Tried a cheap thermal paste spreader tool and it made my temps worse

Grabbed one of those $5 plastic spreader kits off Amazon to avoid the pea method and ended up with air bubbles that jacked my CPU temps up by 8 degrees on a Ryzen build I did last Saturday. Anyone else find those tools are more trouble than they are worth?

3 comments

3 Comments

margaret_singh11mo ago

Blowing this a little out of proportion maybe? 8 degrees is annoying sure but unless its pushing past your thermal limits it probably doesn't matter day to day. I've used those cheap plastic tools a bunch and they work fine if you put a tiny dot in the center first and let the tool spread it without pressing super hard. sounds like you might have just pushed too much paste away from the middle.

the_lisa1mo ago

Pea sized dot in the middle and let the pressure do the work, that's always worked best for me. I had a similar issue with a cheap tool once and it just pushed all the paste to the edges. Switched to doing a tiny cross pattern instead of a dot and it spread way more even. 8 degrees is a lot though, that's not just pushing too hard.

grace4191mo ago

Yeah exactly, 8 degrees isn't just a little too much pressure...