Newbie thermal paste question

[laezyre]

I just bought a vendetta 2 cooler for $44 at buy.com. Not a bad deal. I have some arctic silver thermal paste. After reading many posts, I still have a very basic question:

What is a good technique to apply the thermal paste?

Do I :
a) Use a single drop of paste on the cpu heatsink?
b) use a razor blade to smooth it out?
c) use several very thin lines of paste?

Is it true that using too much paste can actually decrease contact surface area between the cpu and heat sink?

Thanks for any help

 

[BlueAcolyte]

Too much paste will insulate the CPU from cooler and lower performance...

I would follow AS5's instructions: lay a line down the center vertically (CPU is oriented with text facing right way)
For a quad-core, make two thinner lines.
The idea is that pressure will squeeze it out, but the majority will be over the actually CPU cores.

Or you can simply put a blob in the middle and spread it out or let the heatsink do that.

 

[laezyre]

How often do you have to replace the paste? I've heard it dries out or wears out after a while. It seems strange that a "thermal" paste (meaning conducting material) would insulate the cpu. I guess it could happen if the compound changes or breaks down over time, or if the surface area of contact is lowered due to the clumps of paste being the only areas of contact. For copper, a good conductor, the thicker the wire/tube, the better it conducts.

 

[DaQuteness]

AS5 doesn't dry out. I heard of the IC Diamond becomming something like a goo, but if you get the AS5, you needn't replace it until next reseat. It doesn't break down :laugh: It's the break-in period or 200-300h that AS5 requires in order to reach it's best performance. Mean while you could get a nervous break-down ...