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Welcome back to the workshop. Today we're going to be checking out different methods of applying thermal paste. The

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line, the P, the the X, the whatever.

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We'll check them all out. This question was submitted by Nth Thrust on Twitter.

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If you have a question for us to explore on the workshop, submit it to either

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Twitter at Luke_lafr or just in the comments down

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below this video.

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Apacer's AS720 is a dual interface SSD

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with USB 3.1 typeC on one end and SATA

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on the other with read speeds of up to 540 megabytes per second and write

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speeds of 450 megabytes per second. Check the link in the video description

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to learn more. So, I watched a bunch of different YouTube videos of people

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building their rigs and looked at a bunch of different build logs to try to

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accumulate all the different ways that someone may or may not apply thermal

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paste. So we can try all of them. The first and most common was the P method

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or the dot method. Then we had the line. Then there was uh plastering it out or

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spreading it around. Then there was adding way too much in whatever way you

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managed to do that or way too little. Then there was the medium line where you

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just do kind of a short line which I like to call the extended P. Or there's

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the spiral. Or there's putting a bunch on and then putting a little plastic bag

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over your finger and pushing it around.

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So, we'll see if there's any difference or how big that difference is. All

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right, guys. So, last time we had a workshop episode. I made a straw poll

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about uh asking you guys what power supply you thought would perform the

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best. This time, we're going to have two straw polls. Which thermal paste

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application solution do you think is the best? And which thermal paste

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application solution do you think will be the worst? Vote before you see any of

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the results. Don't cheat. That's super lame. Just vote on what one you think is

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going to win and then watch the video. First method we're going to try is the

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dot or the P. That should probably be fine. A

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pretty good rule of thumb is just look at the size of the top of the capacitors

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near it. If you're around that size, you're probably good. Okay, so the dot

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method has been applied. I grabbed a thermometer here to check the ambient

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temperatures that are in the room and going into the case. So, I'm going to load up ID to 64, run a system stability

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test on just the CPU. We will then wait

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10 minutes, take a temperature reading on the ambient temperature, then take a

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temperature reading on the CPU. So, the temperature that ID 64 is giving me is

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about 47°, and the temperature that the ambient is in the room or the warehouse

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right now is 16.8°. Next up, we're going to try the

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line. The line is the next most common one. And the theory with the line is

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that you want to go over top of all the things that are under the IHS or the

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little metal plate there. So, as you can see from the dot, we got a nice kind of

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circular pattern and it covered everything on the CPU without going way

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too far out. Okay. So, yet again, we're just cleaning everything off with

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isopropyl alcohol. And then we will try the line method. So, I'm going to try to

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have the line be pretty thin, especially because this is really thick thermal

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paste that I'm using. Here we go. So,

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let's get the cooler on. So the line method also produced a temperature of

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47° the exact same as the dot method and

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the ambient temperatures in the room are exactly 17° which is2° higher than the

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previous one. So basically everything's the same. You can see with the line

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method it actually kind of sort of looks like a circle like we got from the

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previous method. The dot or the P. That's just cuz of like even pressure

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from the cooler. a lot of them are going to somewhat look the same. I don't know,

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maybe that's the conclusion, but we'll figure that out later on. So, our next

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method is going to be the X. I have never done this one personally, so to

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anyone that does the X. Sorry if I do it

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wrong. I don't know. That looks like a lot of thermal paste to me. Not really a

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fan of the X. So the X method resulted in a temperature of

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47 with an ambient of

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17.2. So the temperature read out by the

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computer has not gone up by one and the ambient has not gone up by one.

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So yeah, time to try some other stuff. I

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think I'm going to skip the medium line one. As we saw, the dot and the line and

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the X were all basically identical. So, we'll try

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this spiral and then we'll do some other

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crazy ones after that. Oh, wow. It's not really

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working. Um, no one called me an artist. So, for

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the weird, awkward, horrible application method of a spiral in terms of thermal

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paste, we landed with 47° C with an

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average room temperature of 17.2.

