Proper removal and application of thermal paste on the processor. How to apply thermal paste on the processor? Detailed instructions and useful tips

There are many important steps in assembling a computer, but why does applying thermal paste cause so many concerns among novice assemblers, why is this happening? In part, the fears are justified, because not properly applying thermal paste or installing a cooler can lead to a freeze and a decrease in computer performance, which is at least, as a maximum, a failure of an expensive processor. Our little guide is designed to help novice computer scientists learn how to properly install the processor and cooler.

What is thermal paste for?

The processor crystal hidden under a metal cap during its operation generates a sufficient amount of heat that must be removed from the processor. A cooler is used for this purpose. Which is pressed against the processor by the metal part of the workspace. Microscopic spaces inevitably remain between two metal elements (processor and cooler), no matter how perfectly polished the surfaces are. But air is not a perfect conductor of heat, which is why we use thermal paste. Thermal paste fills these microscopic voids and transfers heat from the processor to the cooler much more efficiently. Several different types of thermal interface materials exist, including ceramic and metal-based pastes and solid, waxy thermal pads. Some coolers already have thermal paste applied, but we do not recommend using it, it is better to apply a more effective one, such as Arctic Silver 5 or Arctic Silver CERAMIQUE.

Preparing the processor and cooler

If you are reusing a cooler or if you have old thermal paste applied to the cooler, the first step is to remove the old thermal paste. You can buy a special thermal paste remover such as ArctiClean, but any alcohol containing liquid like vodka will do. Put a couple of drops on the old thermal paste and wait a minute for the alcohol to dissolve the thermal paste, now wipe with a dry, lint-free cloth. Repeat the procedure several times.

Apply thermal paste

We advise you to apply a drop slightly smaller than a pea in the center of the processor. Now gently spread the thermal paste all over the CPU with your finger, trying to apply a thin, even layer. The layer should be approximately such that the processor cover is slightly translucent. Press the cooler in its working position to the processor and slightly move the cooler to the left or right. Now snap the cooler mounts.

If you have any doubts, carefully remove the CPU cooler and see how the thermal paste behaved. If you see a uniform layer, then everything is in order, but if there are gaps, then it is better to repeat the operation. Make sure that the thermal paste does not leak over the edges of the processor, if this happens, remove the excess with a cleaning solution. .

I will add a short video to this post. I suggest you familiarize yourself with this method of applying thermal paste

Updated

After carrying out a number of replacements of thermal pastes from various manufacturers, I came to this conclusion.

How often do you need to replace the thermal paste in a home computer? Approximately once every two years.

How often do you need to change the thermal paste in a laptop? Approximately once every 1 year.

The thickness of the applied layer depends directly on the quality of the thermal paste. The thermal conductivity of the paste must be checked. As a rule, on cheap thermal pastes, it is at an average level or even below average. Such thermal pastes must be applied in a thin layer of about half a millimeter. Watch the video above.

On good thermal pastes, the applied layer can be up to 1 millimeter (even better), I tested thermal paste based on gold powder.

Read more about thermal pastes and their thermal conductivity coefficient on this site http://www.kakras.ru/mobile/thermal-conductivity.html

Thermal paste is a thick substance, often white or light gray in color. Its most important property is its high thermal conductivity. Therefore, thermal paste is applied to the central processing unit and the video card chip so that these heat-prone elements give off heat better.

Over the years, thermal paste dries out, which often leads to overheating of the computer. If the temperature of the processor and video card in your PC and the thermal interface has not been updated for several years, then you need to act. The service center will gladly replace the thermal paste for money. But you can also do it yourself and save money.

Thermal paste needs to be changed both in stationary computers and in laptops. This guide will help in any case.

1. Prepare everything you need

First of all, you need the thermal paste itself. You can buy it at any computer hardware store.

Which paste to choose is a debatable issue. There are no large-scale studies on the effectiveness of thermal pastes on the Web. But service centers often recommend Zalman, Noctua and Arctic brands. A syringe with four grams can be purchased for 300–400 rubles. This should be enough for several replacements.

There is also a popular budget option - KPT-8 thermal grease, but reviews about its quality are contradictory.

In addition to thermal paste, you will need:

screwdriver for disassembling a computer;
dry paper towel, cotton swabs and alcohol to remove the remnants of the old substance and excess of the new;
vacuum cleaner for cleaning from dust (preferably);
plastic card or brush for applying new thermal paste.

2. Disassemble the computer

Turn off your computer and unplug the power cable from the electrical outlet. Then remove the housing cover with a screwdriver.

Improper disassembly and cleaning can damage your computer. If you are not confident in your abilities, do not take risks. And remember: opening the case will void the warranty.

