That reddit thread about thermal paste application ruined my afternoon.

Someone in a PC build sub insisted I use the pea size method for my AMD chip, but after I put it together my temps were hitting 85c under load. Turns out their advice was for Intel sockets, and I wasted a whole tube of Arctic Silver redoing it. Anyone else get burned by one size fits all thermal paste tips?

2 comments

2 Comments

sagew503d ago

Got burned hard by that same advice on my Ryzen build last year. That whole pea size thing is basically a gamble depending on your cooler and chip layout. I followed a guide from a random YouTube comment and ended up with hotspots that spiked my temps into the 90s. Had to scrape all the paste off and redo it with a thin spread across the whole IHS. Now I just look up the actual manual for my specific CPU and cooler combo before touching anything. Thermal paste is way too finicky to trust general advice from people who only built one system ever.

the_rose2d ago

I had almost the exact same issue with my first AM5 build last year... used the pea method on a Noctua NH-D15 and got these random hot spots that spiked to 85c under load even though my mount was perfect. Ended up wiping it all off and doing a thin manual spread with a plastic card, basically covering the whole IHS evenly. Now my temps stay around 72c max with the same paste and cooler. The pea thing is way too dependent on how the cold plate pushes it around, especially with the offset chiplets on Ryzen. I just do a thin spread every time now and it's never let me down.

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