Thermal Paste Application Methods - Which one is best? - The Workshop
Thermal Paste Application Methods - Which one is best? - The Workshop
2016-02-25
welcome back to the workshop today we're
going to be checking out different
methods of applying thermal paste the
line the P the the X the whatever we'll
check them all out this question was
submitted by n thrust on Twitter if you
have a question for us to explore on the
workshop submit it to either Twitter at
Luke underscore L AFR or just in the
comments down below this video
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learn more so I watched a bunch of
different YouTube videos of people
building their rigs and looked at a
bunch of different build logs to try to
accumulate all the different ways that
someone may or may not apply thermal
paste so we can try all of them the
first and most common was the P method
or the dot method then we had the line
then there was plastering it out or
spreading it around
then there was adding way too much in
whatever way you managed to do that or
way too little and there was the medium
line where you just do kind of a short
line which I like to call the extended P
or there's the spiral or there's putting
a bunch on and then putting a little
plastic bag over your finger and pushing
it around so we'll see if there's any
difference or how big that difference is
alright guys so last time we had a
workshop episode I made a straw poll
about asking you guys what powers why
you thought would perform the best this
time we're gonna have two straw polls
which thermal paste application solution
do you think is the best and which
thermal paste application solution do
you think will be the worst but vote
before you see any other results don't
cheat that's super lame just vote on
what when you think is going to win and
then watch the video first method we're
going to try is the dot or the P that
should probably be fine a pretty good
rule of thumb is just look at the size
of the top of the capacitors near it if
you're around that size you're probably
good okay so the dot method has been
applied I grabbed a thermometer here to
check the ambient temperatures that are
in the room and going into the case so
I'm going to load up I 264 run a system
stability test on just the CPU we will
then wait 10 minutes take a temperature
reading on the ambient temperature then
take a temperature reading on the CPU so
the temperature that i-264 is giving me
is about 47 degrees and the temperature
that the ambient is in the room or the
warehouse right now is 16.8 degrees next
up we're going to try the line the line
is the neck
the most common one the theory what the
line is that you want to go over top of
all the things that are under the IHS or
the little metal plate there so as you
can see from the dot we got a nice kind
of circular pattern and it covered
everything on the CPU without going way
too far out
okay so yet again we're just cleaning
everything off with isopropyl alcohol
and then we will try the line method so
I'm going to try to have the line be
pretty thin especially because this is
really thick thermal paste that I'm
using there we go so let's get the
cooler on so the line method also
produced a temperature of 47 degrees the
exact same as the dot method and the
ambient temperatures in the room are
exactly 17 degrees which is 0.2 degrees
higher than the previous one so
basically everything is the same you can
see with the line method it actually
kind of sort of looks like a circle like
we got from the previous method the dot
or the P that's just because of like
even pressure from the cooler a lot of
them are going to somewhat look the same
I don't know maybe that's the conclusion
but we'll figure that out later on
so our next method is going to be the X
I have never done this one personally so
to anyone that does the X sorry if I do
it wrong I don't know that looks like a
lot of thermal paste to me not really a
fan of the X so the X method resulted in
a temperature of 47 with an ambient of
17.2 so the temperature read out by the
computer has not gone up by one and the
ambient has not gone up by one so ya
have to try some other stuff I think I'm
going to skip the medium line one as we
saw the dot and the line and the X we're
all basically identical so we'll try
this spiral and then we'll do some other
crazy ones after that oh wow it's not
really working no one called me an
artist so for the weird awkward horrible
application method of a spiral in terms
of thermal paste we landed with 47
degrees Celsius with an average room
temperature
of 17.2 so exactly the same as the ex
method and functionally the same as
every other one so time to move on I
guess next up we're going to try two
little so adding not enough thermal
paste at all finally gave us a different
result of 54 degrees read out by I 264
the thermometer is still reading 17
point two so the ambient is the same
meaning yes your temperature goes a bit
higher if you don't add enough thermal
paste at all okay let's move on and try
too much thermal paste warning if you're
doing this all on your own you want to
make sure that you're not adding way too
much thermal paste because if it
squishes out and goes onto your board or
goes anywhere else it might conduct and
short things those two little thermal
paste gave us a number that was higher
so hopefully way too much gives us a
number that's higher too because I kind
of think it will and if it doesn't I
would feel a little silly I was wrong
it's 47 degrees read out by I 264 and
seventeen point three degrees ambient
which is effectively the same as
basically all the other tests that we've
had I expected this would be more
because we have been told less is more
in terms of thermal paste application
since forever and even though we didn't
get that result I'm actually going to
stand by that if you had a conductive
thermal paste you wouldn't want it to be
solutioning out so much on the CPU the
thermal paste coverage actually isn't
too bad which is probably why the result
ended up being pretty good but as you
can see from the block there is a ton of
extra thermal paste gooping mainly over
the sides so we had too much but I guess
it wasn't like absolutely excessively
too much to the point where it's
actually spilling onto the board okay so
now I'm going to try to spread it around
with like a card or whatever I don't
know how well this is going to work
especially with icy Diamond Wow
icy diamond doesn't really like to
spread I'm just going to try to squish
it out onto my finger
okay so I was gonna do to spread out
tests one where I spread it out with a
card and one where I spread it out with
a my finger through a plastic bag but I
guess I just I'm going to have a bunch
of thermal paste on me and we're going
to combine both of those tests into just
spread it out with your finger okay so
this is the last test I kind of think
the results going to be 47 degrees
it got 47 degrees out of I 264 and
seventeen point three degrees ambient so
the conclusion I guess is just don't use
way too much especially if you have
conductive and don't use way too little
and you're probably fine I think the
easiest one to do would probably be the
line or the pee method other than that
it's really not a big deal I don't
really know what else to say I guess
that's actually a pretty good conclusion
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them out thank you for submitting this
question you guys have other questions
let me know
dot Twitter Luke and scroll AFR in the
comments down below down there that'd be
cool too thanks for watching this
episode of the workshop
I wonder how many people are going to be
pissed because they've been trumping
around forever that you have to do it
this specific way and it doesn't really
seem to be that way at all or how many
people are going to tell me I did the
test wrong
that'll be interesting too we'll see
that later on anyways if you enjoyed the
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