Amount of arctic silver - a guide!

andymac · 27 Dec 2007 at 10:57

I have been playing about with my rig for a while now, trying to get all things optimal.

Here are my findings.

With CPU thermal paste, less is more!

I started by follow general advise, put a line across heatspreader and clamped up. All was fine! However the paste moved about and then came out the side of the joint as I added as much pressure as I could to the cpu cooler screws.

Ran it like this a week, primed it etc. Hits about 68-70 under full load in prime.

Pulled it off, removed all the paste from the CPU cooler with a cloth, removed all the excess around the heatspreader. Then bolted it all back up. It looked like there was a small grey smear on the CPU heatspreader, and nothing on the cooler.

Ran it like that for a week.

Temps in Prime now early 60s.

CPU paste Motto,

CPU paste, put it on, then take it off! a smear is enough.

CPU Cooler Motto,

Be brutal with the screwdriver. It likes it tight!

Andy

AndyOcUK · 27 Dec 2007 at 11:05

andymac said:
With CPU thermal paste, less is more!

Spot on

helmutcheese · 27 Dec 2007 at 13:05

The Line method is not that good IMO, lost count of how many peeps on XS had bad mounts on Tuniqs until they went back to spreading it thinly.

My current mount is a line and I know its hotter than before.

AndyOcUK · 27 Dec 2007 at 14:08

I've always gone for the thin spread, put on with my finger tip with a little cling film over it to keep the grease and sweat away

Pneumonic · 27 Dec 2007 at 14:17

Tbh you want as little paste as possible...

I would suggest applying it to the bottom or the heatsink and rub it in all over as hard as you can make sure you get good coverage, next use a lint free cloth and remove as much paste as you can! This should just leave the paste in the microscopic holes etc... and leave the surface slightly dull... use the same procedure on your CPU... I found this gave around a 2-3c improvment on either line or spreeding method on the CPU

helmutcheese · 27 Dec 2007 at 14:58

Thats for AS3, for AS5 they dont do that and nobody has a perfect enough mate for that.

Pneumonic · 27 Dec 2007 at 15:01

well both CPU and HSF are lapped on that rig might explain why that method works better than the other methods

CyZMyAssBaby · 27 Dec 2007 at 15:06

Pneumonic said:
well both CPU and HSF are lapped on that rig might explain why that method works better than the other methods

Ben M · 27 Dec 2007 at 16:52

don't they say on their website that you just put a blob on and let it spread itself out?

Pneumonic · 27 Dec 2007 at 16:54

depends on the processor

PikKOn · 27 Dec 2007 at 17:01

Well I think you got that spot on there. I have recently found a low in temps although I did put on quite a bit of paste to begin with I think it has started to spread more after a month and temps have gone down considerably. This however could be down to the cold weather outside but considering my PC is right next to my radiator (yes bad idea

) I have seen a drop in temps.

Opened up my case and removed heatsink to see the status of my paste and it seemed to have spread and no white "gunk" on it too. It kind of shines :\ which is a good thing right?

CyZMyAssBaby · 27 Dec 2007 at 17:03

Pneumonic said:
depends on the processor

Quad is horizontal and dual core vertical (I found on my Q6600 before it was lapped) that the line method gave higher temps the best method for me was a thin layer all over. Using the Line method (artic recommendation) was about 8 degree's hotter.

helmutcheese · 27 Dec 2007 at 17:40

Yip, I will never ever use the Line Method again, back to Thin Spead for me

.

musx64 · 27 Dec 2007 at 17:45

AndyOcUK said:
I've always gone for the thin spread, put on with my finger tip with a little cling film over it to keep the grease and sweat away

same here & it Works, max temp on load I get is approx. 45c on core 1.

firewallblocked · 27 Dec 2007 at 18:25

Ben M said:
don't they say on their website that you just put a blob on and let it spread itself out?

I do wonder if that method is flawed, certainly from an engineering point of view it would seem that too thick a layer of thermal paste would be applied. After all if the surface of cpu and heatsink were perfectly flat (by that I mean on a microscopic level) no thermal paste would be used as it is not as good a conductor of heat as cpu to heatsink contact.

helmutcheese · 27 Dec 2007 at 19:30

Correct, Metal to Metal in a ideal world.

WJA96 · 27 Dec 2007 at 20:04

andymac said:
CPU Cooler Motto,

Be brutal with the screwdriver. It likes it tight!

Andy

This is highly dangerous advice in my opinion. How you spread the TIM is up to you, but encouraging people to do things up REALLY tight will only lead to bends in motherboards, stripped threads and snapping sounds.

And no RMA number in the world will be honoured if you've obviously physically damaged a component through brute force. And for what? A few degrees drop in temperature? Not worth the risk in my opinion, especially as many of the users on here will take you literally and probably use a ratchet driver to tighten the cooler down.

helmutcheese · 27 Dec 2007 at 20:06

/me off to find his 24" Strong Bar to get Heatsink nice and tight.

0710mt_12_z+tool_buyers_guide+snap-on_techangle_wrench.jpg

WJA96 · 27 Dec 2007 at 20:31

helmutcheese said:
/me off to find his 24" Strong Bar to get Heatsink nice and tight.

I forgot that some of the forum users might be Americans

homi-sid-al · 28 Dec 2007 at 00:05

WJA96 said:
This is highly dangerous advice in my opinion. How you spread the TIM is up to you, but encouraging people to do things up REALLY tight will only lead to bends in motherboards, stripped threads and snapping sounds.

And no RMA number in the world will be honoured if you've obviously physically damaged a component through brute force. And for what? A few degrees drop in temperature? Not worth the risk in my opinion, especially as many of the users on here will take you literally and probably use a ratchet driver to tighten the cooler down.

you are spot on m8,it is one of the concern's i have with my rig,when i built it i noticed that when i started to tighten my cooler the m/b did in fact start to bend,then when it was all up and running i decided to lap the cpu so obviously cooler had to come off and be reseated,now with the cooler and m/b i have this is no easy task due to the stupid heatpipe affair on the m/b,absolutely no finger space to tighten the cooler up so its very difficult to judge how tight it is or even if it is tight enough :mad: