Going to repaste. How much do I need?

Well I'm going to repaste everything that my M17 R1 have with paste. So the question is, how much do I need? I have never pasted so I really don't know how much does it takes. Thinking about going with Arctic Silver, is it good?

 

AS5 used to be the standard and it's still what I use but I have heard there are better options these days. You will only need a small amount (they say the size of a pea per application), 1 tube will easily be enough and give you leftovers.

One thing to be careful of is the copper heat pipes, in my m5750 (and I imagine most laptops / Alienware's) they bend VERY easily. I have had to replace my heatsink before because when I removed it the heat pipe bent the slightest bit and the contents inside the pipe could no longer easily transfer the heat. I only noticed the small bend at first because temps shot up 10-20C. Luckily they are cheap on ebay to pick up, though even the first one the seller sent to me had bends in it.

 

The thing is that I'm going to buy it at frozencpu and they got many many tubes there. Look: Arctic Silver | Page 1 | Sort By: Product Title A-Z - FrozenCPU.com   which one should I take?

 

3.5 should be fine

 

If you're in the US, you can go to any Radio Shack or Staples and get thermal paste. Don't get too hung up on which brand/type. AS5 is a good paste for every application. Use an amount the size of a grain of rice. A pea-sized amount will spread from hell to breakfast on the M17's tiny dies.

 

I live in Puerto Rico parts of US, but not US. Anyway I'm going to buy a couple of things from therebso I will order the paste too.

Ok I have been reading a lot from applying thermal paste and now I'm very very very confused. What method should I use?? I read in arctic silver that I need the spread method: Arctic Silver, Inc. - Intel® Application Methods but I read somewhere else that with spread method you could get air bubbles...

 

I will tell you this, because I clean and reapply thermal paste quite often. When I use a paste that spreads easily, like AS5, I put a tiny blob on the die about the size of a grain of rice. Then, using either disposable rubber gloves or a plastic sandwich bag, I spread the grease evenly on the die.

I realize that there's a video on Youtube where the guy illustrates that the 'spread' method leaves bubbles between the die and heatsink. I've watched it many times. I just don't agree with it.

 

The grain of rice size is pretty standard. Usually I don't bother manually spreading and let the pressure from the heat sink spread the paste. Granted this probably wouldn't work really well for pastes that are hard to spread, it works great for AC MX-4 paste. I've tried AS5 too and it works but found MX-4 paste to be cooler by 1-2 degrees.

 

Well finally the items arrived and I will be making my first cooling mod this weekend. Unfortunately I forgot to include the thermal pads in this buy... So I will have to wait until next weekend to repaste and put new thermal pads

 

AS5 used to be the standard that every other paste was judged, now its old and surpassed in almost all aspects, but its still popular as its available everywhere and its tried and true, not just one dude saying "I got a hectic drop in temps with (insert paste here)." I have used it many times and its reliable. It has been revealed that it is very slightly capacitive (NOT conductive, two completely different things) which means that you have to be careful as it can bridge circuits, as long as it all goes on the chip and not all over the PCB/components you will be fine, I have never heard of anyone having problems.

MX-4 is a good choice if the capacitive part scares you, and IC Diamond is the best for cooling now (apparently) but you have to be careful that it doesn't scratch up your CPU/GPU (if that bothers you).

Either the blob or spread method is acceptable, just make sure you don't put too much thermal paste on. The paste is there to ensure a good contact between chip and heatsink, if too much is applied it will actually lock the heat in and you will be in more trouble then you started. A grain of rice is plenty.

 

I was thinking those tiny frozen green giant peas haha but yes rice is a better comparison for size.