This is Why You Don't Use the Cheapo Thermal Grease That You Saw at Best Buy!!!

1. It runs really hot
2. It doesn't spread evenly
3. It sucks worse than whatever HP uses for their HP Mini 1030NR (I'm serious here)

Both of these are Small FFT with an ambient of 67F...

My Desktop

Idle


After about 5 minutes


My Netbook

After 23 minutes


Notice that the idle temps for the desktop are HIGHER than the load temps for the Mini?

Lets spice things up a little... poke a wire tie into the fan of the Mini...



This is the exact same Mini that i leave on in my bookbag for 3 hours so that me and my friends will be able to listen to real music in our computer class. (They said no flash drives, cds, or internet streaming, they said nothing about streaming from the school's subnet.) It never breaks 50C even in those conditions (albeit it's clocked down as far as Windows 7 can take it).

EDIT: I have had a few days when i'm on the bus on my way home (i'm cheap, i don't want to buy gas) and it'll be 100F outside, and the sun beaming down on my poor Mini, and it'll climb up to 80C just web browsing... so it's certainly not invincible, but it's pretty tough temp wise. (Never really heard the fan maxed out... it seems to have 5 "stages" and I've never heard it go above the fourth one on its own.)

My desktop on the other hand... needs A. A new CPU cooler (coming soon i hope) and some Tuniq TX-2. (In the mail right now)

Just figured i'd throw this in here.

Wow those are some high temps, just for 3.2Ghz. I'm assuming this is on the stock cooler? I don't think so much of it has to do with the Best Buy Goo as it does with a bad heatsink mount. Look at your idle temps. Note the difference between Cores 0/2 and 1/3. Almost a 4C difference!! That can mean a couple things. 1) Your HSF is not secured completely flat to the CPU 2) One side of the HSF is making better contact than the other. How much thermal paste did you apply? Seeing temps that high is indicative of *too much* paste, as it begins to act as an insulator rather than a thermal agent. My best advice would be to use just a small, pea size drop in the middle and use a razor blade to spread it out as thin as possible. Barring that, follow the same directions for Arctic Silver. Spread a small amount down the middle of the cpu and let the heatsink spread it out evenly. Immediately lift the heatsink up and check your spread pattern. Also, is your heatsink fan set to low? Just something to think about, as your HSF fan could be tied to the CPU's temp in the BIOS.

-Dave

First things first. I will agree with you that the cheap TIM from Best Buy is probably crap, but that conclusion can't be drawn from your comparison here... sorry
There are MANY things that would force that temperature swing on your desktop. You're on the stock heatsink, EIST is enabled (so your idle temps will drop dramatically), you didn't list your vCore (If it's set to auto, that will be a majority of your problem, as auto settings will overvolt under high load conditions), it's also overclocked slightly.
Now the comparison to your lappy, you simply can't say that it's worse, because of the temperature comparison. It's a different CPU, different HSF, different environment, etc...
It may very well be inferior, but to conclusively say that, you would need a controlled environment, where the only thing that changes is the TIM. I know you didn't claim this to be a comprehensive comparison, but it's a comparison none-the-less.
On a side note: I like your background, where did you find it (top pic)

Woah, idle ain't too bad but most of the time it is innaccurate, my idle for a water loop is 34-7C for my overclock... I would also buy a new cooler rather than stock

Aren't netbooks fun?

Comparing a 2.5 watt CPU to a 130 watt CPU isn't really fair though.

SuperDave1685 said:

Wow those are some high temps, just for 3.2Ghz. I'm assuming this is on the stock cooler? I don't think so much of it has to do with the Best Buy Goo as it does with a bad heatsink mount. Look at your idle temps. Note the difference between Cores 0/2 and 1/3. Almost a 4C difference!! That can mean a couple things. 1) Your HSF is not secured completely flat to the CPU 2) One side of the HSF is making better contact than the other. How much thermal paste did you apply? Seeing temps that high is indicative of *too much* paste, as it begins to act as an insulator rather than a thermal agent. My best advice would be to use just a small, pea size drop in the middle and use a razor blade to spread it out as thin as possible. Barring that, follow the same directions for Arctic Silver. Spread a small amount down the middle of the cpu and let the heatsink spread it out evenly. Immediately lift the heatsink up and check your spread pattern. Also, is your heatsink fan set to low? Just something to think about, as your HSF fan could be tied to the CPU's temp in the BIOS.

-Dave

Click to expand...

