Worried about first thermal paste application

[spyguy]

Not to long ago I re applied thermal paste to my cpu. I had to wipe it and do it over because I used way to much the first time. After pain stakingly cleaning off the excess I was finally able to apply the paste in a small dot and attach my h60 corsair cooler which was a pain. Im a little ocd so Im worried I didn't do it perfectly. Im happy with my temps, so as long as the cpu is cool it shouldn't matter if the paste smoothed out and made a perfect spread across the surface of the card right?

 

[Gam3r01]

If your temps are good, then you dont need to worry about anything.

 

[Dugimodo]

There's really no way to know for sure what's going on in there apart from checking the temperatures. Sounds like you used the right method and your temperatures are not worrying you, so relax and stop worrying about it. You've done all you can reasonably do.

You have to clean & reapply any time you remove the heatsink and I'm constantly playing with my PC configuration so I've done it 100s of times, and putting a small dot in the middle has worked every time. The only heat problems I've ever had have been due to poorly mounted heatsinks or coolers, never from the paste not spreading properly.

 

[gaborbarla]

So the question then is what a "small dot" of thermal paste is. I have asked myself this question many times before. A reliable answer I found I think on Linus' guide years ago was the half a green pea size dot. We all know how big a green pea is, half that and you should be OK.
If temps are good, you have done well.