Applied too much thermal paste?

[molar]

Hi Guys

My new build is complete and I've booted up into bios screen. I'm running an i7 920 at stock speed.The idle CPU temp is reported in the bios hw-monitor as 42 degrees.

The thermal paste used is Artic Cooling MX-3.

The HSF combo is a Prolimatech Megahalems with an Akasa Apache Super Silent 120mm fan @ 1400rpm. The fan is set to push upwards through the heatsink. I wasn't sure on this, what's the best set up for single fan, push or pull?

Anyway, the temperature is a little higher than I would have expected without overclocking. Could I have applied too much thermal paste?

I put quite a thick line (about as thick as the MX-3 nib) straight down the centre and then two blobs on either side. Rather than spreading the paste I just positioned the heatsink on top and fastened it on.

Thanks for any advice.

 

[Makhaira]

Almost definitely too much. You want a very very thin line on it - look at the AC website for pictures of how to apply it. Equally though, you're not going to cause any damage, it just might be a few degrees warmer than it otherwise would be.

 

[setter]

With a single fan you want it set like so.

This way it pushes air through the heatsink where it gets extracted by the rear case fan.

 

[molar]

Almost definitely too much. You want a very very thin line on it - look at the AC website for pictures of how to apply it. Equally though, you're not going to cause any damage, it just might be a few degrees warmer than it otherwise would be.

Thanks for the reply. I did go on the AC website for instructions but didn't see anything on the MX-3 page. I will get some solution to clean it off and try again.

 

[molar]

With a single fan you want it set like so.

...

This way it pushes air through the heatsink where it gets extracted by the rear case fan.

Thanks for the pic. I think I've got it set up correct. The Megahalems fan brackets are on the top and bottom not the sides like yours. My fan is mounted on the bottom pushing air through to the top. The P183 case has a top exhaust fan which is good except I forgot to wire mine up.

 

[SkodaMart]

There are some good videos on youtube, showing how paste spreads. going off what I have seen a pea or grain of rice sized blob in the middle of your CPU, and bring the cooler down flat to spread it out evenly.
Seems to work well and when you remove the cooler the CPU is evenly covered.

 

[PistolPete]

Thanks for the pic. I think I've got it set up correct. The Megahalems fan brackets are on the top and bottom not the sides like yours. My fan is mounted on the bottom pushing air through to the top. The P183 case has a top exhaust fan which is good except I forgot to wire mine up.

I've got a P180 and I spent a lot of time fiddling with the my CPU cooler orientation.

I found the best way was to face the cooler pointing backwards, into the rear fan and removing the top fan and blocking the top hole. I then used the top fan in the top 3 drive bays to draw more air into the path of the CPU cooler.

I found blocking the top hole dropped the over case temp a few degrees, I think the fan trying to suck upwards when the air was trying to go front to back caused an issue.

 

[setter]

PistolPete, thats basically how mine is setup, i installed a scythe kama bay in three 5.25 bays, this way i have direct airflow from front to rear, on my case the bottom intake fan is blocked quite a bit by the hdd's.

 

[molar]

I've got a P180 and I spent a lot of time fiddling with the my CPU cooler orientation.

I found the best way was to face the cooler pointing backwards, into the rear fan and removing the top fan and blocking the top hole. I then used the top fan in the top 3 drive bays to draw more air into the path of the CPU cooler.

I found blocking the top hole dropped the over case temp a few degrees, I think the fan trying to suck upwards when the air was trying to go front to back caused an issue.

Just a little update.

Redoing the thermal paste made next to no difference. Maybe one degree if anything.

I've now fitted a second fan on the Megahalems in a push/pull setup. I've also changed my case fans to run at at full speed. They were previously controlled by the BeQuiet PSU and running at 500rpm. The system is now running at 36.5 degrees (2.66Ghz idle) and 60 degrees under full load with Prime95. At idle thats a drop of around 5 degrees on what I had before.

Now I can start to think about overclocking.

 

[Audigex]

Just a thought for you - you have your HSF pointing up, rather than backwards. That means that if you're comparing your temps to others with the same CPU and HSF, you have to account for the fact that you're pulling warm air off the top of your graphics card rather than cool air from your optical drives.

Either way, 36.5 and 60 seem pretty reasonable