Stress testing computer overnight to melt thermal paste?

[trevor32192]

My friend says that i should stress test my new cpu with stock fan and heatsink to melt the thermal compound evenly. Is this something i should do or is this just unneccessary?

 

[bigpinkdragon286]

Unnecessary. The thermal interface material will do it's job under normal usage conditions.

 

[TechyInAZ]

Not really necessary. Only do that to thermal paste on a high end CPU cooler to get a better overclock.

 

[ilicalek]

Nah, you don't really need to stress test It is useful to check the stability and how your PC reacts when being pushed to its limits hence the name. Useful yes. Obligatory no.

 

[trevor32192]

the only other question would be how much of a risk is there to stress testing it. i do plan to overclock in the future so it would be nice to get a base reading on temp.

 

[Mr5oh]

There is no risk to stress testing? In fact its a good idea to make sure all your hardware is good. Doesn't really matter what heat sink you do it with.

 

[ilicalek]

Mr5oh has a valid point. There is no risk in essence of something magically destroying your pc in one click, however if your heatsink is not seated properly or your overclock is not good it will warm up your CPU quite a bit and thus give you input on max temperatures so you can adjust accordingly. There is of course much more to it than that but no need to worry much about it, you can monitor your real-world CPU temps in real-time without stress testing with tools like HWMonitor.

 

[bigpinkdragon286]

The risk from stress testing usually stems from flaky or poorly assembled equipment. If you had a high wattage CPU installed into a motherboard that had inadequate power delivery circuitry, you could over stress the motherboard's ability to power the CPU and likely cause damage to the motherboard.