I kno this is a dumb question. how much thermal paste do i use the whole tube? Ive noticed since i replaced thermal paste my temps have been higher.
You want a nice thin layer m8. As thin as you can get whist there still paste on there, about the size of a grain of rice (not pea as i originally said ) in the centre of the core then spread it out. Are you using cheap generic stuff or decent compund like AS3/5 ceramic etc...?
Use a credit card. Finger has detrimental oils which would be counter productive to the effectiveness of the arctic silver. Go HERE for detailed instructions.
If you manage to spread AS5 with a credit card i will be shocked, get a plasitc bag put your finder in...spread! 'doc
its not THAT hard. as5 is still easily spread, but takes a little while to get it thin enough i put on AS5 thinking it would be easy enough to spread and ended up with 2/3 of what i put on, stuck to the credit card Easily scraped of tho. on a similar note.. rubbing alcohol rules
Its not that difficult to spread with a credit card(cc). Really after some practice to find the best technique with the as3 I found that if you put a rice grain size near 1 corner of the cpu core and use a flat corner of the cc as the only contact with the as5 placed as flat as you can get it. Then very evenly with light strokes pull the paste across the rest of the core. Any little excess left on the card can be placed on the bottom of the heatsink to fill in any micro fine ridges which may be there. With a little practice you will find this technique works well.
When i apply the thermal paste to the cores of p4's on laptops at work i put a blob on the core and spread it with the end of the syringe
HAHAHA im so stupid i just put a huge glob of thermal paste it was all over the proccesor. Im suprised it worked a week +. It took me about 45 minutes to clean it. I shoulda took a pic but i didnt.
I wonder what people 200 hundred years from know will say about what we use to conduct heat away from the CPU core. They will probably do something like "Arctic Silver" - *Ha Ha* "Shin Etsu" , *Roar! Har! Har!* "Oh, stop my sides hurt!" "Poor things had to worry about something like that!" I like frozen nitrogen myself, but not in my laptop.
