Applying Icy Diamond to a GPU.

All,

The directions on the tube says to apply a pea sized dot, and let the heat sink mounting spread it... Is this the recommended way to get it done or does the NBR community feel like the plastic bag over the finger and spreading an even/level thin coating?

I'll be doing this on the laptop in my signature.

Let me know if I'm missing something from my steps...
1. Open up latop and remove heat sink.
2. Remove video card
3. Clean off old thermal compound (should be icy diamond if Malibal did what I paid them to do)
4. Add a pea sized blob of icy diamond to the center of the GPU ~OR~ apply an even thin layer of icy diamond to the GPU.
5. Wait 10 minutes for it to cure/water in it to evaporate.
6. Install video card
7. Install heat sink and finish putting laptop back together.

Thanks,

 

I did not read the OR option in point 4 anywhere. I have heard most say to apply a small pea sized blob or a thin line running down parallel to two of the sides (this second one isn't as frequent).

 

Hello,

I'm assuming you have enough to do this twice, so do a test for yourself apply a pea size dot of it in the center. Put the machine together enough to turn it on with out completely assembling it(use caution to ensure no metal is contacting anything it shouldn't be so it doesn't ground or short your board). When you do this see what your temps are at, through a fan software monitor, than shut it down and do the other process you mentioned, take pictures of both processes and post the pics, and results... I have done this so many times, you will be startled by the results.

Regards,

Don

 

Youtube seems to want to teach people to do the spreading vs the blob... Hense why I came here to ask the Pros!

 

the most easy way to do it is to use your fingers. wrap a piece of plastic around your fingers and spread the paste nicely. done.

 

Don,

I love you for the "do both and you will see" advise. This is normally what I'd want to tell people to do as well... I hadn't considered buying a tube of it and doing this and that makes me a bit sad... I'm RMA'ing the bad card (once I find out which one it is) and Malibal (who I bought the laptop from and who I'll be dealing with as far as the RMA is concerned) will be sending my the new card, and since I paid for Icy Diamond when I originally purchased the machine, I'm assuming they will send me a tube since I'm willing to do the removal and reinstall of the card myself...

But... I like this idea of doing both and seeing what happens... How about this... If I promise to do both, will you tell me which one will come out far superior?

 

Yikes, this makes the results so far : 1 pea sized dot, 1 do both and see, and 1 spread it evenly!!!!

 

Well actually you will know based on what your finding is, this is at the very minimal how to troubleshoot things taking them one step at a time. If at the end you do this you will know what works and probably be surprised, we have done this on over 400+ machines a month.

Regards,

Don

 

Pea sized seems like it's too much. You want a grain of rice sized amount.

Using too much is just a waste, it will all get squeezed out of the sides.

When I get a new notebook, I try a small amount first and put the heatsink on. Then take the heatsink off and see if the paste spread well, adjusting the amount if necessary. You want to use as little as possible while still covering the entire die.

 

Omg.. I totally forgot I switched to this method from the spread it with a flat razor method. It's been too long.

I would use this... too much compound can produce diminishing results. A thin full coverage layer ensures you have compound filling all the small imperfections in the metal on the entire surface while avoiding needless excessive spill over seepage.

 

chck this out How Thermal Compound Spreads - YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?featur...tion_id=annotation_461720&src_vid=EyXLu1Ms-q4

 

Thanks for the link. Very informative.

 

Ok, so this is a response of results so people understand the concept of thermal paste and it's function.

The goal of thermal paste is to transfer heat from the GPU to the heatsink, to ultimately dissipate the heat from the GPU. Now this where it gets complicated because to many people will stick added copper ships in with thermal pads or multiple shims or to thick of paste. Think about this the more layers heat has to go through the more it actually insulates and keeps heat in!

So this is hwy I told ClarkD to do this so he can find out for himself, Computers are easy as long as your open to learning them.

Best Regards,

Don

 

whenever I repaste, I don't remove the GPU, you can just do it there, just be a little more careful

 

Spread method looks to be the worst.

