“Too Much Thermal Paste” – Benchmark of Thermal Paste Quantity
Gamers Nexus1 HN recommender · recommended in 1 month, 2019–2024
explainer · general · evergreen · 2019–2024 on HN
Gamers Nexus benchmarks how the amount and application method of thermal paste affect CPU cooling. It compares pea-sized dots, thin spreads and large blobs with Thermal Grizzly Kryonaut.
HN cites it as data that too much thermal paste is mostly a myth and that too little is the real risk.
Up next
5 mo on HNYou are being misled about renewable energy technology.
Technology Connections
12 HN recommender · 2026–2026
12 mo on HN8-bit computer update
Ben Eater
14 HN recommender · 2017–2023
11 mo on HNLight Years Ahead | The 1969 Apollo Guidance Computer
TNMoC
11 HN recommender · 2021–2026
11 mo on HN“Hello, world” from scratch on a 6502 — Part 1
Ben Eater
11 HN recommender · 2019–2026
10 mo on HNFinding the Missing Memristor - R. Stanley Williams
The Qualcomm Institute
12 HN recommender · 2010–2024
10 mo on HNThe Ultimate Game Boy Talk (33c3)
media.ccc.de
10 HN recommender · 2017–2026
11 mo on HNThe Thirty Million Line Problem
Molly Rocket
11 HN recommender · 2018–2024
9 mo on HNUSENIX ATC '21/OSDI '21 Joint Keynote Address-It's Time for Operating Systems to Rediscover Hardware
USENIX
12 HN recommender · 2021–2026
8 mo on HNJim Keller: Moore's Law, Microprocessors, and First Principles | Lex Fridman Podcast #70
Lex Fridman
8 HN recommender · 2020–2023
7 mo on HN34C3 - The Ultimate Apollo Guidance Computer Talk
media.ccc.de
9 HN recommender · 2018–2025
8 mo on HNJim Keller: Moore’s Law is Not Dead
UC Berkeley EECS
7 HN recommender · 2019–2025
8 mo on HN"Programming a 144-computer chip to minimize power" - Chuck Moore (2013)
Strange Loop Conference
7 HN recommender · 2021–2024
4 comments from Hacker News
> ...use as little of it as possible, to avoid adding thickness. You might be interested in watching this: < ▶ this video > and maybe also this: < link >. Do note that the videos contain graphs which summarize the findings.
>You want to use as little paste as possible while fully covering the heat spreader. The data disagrees. Too much paste is fine; too little is not. ▶ this video
One person on SomethingAwful re-pasted their MBP (of unknown age), and saw reduced temperatures. They never said it was "overheating", Macs (and all Intel/AMD processors...) have thermal throttling so they can't "overheat", and it's normal for thermal paste to degrade within 2-3 years. It's also normal for laptops to get clogged with dust; I saw a huge reduction in temps on my MBP after I cleaned out the heatsinks, having taken the cover off and found them clogged. The person posted pictures of the original paste job from the factory. The amount of paste is not unreasonable, and what was instead evident was that the paste had dried out, which, again, is normal. That didn't stop people from overreacting and declaring a corporation (one famous for obsessively controlling its production chain) to be idiots. It did not have "10x the thermal paste needed." GamersNexus has solidly disproven the "too much paste causes overheating" myth. Excess paste just squirts out the sides, which is not a problem unless it is conductive: ▶ this video What caused people to really lose their minds was a screengrab that was claimed (with no evidence whatsoever) to be from the repair manual showing wildly inappropriate levels of thermal paste being applied. The screenshot was never confirmed and given the source - again, SomethingAwful - it was almost certainly not the repair manual or factory instructions (the factory instructions wouldn't be in English, for starters...) link Seems Pepperidge Farm's me
This is mostly urban legend. You have to really get ridiculous to apply too much thermal paste but you can use too little, so no reason to err in that direction in mass manufacturing. ▶ this video