At this stage, it does not hurt to gently vacuum the insides of the computer. By getting rid of dust, you will reduce the overall temperature of the system. But do not overdo it: the vacuum cleaner should not touch the details.

Having unscrewed the bolts on the cooling system, disconnect it from the motherboard - you will see a metal plate under it with the remnants of the old thermal paste. This is the processor. There may be another plate next to it - an integrated video card chip.

It happens that the laptop case makes it difficult to separate the cooling system from the motherboard. In this case, you will first have to pull the motherboard out and only then disconnect the heatsink from it, as in the video example above.

If your computer has a separate video card with its own cooling, remove it, and then remove the heatsink from it. Under it on the video card there should also be a plate with the remnants of the old substance - a video chip.

If you have difficulty disassembling your computer or individual components, look on YouTube for service videos of the same device model as yours.

3. Remove the remnants of the old substance

Take a dry cloth and carefully remove the old thermal paste from the processor, graphics card and cooling elements. If the substance does not give in, wet cotton swabs with a little alcohol and try to remove the residue with them.

4. Apply new thermal paste

Squeeze a drop of thermal paste from the syringe onto the processor and spread the substance in a thin even layer over the entire area of the plate. To do this, use a brush if it was sold in the kit, or a plastic card, or any suitable object. The main thing is that it is dry and cannot scratch the processor. If the substance gets outside the plate, wipe it off with a paper towel.

To replace the thermal paste on an integrated or external graphics card, apply the substance to its chip in the same way as on the processor.

You can apply thermal paste both on the chip itself and on the heatsink (see video). Or you can get by with just a chip: that will be enough.

5. Build your computer

After replacing the thermal paste, reinstall all components. Make sure they are well fixed and you haven't missed a single bolt. Then close the case cover.

Turn on the computer and observe the temperature of the processor and video card. If its average value falls, then the replacement of thermal paste has benefited the devices. If unsuccessful, consider .

When assembling a computer or replacing a cooling system, users often have a question about how to properly apply thermal paste to a processor. After all, if you make a mistake, the processor will overheat and the computer will not work normally. In this article, we will try to answer this question in as much detail as possible.

In order to understand how to properly apply thermal paste, you must first understand why this thermal paste is needed at all. Why can't you just install a heatsink directly on the processor.

The fact is that the surface of the heatsink and the surface of the processor are not perfectly even. They may appear to be equal, but in fact they are not. Both the heat sink and the processor have protrusions, depressions, scratches, and other irregularities. Because of this, the heat sink and the processor do not touch each other with their entire surface. And where there is no contact between the heatsink and the processor, there is no heat removal.

Thermal paste is used to solve this problem. With thermal paste, you can fill in all the bumps and significantly improve the transfer of heat from the processor to the heatsink. From this it becomes clear that the task of thermal paste is to fill in the bumps on the processor and heatsink.

It is to fill in the bumps, and not become a separate layer of material between the processor and the heatsink. If you apply too much thermal paste, then it will, on the contrary, worsen the heat transfer, because in this case there will be no direct contact between the processor and the heatsink at all.

Correct application of thermal paste on the processor

So, we figured out why thermal paste is needed at all, now we can proceed to the analysis of the process of applying thermal paste itself. If you are replacing old thermal paste with a new one, the first thing to do is to remove the remaining thermal paste from the processor and heatsink. In order not to damage the processor or motherboard, it is better to remove the processor from.

For using different methods. The most popular is a cotton swab with alcohol. Take a cotton swab, moisten it with a small amount of alcohol and begin to gently wipe the surface of the processor and heatsink until you remove all remnants of the old dried thermal paste. Also, to remove thermal paste, it is not uncommon to use an eraser to erase pencils. In this case, the thermal paste can be washed dry or dripped with a little alcohol.

After the old thermal paste is removed, you need to install the processor in the socket and you can start applying the thermal paste. In order to properly apply thermal paste to the processor, it should be very small. Remember, the task of thermal paste is to fill in irregularities, and not to become a separate layer of material. Therefore, apply just a drop of thermal paste and smooth it evenly over the entire processor.

If you didn’t have enough thermal paste to cover the entire processor in an even layer, then add a little more and level it again. It is very convenient to use a plastic card to level the thermal paste.

If it seems to you that there is too much thermal paste, then remove a part and level the layer again. As a result, your entire processor should be covered with a very thin and even layer of thermal paste. After that, you can install the radiator and assemble the computer. After applying the new thermal paste, don't forget to check the CPU temperature.

The graphics card and processor are perhaps the hottest components in the average system. Therefore, the first step is to provide these components with high-quality cooling, this is especially true in the hot summer season.

