Thermal paste

Hey there,
I hope I nailed it with putting the right thread in the right section.

Few days ago I replaced a very old thermal paste with a new one,
now I wish to open up my laptop and clean up the fan , do I need to replace the thermal paste again?each and every time I disattached the cpu from the board?
or maybe as long as its pasted it's all gummy bears and rainbows?

Thanks ahead.

No shouldn't be necessary.

naor said:

do I need to replace the thermal paste again?each and every time I disattached the cpu from the board?

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Yes. Every time you remove the HSF assembly from the CPU and put it back, you need to replace the thermal compound. If you don't, you'll trap air between the two and higher temps will result.

If you are simply blowing dust off the fan using compressed air while leaving the fan assembly attached to the CPU, then no.

I said yes, because if it's only a few days old it should still be gooey. You should still be able to squeeze the air out like you normally do.
With desktop coolers I wouldn't even consider it Laptop coolers can be more difficult.

Do it every time you remove the CPU heat sink, if you have the compound no reason not to. I have redone it after just a few minutes. Installed the heat sink before putting the boards in the case, then cant get to a few motherboard screws. The compression of the heat sink spreads the compound just right. pulling it off just screws it up.

If you remove the heatsink you will break the seal and air will get in between the now two separate layers of thermal compound. You don't want that. See if you can remove the fan separately from the heatsink. Usually you can do that.

My only suggestion is to not overload the paste.

So as not to press it in to contact areas where it shouldn't touch.

if you're using arctic silver 5 then you dont want too much as that particular paste is designed to be a thin layer.

i use mx-4 though and it seems to perform better when using slightly more than as5.

that being said, the reason you use the pea method is so that it spreads out evenly as you put the heatsink on the cpu. no spreading involved. that prevents air bubbles. even the smallest air bubbles will insulate it, and if you pick up the heatsink, this is when air bubbles occur.

when it comes to applying thermal paste these are the rules i live by:
-pea method or x method both work fine if you know how to do the x method properly.
-zero manual spreading.
-cleaning bulk amounts with a paper towel or toilet paper is fine
-always fine clean it with coffee filters as they will wipe away any lint from the paper towels
-make sure when setting the cpu on the paste it sets evenly. even coming up on one part of it could introduce air bubbles and cause heat buildup.

i generally use the x method when doing gpu's because you are applying the paste directly to the die and it's more important to get full coverage. even EK recommends it

Pretty much any branded ones will do fine, look at here http://pc4u.org/best-thermal-paste-for-cpu/

another reminder, when touching the CPU be SURE to have a static-guard wrist strap. If you zap it with the slightest bit of static, it's all history. I learned this the hard way, wrecked two processors.

lincsman said:

another reminder, when touching the CPU be SURE to have a static-guard wrist strap.

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Only n00bs use anti-static straps because they think it's necessary. Just touch the case to ground yourself and discharge any built up static electricity and you'll be fine.

voyagerfan99 said:

Only n00bs use anti-static straps because they think it's necessary. Just touch the case to ground yourself and discharge any built up static electricity and you'll be fine.

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Really this ^^^. Been doing it for years and never shorted out anything. Anytime your working on it and do something where your not touching it, just grap the case somewhere before starting again.

StrangleHold said:

Really this ^^^. Been doing it for years and never shorted out anything. Anytime your working on it and do something where your not touching it, just grap the case somewhere before starting again.

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Same here. I always have laughed when I would watch someone put on one of those straps. I've been told that sometimes they get to moving to fast when working on a machine and all it would take is to forget to grab the metal just one time and they could screw up the processor, video card or motherboard. I'd still laugh at them because I think that as something as important as that I would never forget to grab the case.