My own Thermal Paste applying R&D

Hey Guys,

I recently received my P170HM3, and decided to re apply the thermal paste on the 580m as it was hitting 93c in games (and had IC diamond applied from factory)

I removed the heatsink, and the GPU and heatsink was caked in paste (lots and lots of overhang), and it was very heavy stuff to clean off!

Until my ICD came i had to use some AS5 (plus i thought id use this as a opportunity to test the 2 TIMs)

Now i got unusual results (maybe its because its a GPU and not a CPU and gpus run hotter) so i thought id ask you guys for an opinion.

First i tried the dot in the middle (not to big) and then applied the heatsink and screwed down tight in correct order as per heatsink numbers. The temps i got were really bad, idle was fine, (38c) but soon as i loaded a game it zoomed up to 97 degrees were it was steady but it took literally 30 seconds to hit 97c

Turned off, removed heatsink, and cleaned. Reapplied with a bigger dot in the centre, and same results as per above.

I then thought the heat paste was not spreading across the GPU well enough (the corners looked a bit bare), so i did the line method (west to south) but a very thin line but from edge to edge, and the temps were BETTER but not great, (was getting 93c again under load same as ICD but took longer to get there)

I removed the heatsink and cleaned paste, and this time did west to south line of paste but a thick as line this time, and well, perfect, it only hits low 80s under load!

Does anyone have an explaination?, I had to do the line method and it had to be decent in thickness for it to work. I was always under the impression wheather it be gpu or cpu u only use a tiny dot in the centre and let the heat sink spread it.

Can i just confirm, that NORMALLY your meant to put a pea size in the centre then apply heatsink for 580m? Being not a square core, but a rectangle, was i meant to apply it in a line format? As the dot format clearly wasnt spreading out far enough...

Anyway any comments would be appriciated!

Thanks!

 

This is only true with IC Diamond. The Arctic Silver you used typically calls for the line or surface spread method. IC Diamond uses the pea because it's a much more viscous paste.

Arctic Silver: Arctic Silver, Inc. - Intel® Application Methods
IC Diamond: Application

A little bit of experimenting seems to have solved it anyway though

 

Thanks for the response MALIBAL, yep so i just applied ICD just then, in a line method, and its running perfect, for 20 minutes modern warfare 3 didnt go over 75 degrees, and i have the increased VCORE bios for my 580 (runs 0.92v instead of 0.87 stock)