Thermal Paste Application Methods - Which one is best? - The Workshop
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2016-05-06
·
1,913 words · ~9 min read
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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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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.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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