Had to pick between thermal paste or thermal pads for my PS4 rebuild

I was fixing a loud PS4 Pro last week and hit that moment where you gotta choose between spreading new paste or cutting sticky pads for the VRAM chips. I went with paste only because I had Arctic MX-4 on hand, but now my temps are stable and the fan is quiet again. Anyone else gamble on just paste and regret it later?

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ross.river3d ago

Jumped into the exact same situation with my old PS4 Slim last month. I ran out of thermal pads halfway through the job and just said screw it, slapped on some MX-4 on the chips too. Honestly it worked fine for like two weeks then I started getting random shutdowns when playing RDR2. Had to crack it back open and order proper pads after that. I mean maybe I just applied it wrong but the paste squeezed out from the pressure on the VRAM and left some spots totally dry. Never again I'm keeping a stock of both now.