Thermal compound's ( your choice & method )

[Raw2v07]

Hey there thought id start a simple thread asking what compound you use and the method of application as it seems to differ from person to person

 

[yassarikhan786]

MX-4, pea/grain of rice sized dot in the middle and let the heat sink do the spreading.

 

[PEXON]

What Yass said, there NO need to spread it or do the star method as it wont be even. If you mount your cooler nicely with a good amount of pressure, youll cover the IHS fully. A nice little test is to get some scrap clear acrylic and put a tiny blob of MX4 in the middle and puah in from each corner, like the pressure your heatsink or block will and youll see that the blob covers much more evenly resulting in better temps than spreading or using the star method. The same applies to gpus and chipsets aswel as creeping over the IHS and risking components with conductive pastes.

 

[jamesriley94]

NT-H1 - As it came with my D14.
Tube's nearly out though so I may need to buy more.
I try to put a pea sized dot in the middle - but kind of fail at doing that :lol:
I just end up squeezing the amount of a pea sized dot (usually the pea takes the form of a bean sprout) and then putting the cooler on. It very rarely takes the shape of the intended vegetable

 

[airdeano]

pea-size/NT-H1

sidebar: has anyone tried the gelid gc-extreme it too is non-conductive?
but 25% higher in cost was wondering if the "value" is there?

airdeano

 

[Master&Puppet]

Well I definitely do mine differently. I put a thin line on one edge of the chip and use a Costa loyalty card to spread it before putting on the cooler.

Don't know whether it's better or not but it works for me. I'm currently using MX-4 too.

 

[NastyFighter]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hNgFNH7zhQ&feature=plcp

I just use the dot in the middle and dont spread it, thats the heatsinks job.

Oh and I use Arctic Silver 5

 

[Master&Puppet]

Haha I love the \m/ method. Might have to try that.

 

[Raw2v07]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hNgFNH7zhQ&feature=plcp

I just use the dot in the middle and dont spread it, thats the heatsinks job.

Oh and I use Arctic Silver 5

Iv seen people say good things about arctic silver but is it conductive

 

[robbiess]

people still use artic silver? i thought that they stopped making and selling it

mx-4 pea size

 

[Raw2v07]

Dabs have some but its only while stock lasts

 

[Josh Weston]

NT-H1 - attempt a pea size blob in the middle but fail due to the viscosity of the stuff. Must remember to leave on a radiator for a few minutes the next time I try.

 

[PapaSmurf6768]

Bought a huge tube of AS5 a couple years back and am about half way through it. I'm not worried about any of that conductive hoo haa with AS5, the temps have always been good and I like it. What I used to do was cut all the finger off a latex glove and spread a thin layer on the chip, but that takes a long time so recently I've just been doing the dot or line method. Everything's been working good so far.

 

[airdeano]

ive gone through (no exaggeration) 14 NT-H1 syringes of TIM in (02/09) 3+ years and three
just in the past 4months (swapping coolers, CPUblocks) on our family rig.. isnt there a stock option
on purchases above 10 syringes? LOL..

airdeano

 

[FTR.4500MHz]

I use MX 4 with te middle dot method .

But i also tried the vertical line method found on Artic silver website , without the heatsink tinting , dropped temps by 2°C .

http://www.arcticsilver.com/intel_application_method.html#

Note that there are also methods for AMD CPU 's

http://www.arcticsilver.com/amd_application_method.html#

 

[CPMFW]

nt-h1 with a dot in the middle

 

[yassarikhan786]

It doesn't really matter which way you do it, as long as you have a thin even layer and temps are good

 

[Raw2v07]

Thanks for all your input guys its been greatly appreciated, it does seem the choice of application is the pea method. Im guessing some practice wil help as not get to much or little on the cpu.