tim when is too much?

fowler002

fowler002

fowler002

Soldato
Joined
23 Oct 2008
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well after all the issues I had with bent pin on the motherboard I have had the motherboard exchanged(through asrock as mentioned ocuk wanted nothing of it) I came to fit the ocuk h2flo cooler and had to use new tim as the pre-applied one was used previously hand had been cleaned off, I have read rice grain to pea size tho I think I may have put a little too much(tried using a spreader plastic I got with some akasa tim years ago to try and remove a some).

here's the pic

708e6c0f.jpg


prob should have removed a bit more, hope it doesn't get into the socket though the gap you can see in the pic.
oh and I used the 'let the cooler spread the tim' technique rather than the 'spread using card/plastic bag' technique.
 
I don't think it makes much difference. Would probably err on the side of too little rather than too much though.
 
Looks ok to me, maybe a little too much but nothing drastic. Letting the cooler spread the paste is a good idea as it reduces the chance of air bubbles. Realistically unless you are going to live on the bleeding edge of overclocking a tiny bit too much paste isn't going to make a difference.
 
IvanDobskey said:
Thats about double the amount I use to be honest.
Click to expand...

I usually use less then that, it was a new lot of tim(mx-4, had used mx-2 for many years but what I had of it was drying up sp got new paste) so pressed it a little more than I was intending to.


Blue160 said:
Looks ok to me, maybe a little too much but nothing drastic. Letting the cooler spread the paste is a good idea as it reduces the chance of air bubbles. Realistically unless you are going to live on the bleeding edge of overclocking a tiny bit too much paste isn't going to make a difference.
Click to expand...

I'm a bit more concerned about the paste going into the cpu socket, they say you don't want tim in there.
 
If it's conductive TIM especially, then I'd clean it off and do it again... I ended up cleaning mine off twice when building my system. First time because I mounted the HSF 90* round the wrong way, second time because I put about as much as you did on. A large rice grain is about the right amount it seems; also that little "tail" looks like it could be a recipe for an air bubble tbh.

I used just over half of what you did and my temps are really good.
 
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That's way too much! Grain of rice is a good amount. Remember, you're only filling in the microscopic imperfections on both surfaces, not creating a 'layer' between them.
 
That looks fine, a small pea-sized amount. You've let the cooler spread the TIM & because you've used a fair bit the halo of bubbles that often form on the outer edges of the TIM blob will be well away from the cores. Good job.
 
Personally I'd use about half that or maybe even less assuming that your cooler makes good enough contact to spread it across the whole of the heatspreader. As Dirk says - you're not trying to create a layer between the heatspreader and the cooler base but rather trying to fill in the microscopic gaps between the two. The more direct contact you can get between the cooler and heatspreader the better, so use just enough TIM to fill those tiny gaps across the whole contact area.
 
thanks for the replies, it did look a little too much to me. as I said I pressed it a little more than I was wanting to, I was used to the mx-2 which gave a little more resistance than the mx-4 more came out with less pressure applied(well that's my excuse :) ).

going to get the pc set up and working before going back to clean off and re-apply the tim if the temps look high.

oh and no one replied about the risk of it going into the socket via the little gap you can see in the pic, or am I needless worrying and it's not that much paste that'll spill over the edge into the gap?

edit: ran ibt(maximum stress, all threads) for several mins, temps were reaching 50oC @stock(not oced). is this high?
 
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I put around that much when I built mine. I just swapped for water cooler and found that the excess was rolled up on the cooler.
 
well I tried the 4.6ghz profile in the bios and got 77oC max on 2 of the cores and 71-73oC max on the other 2 cores(after 4hrs or so of ibt, 20 runs on max) with vcore 1.35-1.36v, tried playing around with offset to try and bring the vcore down to reduce temps but exception error, bsods and restarts before window loads. is 1.36v high for 4.6ghz?

also tried 4.8ghz but vcore was 1.432-1.448v(started at 1.448 then dropped to 1.432 after a bit) only ran ibt for a few mins and it hit 82oC on 2 cores low/mid 70oCs on the other 2 core), playing with the offset to try reducing the vcore also lead to the bsods etc.

I have 2 fans(push/pull) on the radiator of the ocuk h2flo(think corsair h60 as its the same minus the corsair logo and fan) but its the fans from the coolermaster cosmos s, I could try changing for the yateloons(d12sh looking on the fan) I have fast but also loud.
 
Vcore for 4.6GHz looks fine but your temps do seem high. I have 1 core that hits around 70oC under IBT max, the other three cores sit around 63-64oC with around the same vcore (using offset). Time to check that the cooler is seated properly and that the fans/pump are all working correctly (pump should be on full all the time iirc, but I haven't used sealed loop cooler so I could be wrong).
 
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