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I watched several videos on YouTube, went through a lot of overclocking forums and websites, but I am yet to find a "correct" answer to this question.

Some agree with the "pea method" where you apply a pea-sized glob onto the center of the CPU and then mount the heat sink over it and let the pressure of the sink spread the thermal grease evenly across the surface.

Others tend to gravitate towards the "business card method" of evenly spreading a thin layer of thermal compound across the CPU surface using a business card.

And then I read something about needing to apply more thermal compound to laptop CPUs because they don't have integrated heat spreaders.

I'm confused. I own a Acer 5542G notebook with an AMD Turion II X2 M500 CPU and ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4570 GPU. This computer has been overheating a lot lately (even playing Minecraft for a few minutes would trigger a system shutdown) and I just recently took it apart and cleaned it.

There was no dust accumulating on the fan grill, so I removed the thermal compound, cleaned the CPU surface and applied some new compound. I used the "pea method". My CPU has a rectangular surface so I applied two little pea-sized dots.

Where I used the thermal compound

After I did this, I ran CoreTemp and here's what I saw (idling temperatures): CPU running super hot!

That's a lot of heat! I'm guessing I screwed with my application of the thermal paste. I'm hoping anyone who owns an Aspire 5542G or a computer with an AMD Turion X2 M500 processor that has experienced the same problem could help me out here. Thank you.

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  • i do the credit card option, i dunno. Personally that pea sized amount doesn't look nearly enough for my liking. I generally put a layer as thin as i can, but across the whole die edge to edge.
    – Sirex
    Sep 29, 2013 at 21:23
  • Does your notebook have an AMD CPU? Could you tell me what idling temperatures you get before and after you've applied the thermal grease?
    – Vinayak
    Sep 29, 2013 at 21:32
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    yeah, i should state that spreading thermal paste is one of those topics which gets way more discussion that it needs. In my experience at least, sky high temps has never once been solved by one pasting technique over anouther.
    – Sirex
    Sep 30, 2013 at 1:43
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    Correctly re-attaching the heat sink on a typical laptop CPU is very complex. The heat pipes must not be bent, even a tiny bit, and the screws must be tightened in the correct order and to the correct tension. I would recommend letting a professional do it.
    – David Schwartz
    Oct 1, 2013 at 7:13
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    One other note -- despite being supposedly designed for the purpose, even the best "gaming" laptops should be run on an active cooling pad (that's one with fans) which will help substantially with keeping it at reasonable temps. Also if you mean that you checked the heatsink fins for dust, but you haven't checked all the air vents (ridiculously on the bottom most of the time) please also do the latter to ensure that air is blowing out of them.
    – Debra
    Oct 1, 2013 at 12:23

2 Answers 2

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Use a thin layer on very clean surfaces (alcohol is fine for cleaning, but let it dry before proceding). The thermal paste does not dissipate heat; its purpose is to put the CPU in close contact with the heatsink, so that the heat from the CPU transfers to the heatsink. So a thinner layer actually will work better & create a better seal between the two pieces of metal. The "pea", however, has to be put under great pressure to spread across the surface, and is less likely to keep the entire surface in good contact.

Also you might go for a better-quality paste, which can make a big difference. Thermal paste is something I never mess with going the cheapest, as even the "good stuff" is still usually around $10 or less (without using all $10 worth in one shot, too.)

If it is running too hot, it may mean that the CPU & sink are just not tightly enough meeting. You can often tell when you take it apart, too, because if the CPU lifts right off, there isn't much of a seal. Oddly enough, if the CPU is hard to get off, that usually indicates a better seal.

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As Debra and Sirex suggested, I decided to go with the "business card" method of application of thermal grease and this is what my CPU and GPU look like now:

Viscous thermal paste applied to CPU and GPU using "business card" method

After I reapplied the thermal grease, my computer's idling temperature dropped by almost 20 degrees and even under high load (I used Prime 95 for CPU stress testing) it wouldn't cross 90 degrees.

CoreTemp generated CPU temperature graph

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  • You Prime95 temperatures are good. But your idle is high (mine is 50 - 55C). My laptop has low idle (50 - 55C) and web (60 - 65) temperatures but gets up to 99C during a hangouts call. Prime95 will most likely cause my laptop to shutdown
    – Suici Doga
    May 25, 2016 at 6:24
  • @SuiciDoga I know my idling temperatures are pretty high. The notebook is old and the AMD Turion processor in it always ran hot. These idling temperatures are the best it can do (at normal room temperature).
    – Vinayak
    May 25, 2016 at 11:57
  • @SuiciDoga I'm not implying that AMD processors run hotter. I'm saying this particular Turion processor in my notebook was probably faulty and runs at a higher idling temperature than normal.
    – Vinayak
    May 25, 2016 at 12:40
  • I meant old when i said low (I was typing from a tablet:).
    – Suici Doga
    May 25, 2016 at 13:22
  • Old AMD CPUs weren't as good as now.And if you would like to know I have AMD A8-4500M
    – Suici Doga
    May 25, 2016 at 13:22

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