It is linked to the temp in the BIOS. It get nice and loud under load, and silent when idle. I did check my spread patterns, and they're fine... the thermal "grease" is just drying up on it now

nzaneb said:

First things first. I will agree with you that the cheap TIM from Best Buy is probably crap, but that conclusion can't be drawn from your comparison here... sorry
There are MANY things that would force that temperature swing on your desktop. You're on the stock heatsink, EIST is enabled (so your idle temps will drop dramatically), you didn't list your vCore (If it's set to auto, that will be a majority of your problem, as auto settings will overvolt under high load conditions), it's also overclocked slightly.
Now the comparison to your lappy, you simply can't say that it's worse, because of the temperature comparison. It's a different CPU, different HSF, different environment, etc...
It may very well be inferior, but to conclusively say that, you would need a controlled environment, where the only thing that changes is the TIM. I know you didn't claim this to be a comprehensive comparison, but it's a comparison none-the-less.
On a side note: I like your background, where did you find it (top pic)

Click to expand...

Yeah, i just found it sad that a netbook with the fan stopped can stay cooler than my desktop with the fan maxed out... but like Bob said, it's a 2.5Watt CPU vs. a 130+ watt CPU.

I can't remember to be honest... I put it on Photobucket for you though
http://s300.photobucket.com/albums/nn4/DragonTamer2345/?action=view&current=dark-metal-texture.jpg

The TIM that the Intel Heatsink came with was better sadly... i just didn't take screenies then. I had to pull the cpu off to get some dust out of the fins, and realized that i needed some thermal grease after i pulled the sink off

Bobnova said:

Aren't netbooks fun?

Comparing a 2.5 watt CPU to a 130 watt CPU isn't really fair though.

Click to expand...

Yes, they are lol

And true that lol

CompuTamer said:

I can't remember to be honest... I put it on Photobucket for you though
http://s300.photobucket.com/albums/nn4/DragonTamer2345/?action=view&current=dark-metal-texture.jpg

Click to expand...

Nice! Thanks man

I would buy a non-stock cooler and another thermal paste.
I had your problem ( not so high temps, even i was using a Schyte Kabuto with 1300 rpm fan ) and i decided to change thermal paste to Tuniq TX-3 and add a 1900 rpm E-Flex cooler to the cpu. I got like, 7 less degrees, wich is good. i7 really gets hot... you can see people with Water with 75 degrees full load
By the way... if you want cheap go to amd , same with thermal paste wich is very important for cooling too! there is not really a big difference between bad and good ones

abuzzi said:

I would buy a non-stock cooler and another thermal paste.
I had your problem ( not so high temps, even i was using a Schyte Kabuto with 1300 rpm fan ) and i decided to change thermal paste to Tuniq TX-3 and add a 1900 rpm E-Flex cooler to the cpu. I got like, 7 less degrees, wich is good. i7 really gets hot... you can see people with Water with 75 degrees full load
By the way... if you want cheap go to amd , same with thermal paste wich is very important for cooling too! there is not really a big difference between bad and good ones

Click to expand...

I don't' really want cheap. I kinda enjoy peicemilling a system together... gives a nice suspense to it. lol

Quick question... would it be possible to Crossfire a 4XXX card with a 5XXX card?

Bobnova said:

Aren't netbooks fun?

Comparing a 2.5 watt CPU to a 130 watt CPU isn't really fair though.

Click to expand...

Yeah, why don't they making PC component the same way as they make for notebooks?

CompuTamer said:

I don't' really want cheap. I kinda enjoy peicemilling a system together... gives a nice suspense to it. lol

Quick question... would it be possible to Crossfire a 4XXX card with a 5XXX card?

Click to expand...

I get it does, lol... if i spend on my comp i always take the best i can afford, so that i know that one piece will compensate the other.

I can't help you with the ATI field since i am a fan of NVIDIA but i can say that you probably dont need to spend on crossfice since your card and your cpu can run 60 fps in any game, i don't care about engines like crysis tho.
Human eye cant see difference with more than 60 fps enable vsync and gg

CompuTamer said:

Quick question... would it be possible to Crossfire a 4XXX card with a 5XXX card?

Click to expand...

If they continue their past trend... NO. Same issue was brought up upon the release of the 4XXX series cards... would they Crossfire with the 3XXX series cards, answer NO. From what I've seen, the drivers released for the 5XXX cards are complete crap, and they're not even worth putting in Crossfire yet.

That is the thing with new stuff... they always need time.

doesnt beat my ****ty Q8200 @ 95C that I ran for like three months. lol

I can second....dont buy ****ty pasta hahaha