That old tech's advice about thermal paste saved my butt on a gaming rig build

So I was building a PC for a friend last week, an AMD Ryzen 5 build, and I was about to just blob the thermal paste on like I always did. But then I remembered this crusty old technician, Dave, who fixed my laptop back in 2019 at a shop in Tulsa. He told me to always do a thin X pattern instead of a pea dot because it spreads more even on larger chips. I figured whatever, but I tried it anyway on this Ryzen. Booted it up and the idle temps were 32C, like 8 degrees cooler than my own build with the pea method. I almost called Dave to thank him but I lost his number. Has anyone else had luck with the X pattern versus the pea? I feel like I've been doing it wrong for years.

2 comments

2 Comments

elliot_king5d ago

Tried the X pattern for the first time on my old i7-7700k build and it dropped my temps by almost 10 degrees under load too. I think the whole pea dot thing works fine for smaller chips but once you get these bigger IHS surfaces you gotta spread the love around more. Also been doing a thin line down the middle for my laptop repastes and that helps with the direct die contact way better than a blob. Old Dave from Tulsa sounds like he knew his stuff, those repair guys who have been at it since the socket 478 days always have weird little tricks that actually work.

lisa_ross164d ago

Pea dot works fine on big chips too if you use enough paste, just saying.