 

Actually, I never had a problem with the spread method.
Seems to be doing the trick rather nicely - equally if not more so effective than the dot method.
One thing to keep in mind also is that laptops are not desktops.
You have to be careful of how much pressure is applied to the components in order to avoid potentially crushing them, and you cannot wiggle the heatsink on a laptop in order to 'spread the dot' like you would on a desktop (simply not enough room).

 

There won't be any problems, it's just the efficiency of the thermal conductivity.

If you check this post, it links to a test that was carried out by Hardware secrets: http://forum.notebookreview.com/gaming-software-graphics-cards/684579-right-way-repasting-cpu-gpu-3.html#post8800078

 

A reminder that too much paste, or too large of air bubbles between paste and heatsink, or a combination of factors can actually LOWER your heat transfer.

The "spread" method tends to make for more margin-for-human-error as it also spreads air bubbles in the paste which lower the overall effectiveness.
The "dot" or "line" method makes for slightly less coverage, but the displacement caused by securing the heatsink tends to remove air bubbles and force the paste into the voids where it needs to be.

Either works, its all about how well it works. Its mostly about personal touch as any activity with thermal paste becomes as much artform as science.

I tend to use five dots. One larger one in the middle and four smaller ones in the corners to get the areas the middle dot misses.
Still takes some practice, but tends to have excellent results for me.

ALL methods have spill potential, and quite frankly the "spread" method not only has "spill" potential, but anytime you have thermal paste over your hands it tends to get everywhere.

You do realize that most of the time you have a massive overabundance of paste to practice with and you do NOT have to practice with real CPUs and heatsinks.
A piece of clear plastic and a roughly square, roughly CPU-sized flat object would do the job.

 

This shows a piece a plastic being squarely pressed down (with what I assume is a lot of pressure) on a desktop CPU with an IHS.

Remember, we're talking about the notebook world.

 

I wouldn't be so sure...

 

In the notebook world, you are most often gently screwing the heatsink/fan assembly down. Thus, unless the person doing it is one of these "hulk smash" techs who absolutely must get every screw as tight as possible, I think you will be OK.

Let's face it, if you are too rough doing this, you shouldn't be working on a laptop.

Arguably, if you are as rough as you imply you are also probably not dexterous enough with your hands to properly spread paste without plentiful air bubbles forming either. Such a person should probably pay someone else to do this kind of thing.

Somehow, I have never crushed either a desktop processor or a laptop one using the dot method. I am quite practiced at this kind of thing, but I think its something the average joe could learn to do with a little non-smash trial-and-error.

 

I use either a small dot or a thin line depending on how the shape of the cpu.
For my i7 2720QM i used the line method.

 

I'm not talking about roughness of the user. I'm talking about the retention pressure of the notebook heatsinks. The little puny screws aren't going to be applying the same pressure you'd get from a proper desktop assembly. (Or a guy putting his weight down, haha).

Also, in the video he puts it straight down. I haven't seen that with any laptop I've worked with. (Granted, I've repasted at most eight different models). You have to insert them at an angle, which would cause an uneven spread. And, also, you can see him twisting the plastic to ensure a good, even paste distribution. All well in good with desktops, but laptops don't have the luxury of room.

Next is the presence of the IHS. If your TIM only spreads in the center region of the IHS, you're still good to go, since the CPU die is in the center and that's all you need to cover. Anything past the die is just extra. However, with a bare die on a notebook, you can't do that. You either have to put the perfect amount on, or you'll either get extra or not enough, both of which can be bad.


If we start to see laptop components with IHSs, I'll probably change my song and start advocating the dot/line method. As it stands, the aforementioned reasons are why I still spread.

 

Well if you're not using electrically conductive TIM, applying a little extra shouldn't really hurt. I tend to use a little more that I think I need every time because the die is exposed with no IHS. If you use something like AS5 then you better spread because that stuff, while not very conductive, even a little bit is enough to short/fry something if it gets on the wrong spot.