Shoutout to the tech who showed me my thermal paste mistake

I was at a repair meet in Sacramento and watched another guy repaste a gaming laptop. He used a tiny dot, maybe half a pea size. I realized I'd been spreading a full grain of rice amount for years, thinking more was better. It clicked that my over-application was probably causing heat issues on some returns. Anyone else have a basic habit they had to unlearn?

2 comments

2 Comments

abby_harris26d ago

Wait, only half a pea? That's way less than I've ever used. I thought the rice grain method was the standard.

janaf7626d ago

Honestly I've seen some wild paste jobs at my local shop and they all seem to work fine. My old desktop had a huge glob I put on five years ago and temps are still normal. Unless you're doing extreme overclocking, I doubt a slightly bigger rice grain is causing all your heat problems. It feels like people make this into a bigger deal than it really is.