Thermal paste bubbles? would appreciate some diagnosis!

[Biggles_me]

Hello, I'm a long time lurker first time poster, as far as I can remember I haven't seen this exact question before, please redirect me if you've seen it!

I was running a Pentium D 3.2 on what I understand was a respectable Asrock board, with 4gb of DDR2 and a 5770 (talk about a bottleneck)

I bought a Xigmatek Loki cooler a few weeks ago (not a big spender), and I know many of you will cringe at this but I spread the thermal paste out a bit! I literally had no idea it would be such an issue, I hadn't watched as many tutorials as I should have evidentally.

My issue is that I didn't put way too much on, my pea of paste was probably slightly above average but nothing more, and for about 3 hours of internet and desktop activity temperatures were good, at least 10 degrees lower than they were before. I got a good 40 minutes of Far Cry 3 in before I had to leave my computer, CPU temp hit 48 but no higher, I was impressed!. Later on though I got about 20 minutes of Black Ops 1 zombies going before I got a sudden shutdown (the 'someone pulled the plug' kind) and the faintest smell of burning. Obviously I shat bricks, pulled my GPU to smell it and indeed the smell was coming from the motherboard, after which it would not display anything or boot whatsoever, clearly I was fried.

My question after watching many tutorials is whether my spreading created bubbles which resulted in what I can only imagine was a sudden heat spike? I mean I didn't cover the entire processor or anything, and after disassembling the board there was no heat marks on the processor.

Was it bubbles? was the paste too thick? the cooler was clamped down real hard so I assume it was spread enough. What would be your first conclusion?

 

[Conumdrum]

Use a pea sized blob, smaller than a pea, bigger than a grain of rice in the middle. Don't spread it. It spreads on it's own, no bubbles either.

Please post pics of the cooler and CPU paste pattern. Otherwise not much I can help you with.

 

[Robert17]

Not trying to be a smart Alex, but I wasn't there. Could you post some pics? When you say you didn't cover the entire processor, certainly you don't cover the sides & pins, but you do need to cover the entire top surface that will be in contact with the heat sink. Bubbles? What TIM did you use?

The smell of burning isn't what I'd call a good thing coming from a computer, but it could have come from any thermal source inside the case (such as caps or mosfets, even a USB header. But again, I wasn't there. Have you inspected the board in good light to see if there are any singed areas/components?

 

[ehume]

Usually cpu's throttle before they can get too hot. What kind of TIM did you use? Any chance some got on the mb?

 

[WhitehawkEQ]

Only thing I can say is cut bait and upgrade, I would say you did not have enough like what Robert said. I use GC Electronis Type 44 TIM and I got a small amount and spread it with a round toothpick like in the pics





Now before you go yelling that's too much I'm using closeup mode on the camera and what you see in pic 2 is a thin film, I have very little that ooozs out the sides and max temp I get under load with stock speeds is 35-40c.

 

[Knufire]

Are you sure you didn't get any paste on the motherboard itself?

Usually (but not always) burning smell = electrical short.

 

[Biggles_me]

I'm sorry for lack of information! unfortunately I already cleaned the old paste off the components so I can't get any pictures. I used mx-2, there was very slight oozage out the sides, it definitely wasn't touching the socket or the motherboard or anything, did I simply use too much? again I know you weren't there but would that be your first guess?. I just found it strange that the temperatures were good after Far Cry but then it cut out under a less intensive game later.

Luckily my family took pity and lent me the money for an AMD fx4100 bundle, my issue now is naturally I want to apply the Loki cooler to it, as the stock cooler is doing alright but gets a bit too warm under gaming. I guess I'm just being nervous considering what happened.

Generally 90% of people say a pea or rice grain and a suitably tightened down heatsink will definitely not give me any issues, I mean I know it's the center of the processor that actually gets hot and needs the contact. And I know paste will spread out much more than I think.

I guess I just need you guys to tell me that you completely trust it when you do that, like you've bought tasty setups and had no issue applying a tiny amount, giving the cooler a tiny wiggle and then tightening well? I know you'll probably all say yes but I just need to hear it!

Thanks for your replies anyway guys

 

[wagex]

yep dot in the middle tighten her down sometimes a little twist back and fourth just to give a head start to the spreading

 

[Biggles_me]

Thanks guys I put the cooler on the AMD earlier, half an hour of stress test and it never made it past 49C, pretty damn pleased with that!