Why does nobody warn you about thermal paste pumps?

Got called to fix a PC at a print shop in Kent last month. Guy said it was crashing every 20 minutes. I figured dust or bad RAM. Opened it up and saw thermal paste oozing out the sides of the CPU. He used the pea method on an Intel LGA1700 socket and the pressure squirted it everywhere. The paste got into the socket pins and shorted a couple out. Took me 45 minutes with a toothbrush and alcohol to clean it. Now I always spread paste thin with a card on those big sockets. Anyone else see this or was I just unlucky?

3 comments

3 Comments

troy83225d ago

Wait, it got all the way INTO the socket pins? Like under the CPU? That's crazy, I thought the paste would just squish out the sides and make a mess on top of the motherboard. Did you have to pull the CPU out to get to it all?

felixlee25d ago

Thermal paste got into the socket pins" - oh man that's wild. I didn't even think paste could squirt that far under pressure. I always do the pea method on my own builds but now I'm paranoid. I've seen people online argue about the pea vs spread thing forever but never heard of it actually damaging pins like that. Sounds like you got really unlucky with that specific socket design though. I've been building PCs for like 8 years and never had paste leak out the sides at all, much less into the socket.

nguyen.tara25d ago

@troy832 yeah dude, it got all the way in. I had to pull the CPU out and there was paste smeared across like 8 pins on the socket itself. Took a toothpick and some 91% alcohol to gently scrape it off. The LGA1700 socket has that big rectangular shape and the pressure from the cooler just forces it out every side. I've built maybe 20 PCs over the years and this was the first time I had paste squirt anywhere near the socket. Now I'm team thin spread all the way on those big Intel sockets. The pea method works fine on smaller stuff like AM4 but on these LGA1700 boards it's a gamble.