High cpu temps

[TickleMyElmo]

So in an earlier post I posted that my i3-4170 (stock heatsink) was reaching temps of 95c in only 2 min. of using prime95 blend. Was asking about better heatsinks and you guys said to reapply paste and reseat. I'm doing that now. How does this look?

 

[Janus67]

Looks fine I suppose. I've been using the dot method lately and it works fine, no need to manually spread out the paste. How much did you use on the CPU and what did you use (a razor/credit card/etc?)

 

[TickleMyElmo]

I initially used the pea size method, placed the heatsink down on the cpu and rubbed it around. Picked up the heatsink and only around 60% of the cpu was covered, so I added little dabs here and there then spread it with an old bank card. It's doing MUCH better now. Switched the paste from artic silver 5 to thermaltake and used more paste this time. Been running p95 blend for 10 minutes now and it hasn't hit 85c yet.

 

[Janus67]

Generally you won't see decent spread until you actually clamp it down. There's generally no real need to rub it around or anything. And for all intents and purposes, the center is the most important part of the IHS to be covered as that is where the core/die is. Granted it helps to have good coverage all over, but it doesn't need to necessarily go edge to edge. The risk of using too much is that you don't end up getting enough contact or it squishes out the sides of the heatsink and onto the side of the CPU/motherboard/etc.