit IS7 - 3.0C @ 3.6ghz - Mushkin PC4000 (2 X 512) - Sapphire 9800Pro - TT 420 watt Pure Power
Samsung 120gb ATA-100 - Maxtor 40gb ATA - 100
Sony DRU-510A - Yellowtail Merlot

 

[georgebeee]

I'm running a gigabyte ga-7va with an amd xp 2000+. I've had it for almost 2 years, and it's always run at 60C idle, 65+ under load. so, I finally purchased a vantec copper heatsink and some arctic silver5 to go with. after I installed my new heatsink and thermal greese my idle temps increased to 65C, and under load to 73C. I pulled the fan off the vantec, put it on my stock aluminum heatsink with some arctic silver and my idle temps are now 33C, under load still under 40C.

so much for copper for me. I purchased the vantec with the fan that runs a little louder at over 7k rpm

at first I thought maybe my mobo was misreading the temps also, but so much for that idea