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So, exactly the same as the X method and

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functionally the same as every other one.

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So, time to move on, I guess. Next up, we're going to try

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too little. So, adding not enough thermal paste at all finally gave us a

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different result of 54° read out by IDA 64. The thermometer

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is still reading 17.2, too. So, the ambient is the same, meaning yes, your

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temperature goes a bit higher if you don't add enough thermal paste at all.

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Okay, let's move on and try too much thermal paste. Warning, if you're doing

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this all on your own, you want to make sure that you're not adding way too much

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thermal paste because if it squishes out and goes onto your board or goes

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anywhere else, it might conduct and short things out. Uh, too little thermal

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paste gave us a number that was higher. So hopefully way too much gives us a

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number that's higher too because I kind of think it will. And if it doesn't, I

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would feel a little silly. I was wrong. It's 47° read out by I to 64 and 17.3°

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ambient, which is effectively the same as basically all the other tests that

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we've had. I expected this would be more because we have been told less is more

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in terms of thermal paste application since forever. And even though we didn't

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get that result, I'm actually going to stand by that. If you had a conductive

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thermal paste, you wouldn't want it to be splooshing out so much. On the CPU,

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the thermal paste coverage actually isn't too bad, which is probably why the

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result ended up being pretty good. But as you can see from the block, there is

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a ton of extra thermal paste gooping mainly over the sides. So, we had too

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much, but I guess it wasn't like absolutely excessively too much to the

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point where it's actually spilling onto the board. Okay, so now I'm going to try

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to spread it around with like a card or whatever. I don't know how well this is

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going to work, especially with Icy Diamond. Wow, Icy Diamond doesn't really

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like to spread. I'm just going to try to squish it out onto my

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finger. Okay, so I was going to do two spread

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out tests. one where I uh spread it out with a card and one where I spread it

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out with a my finger through a plastic bag. But I guess I just am going to have

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a bunch of thermal paste on me and we're going to combine both of those tests

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into just spread it out with your finger. Okay, so this is the last test.

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I kind of think the results going to be 47°.

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It got 47° out of IDA 64 and 17.3°

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ambient. So, the conclusion, I guess,

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is just don't use way too much,

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especially if you have conductive, and don't use way too little, and you're

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probably fine. I think the easiest one to do would probably be the line or the

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P method. Uh, other than that, it's really not a

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big deal. I don't really know what else to say. I guess that's actually a pretty

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good conclusion for a workshop episode. That's what makes these things fun.

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Crunchyroll is the site created by anime fans for anime fans. They offer the most

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which is great. So, head over to crunchyroll.com/Linus and you can sign

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up for a 30-day free trial of Crunchyroll Premium. If you enjoy the

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membership to Crunchyroll for only $6.95 per month. So again, head over to

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crunchyroll.com/Linus and check them out. Thank you for submitting this

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question. If you guys have other questions, let me know at Twitter, Luke

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AFR, in the comments down below down there. That'd be cool, too. Thanks for

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watching this episode of the workshop. I wonder how many people are going to be

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pissed cuz they've been trumping around forever that you have to do it this

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specific way and doesn't really seem to be that way at all. Or how many people

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are going to tell me I did the test wrong? That'll be interesting, too. We'll see that later on. Anyways, if you

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enjoyed the video, like it. If you just hated it cuz I screwed everything up,

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dislike it. Don't forget to subscribe. That's cool, too. These are Amazon.

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These are Amazon affiliate code to shop for stuff like thermal paste and

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probably not spudgers cuz it's fine. You

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can just do whatever method you want. And you know, you can buy a shirt, which

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isn't this one. You can buy Linus Tech Tips shirts

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and uh you can become a contributor on the forum. That's another thing you can

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do. Check out this video where other people were mad because I said that your

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cable management doesn't really matter that much. Cool.