High-quality cooling will begin with a good removal of hot air from the system unit, through fans on the walls of the case, it also includes processor and video card coolers that cool the radiators, and they, in turn, remove heat from the chips using a thermal interface, which is thermal paste.

So we got along the dependency chain to the very concept of thermal paste for the processor, which we will talk about throughout the article. And not only about the concept of thermal paste, but also about how to apply thermal paste on the processor.

What is thermal paste? And what is it for?

It would seem that the answers to these questions are quite simple, but when it comes to detailed consideration, a lot of ambiguities immediately arise. After all, if all the “YouTube stars” who post videos there on the allegedly correct application of thermal paste were aware of this issue, then they would definitely not squeeze out half a tube onto the processor, and the rest onto the radiator :)

Let's start with a boring definition, alas, without it in any way. Thermal paste (thermal paste)- This is a multicomponent substance that is in a plastic state and has a high thermal conductivity. This substance is used to reduce thermal resistance between touching surfaces.

Speaking more simply and closer to the subject of central and GPUs, then thermal paste is a paste with which we fill the surface irregularities of the processor and heatsink. Despite the fact that their surfaces seem to be absolutely even, there are microcracks and depressions there, which create an air cushion, and it, in turn, interferes with effective heat removal. It is with respect to the purpose of the thermal paste that the required thickness of the applied layer is formed. But we'll talk about this a little later, but now let's look at a very unpleasant process of cleaning the surface of the CPU and GPU from thermal paste. Perhaps, we will consider it on a representative example of a graphics processor, because thermal paste is not changed on video cards as often as on central processors, although the cleaning process is absolutely identical here and there.

Cleaning the surface of the processor and heat sink from dried thermal paste

When you easily remove the radiator with the cooler and see a plastic substance there, you can say you are lucky. Thermal paste in this case can easily be removed with alcohol and a cloth, or something like that. Often, in most systems, I observe a substance that is far from plastic, and the heatsink has to be torn off the surface of the processor with hands and feet. Well, feet - this is of course a joke, but with a creak for sure. So, when we (those who are less fortunate with the substance), we can say tore apart the processor and heatsink (this should be done very carefully), then nothing but a solidly dried thermal paste appears before our eyes. You need to remove the thermal paste in such a way as not to scratch the surfaces of the processor and heatsink, because this can adversely affect the temperature regime, and indeed on correct operation, if we are talking about a scratched processor.

I saw many different ways to remove dried thermal paste, but I chose only one for myself. This method is brought to life with the help of an ordinary school elastic band (“washer”) and strong fingers. We stock up on patience and three-rub the site to a shine. As for me, this method is one of the safest for the surface of the radiator and processor. The only inconvenience is that it will take a long time to rub. If it’s completely unbearable, then you can help with some other objects (please move away from vandals with knives), for example, with a wooden ruler, and then only on the surface of the radiator, it’s still better to carefully wipe the processor completely with an elastic band. And one more thing, when you overwrite the central processor, then get it out of socket no need, because his legs will die a terrible death.

On rice. 1 you can see solid remnants of thermal paste on the surface of the GPU, which form whole “mountains” with their shape on such a scale. And this is considering that half has already been cleaned.

Fig.1

And it is not strange that the video card solidly overheated. Okay, I won’t remember the “not an evil quiet word” of the people who applied it, but I’ll just start rubbing hard. After a couple of minutes, the mountains were literally “rolled up” and the surface of the GPU shone in front of me rice. 2

Fig.2

Likewise, on rice. 3 and 4, there is a "perfect transformation" of the surface of the radiator, with the help of an elastic band and a wooden ruler:

Fig.3

Fig.4

Thermal paste application

It is important to understand the fact that you need quite a bit of thermal paste for the processor, literally a drop the size of a match head, and even less if thermal paste is applied to the processor of a video card. Yes, of course, our mentality does not allow this, because if a tube of thermal paste was purchased, then why should the good disappear? - must be squeezed out. In no case should this be done, since the thermal conductivity of even the most expensive thermal paste is much worse than the thermal conductivity of the cheapest radiator. Therefore, in order not to worsen the cooling of the graphics or CPU, it is necessary to apply thermal paste in a very thin even layer (even so that it is a little translucent). First of all, it is necessary to cover up microcracks, and not create a centimeter layer of "oil" between the heatsink and the processor.

After the surface has been cleaned of the remnants of thermal paste, it is necessary to take a little ethyl alcohol and degrease the surface (cotton sticks are well suited for this), although this is not necessary, but it is still desirable for a greater effect. Next, you need to squeeze a small amount of thermal paste out of the tube (namely on the processor case, we lubricate only it) and gently rub it (a plastic card is well suited for this). It is necessary to rub the thermal paste evenly over the entire surface so that there are no missed areas anywhere in the corners. And I remind you again: very, very thin layer!

