Enough Thermal Paste?

[AbdullahTron]

Hey Guys,

 

So I changed Thermal Paste for the first time on a laptop. Its a Razer Blade pro 2017 v2. I was shocked to see the Thermal Paste done by Razer. The laptop is not even 1 Year old and the paste was already dried up and it was a complete mess. I have posted a picture. I mean this came like that from Razer. So anyways I changed the Thermal Paste. I used Arctic MX-4. Because it is my first time changing Thermal Paste I am not sure if it is to much or too less. Anyways I applied it and closed my laptop. The Temp did drop a bit but not much. So that gets me guessing if the paste was enough or too much. Any advice would be great. The GTX 1080 is on the left and i7-70820HK on the right.

[FloRolf]

No Razer didn't put too much and it's only really dried up because it's cold. 

 

You put too little on the GPU IMO because on Razers attempt they actually closed the gap from the coldplate to the heatpipe giving it more

heat transfer area, which you don't really have now.

Generally reapplying thermal paste after 1 year is a bad idea unless temps are bad ofc. 

[AbdullahTron]

Then should I re-paste the GPU and CPU again?

[LIGISTX]

3 minutes ago, AbdullahTron said:

Hey Guys,

 

So I changed Thermal Paste for the first time on a laptop. Its a Razer Blade pro 2017 v2. I was shocked to see the Thermal Paste done by Razer. The laptop is not even 1 Year old and the paste was already dried up and it was a complete mess. I have posted a picture. I mean this came like that from Razer. So anyways I changed the Thermal Paste. I used Arctic MX-4. Because it is my first time changing Thermal Paste I am not sure if it is to much or too less. Anyways I applied it and closed my laptop. The Temp did drop a bit but not much. So that gets me guessing if the paste was enough or too much. Any advice would be great. The GTX 1080 is on the left and i7-70820HK on the right.

Paste does dry up like that over time, the stock paste looks normal and what I would expect it to have looked like.

 

I would be worried you didn't use enough. There is no such thing as too much thermal paste. As long as its not electrically conducive, you want to use "too much", especially on laptops like that because your cooling the die's directly, there is no IHS. You need to ensure you have 100% coverage across the entire die. I would have used a good bit more....

[.Apex.]

2 minutes ago, AbdullahTron said:

So I changed Thermal Paste for the first time on a laptop. Its a Razer Blade pro 2017 v2. I was shocked to see the Thermal Paste done by Razer. The laptop is not even 1 Year old and the paste was already dried up and it was a complete mess. I have posted a picture. I mean this came like that from Razer. So anyways I changed the Thermal Paste. I used Arctic MX-4. Because it is my first time changing Thermal Paste I am not sure if it is to much or too less. Anyways I applied it and closed my laptop. The Temp did drop a bit but not much. So that gets me guessing if the paste was enough or too much. Any advice would be great. The GTX 1080 is on the left and i7-70820HK on the right.

The thermal paste you put on there should be enough to spread out well, but there's no such thing as too much thermal paste and the application done by Razer is good, dried up thermal paste doesn't mean that it's bad, it's because some thermal pastes will cure over time unlike the MX-4 which doesn't cure and will stay liquid, if you put too much thermal paste then most of it will squeeze out from the sides so in the end it would result in the same amount of thermal paste between the die and the heatsink whether you used too much or a decent amount of it to fill the whole chip.

[LIGISTX]

1 minute ago, Syn. said:

The thermal paste you put on there should be enough to spread out well, but there's no such thing as too much thermal paste and the application done by Razer is good, dried up thermal paste doesn't mean that it's bad, it's because some thermal pastes will cure over time unlike the MX-4 which doesn't cure and will stay liquid, if you put too much thermal paste then most of it will squeeze out from the sides so in the end it would result in the same amount of thermal paste between the die and the heatsink whether you used too much or a decent amount of it to fill the whole chip.

This is true, but his GPU could have used a lot more. I doubt it pushed past that heat pipe valley at all, so a large portion of the chip likely has no thermal paste on it at all... That is a recipe for a fried chip...

 

When you are direct die cooling like this, you always want to favor overkill on the paste, especially with a huge valley in the heat pipes like that.

[.Apex.]

3 minutes ago, LIGISTX said:

This is true, but his GPU could have used a lot more. I doubt it pushed past that heat pipe valley at all, so a large portion of the chip likely has no thermal paste on it at all... That is a recipe for a fried chip...

 

When you are direct die cooling like this, you always want to favor overkill on the paste, especially with a huge valley in the heat pipes like that.

I agree, I was just about to say that depending on the distance between the Die and Heatsink and how even those surfaces are then that amount might not have covered it well enough, I would add a little bit more to ensure that there is enough coverage, especially with an MX4 because it isn't conductive, too little thermal paste is always bad

[Curious Pineapple]

4 minutes ago, Syn. said:

The thermal paste you put on there should be enough to spread out well, but there's no such thing as too much thermal paste and the application done by Razer is good, dried up thermal paste doesn't mean that it's bad, it's because some thermal pastes will cure over time unlike the MX-4 which doesn't cure and will stay liquid, if you put too much thermal paste then most of it will squeeze out from the sides so in the end it would result in the same amount of thermal paste between the die and the heatsink whether you used too much or a decent amount of it to fill the whole chip.

You can use too much paste. The idea of it is to fill in the surface imperfections whilst allowing direct contact between the heatsink and device wherever possible. Relying on mounting pressure to squeeze out the excess isn't a great idea.

[Tristerin]

Anymore, since using TG Kryo - I don't care what brand of paste it is, I use my little spreader stick and spread over my components myself.  I no longer dot, X, splatter, shoot a freethrow, etc at the components.  Even keel spread each time.  Works very well imho.

[.Apex.]

Just now, Curious Pineapple said:

You can use too much paste. The idea of it is to fill in the surface imperfections whilst allowing direct contact between the heatsink and device wherever possible. Relying on mounting pressure to squeeze out the excess isn't a great idea.

I only meant in terms of performance differences as there will be the same amount between the two surfaces because of mounting pressure (compared to the exact amount) but you're right to say that it isn't recommended, thermal paste can be problematic if it ever got on a PCB or CPU pins for example but in his scenario it's okay to use a little bit more to ensure full coverage, a little bit of excess on the side is considered okay and his thermal paste isn't conductive

[AbdullahTron]

Is this enough?