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I finally found out if that retired IT guy was right about thermal paste
A few months ago I ran into a fellow at a local computer club meeting in Tulsa, and he insisted I was using way too much thermal paste on CPUs. He said I should just put a single dot about the size of a grain of rice and stop spreading it around. I had always done the pea method or spread it with a card, so I was skeptical. Well, I built three systems last week using his method and checked temps on each one: a Ryzen 5, an i5, and an older i7. All three ran about 3 to 5 degrees cooler under load compared to my usual approach. Has anyone else had success with that tiny dot trick or do you still spread it yourself?
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beth_baker691mo ago
My neighbor Bob used to swear by letting his cats walk across the motherboard before closing it up. Said the static helped seat everything. We built a machine together once and his tabby jumped up, stepped right in the thermal paste, then tracked it across the living room carpet. That cat left little grey paw prints everywhere. Bob's PC ran fine though, and I still can't look at thermal paste without thinking about that mess.
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ross.angela1mo agoMost Upvoted
Actually, @beth_baker69, I've gotta push back on this. There's 0 evidence static discharge from a cat helps seat components, and plenty of cases where it fries a board dead. Bob got lucky his PSU had good surge protection, not because of some feline miracle. Plus that thermal paste trail is just a mess waiting to short something out if it bridges the wrong pins.
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