This picture, taken from one of the specialized forums, clearly demonstrates the correct application of thermal paste.

When you have applied the thermal paste, you can safely cover it with a radiator, and then screw it well so that the surfaces are in tight contact.

Actually, now you, I think, have clearly figured out how to apply thermal paste to the processor. I want to once again draw your attention to the fact that you don’t need to follow frankly stupid videos on YouTube, where comrades with “smooth” hands apply kilograms of thermal paste. It is possible that the system will work with such an abundance of thermal interface, but the temperature regime will be many times worse compared to the system where the thermal paste was applied correctly.

Cold processors to you. Good luck!

If the computer heats up and shuts down, your computer may need to replace dried-out thermal paste with fresher one. How to achieve good cooling, get rid of overheating, how to change the thermal paste on the processor and why it is needed at all - we understand this material.

What is thermal paste?

Thermal paste, or as it is called by its full name, thermal paste is a viscous and plastic mixture that is necessary for efficient heat transfer between the processor and the heatsink. Many users mistakenly believe that the more thermal paste you apply to your CPU, the better. In fact, this is not so.

Modern cooling systems are based on the following principle - the flat sole of the cooling radiator is tightly pressed against the chip. An electric current passes through the processor, thanks to which the computer performs the necessary calculations, and a side effect of this process is the release of heat. With a heatsink made of heat-conducting materials such as copper and aluminum, heat is removed from the chip. And computer coolers blow cold air over the radiators and remove the heat of the processor along with the air outside the case.

However, neither the chip cover nor the heatsink pad has a perfectly flat surface for perfect contact. One way or another, microscopic air voids appear between the two plates. Air has low thermal conductivity and prevents heat transfer. Therefore, thermal paste is used - so that these two surfaces come into contact as tightly as possible, because the thermal conductivity of thermal paste is 31 times higher than the thermal conductivity of air.

Thermal paste contains powdered metals and synthetic oils. Metal crystals fill in scratches and irregularities, leveling the surface and ensuring tight contact between the surfaces. In theory, if you polish both surfaces to a mirror state, then thermal paste will not be needed, but this is fraught with damage to an expensive processor.

Because of this, thermal paste should be applied in a thin layer, because the thermal conductivity of the thermal paste itself, although higher than that of air, is also much lower than that of metal. A large amount of paste will interfere with the contact of the surfaces, and a very thin layer will not fill all the voids and will not force out the air.

Why do you need to replace thermal paste?

The oils present in the composition evaporate over time, the paste shrinks and loses its effective properties, which leads to a deterioration in heat transfer between the chip and the heatsink, and also leads to overheating. Therefore, the thermal paste must be changed periodically. Some advise to change regularly, once a year.

In a modern computer, in addition to cooling the central processor, thermal paste also takes part in the heat exchange between the video card chip and its radiator. However, disassembling a graphics card can often void the warranty and should be handled with care.

“... Despite the fact that thermal pastes have become widespread among the mass user only since the widespread use of computers, KPT-8 paste, popular because of its cheapness and efficiency, was launched into mass production back in 1975 ... "

How to change thermal paste?

To change the thermal paste, you need to turn off the power to the computer, remove the cover of your computer, carefully remove the cooling system, get rid of the old thermal paste, apply a new one, install the cooling system in place, and check if it works. We will analyze each stage in more detail a little further.

xxx: Sash, hello
xxx: Hey, do you still have some coolant left for your laptop?

What do we need for this

1.Screwdriver. Cross or flat - depends on the bolts and the method of fastening the cooling system.
2.Dry wipes. Both paper towels and regular toilet paper will do.
3.Tube of thermal paste. Choose the most affordable one. The author of these lines, in pursuit of the cherished degrees, used many, ranging from the Soviet KPT-8 and Alsis, ending with liquid metal from Coollaboratory Liquid Pro and others. For a long time, my favorite was the Arctic Cooling MX-4, which is optimal in terms of price and thermal conductivity. However, from experience I will say that the best thermal paste is the one that is at hand, because it is always lacking at the most crucial moment. And improper application completely negates the effectiveness of expensive pastes.
. Thermal paste is non-toxic, but sometimes it can be difficult to wipe off hands and surfaces.
5.Unnecessary plastic card or something suitable - flat and hard, for leveling the paste.

Starting to replace the thermal paste

At the same time, see if your cooler is set to work at 100% speed, and if it is the cause of the noise.