Anyone used Zalman "nail varnish" thermal grease?

I've just built my first rig, and based on the big round-up review on Hexus, I have just fitted a thermaltake typhoon VX 220 (no, hang on, that's a car isn't it...)

Anyway, I'm fairly confident I put too much thermal stuff on, and so I'm going to try again next week. I was ordering something else so quickly stuck this on the same order:

Zalman Super Thermal Grease ZM-STG1 - ZM-STG1 - www.microdirect.co.uk

(again based on the round-up review which I remember described this stuff as "fool proof")

The question is, how much do I apply? I know from everything I've read that less is more with thermal paste/compound, but the instructions for this particular stuff (::: Zalman :::) say apply to both heatsink and the CPU.

Anyone got any tips in general, or used this stuff before?

can i damage the cpu by putting too little on, assuming I've seated the thing properly in the socket?

I used that on my build and it's worked a treat. I imagine it's possible to damage the CPU but I think you'd have to pretty much pour the bottle ontop because it's quite viscous.

One thing that surprised me is the instructions said to paint both the cooler and the CPU, but it's done the job so I'm not gonna question it.

thanks Lucio - it was putting it on both that seemed to go against everything else I'd read.

However, having linked to the Zalman site above, I saw a link on that page to a review, which commented on how viscous this stuff was as well.

Out of interest, did you apply to the whole surface area or just the bit in the middle where the chip actually is? the Zalman site seems to show it just in the middle.

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Originally Posted by GaryRW

Out of interest, did you apply to the whole surface area or just the bit in the middle where the chip actually is? the Zalman site seems to show it just in the middle.

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I painted it on pretty liberally, on the CPU covered most of the raised area, leaving 1mm at most on the edge, on the cooler I kept more towards the centre, leaving about 3-4mm

It doesn't need much! The idea is to fill the 'valleys' and leave the 'ridges' touching - any thermally conductive gloop is far worse than metal-to-metal contact.
I've used it on several CPUs; the last was with a cooler that is about half of the area of the CPU and the CPU runs at about 10-20C above [room] ambient (depending on loading).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Lucio

I painted it on pretty liberally, on the CPU covered most of the raised area, leaving 1mm at most on the edge, on the cooler I kept more towards the centre, leaving about 3-4mm

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Thanks for the tip, I bought some of the Zalman paste but haven't tried it yet. May do on the weekend.

I have it too and i've just applied a very thin layer to the cpu. Temps are about 50 idle and 60 load. The chip is clocked at 3,5ghz.

thanks for all the help - I feel a little bit more confident now...

I'm also useing it now, I got it for the ease of aplication.
I was useing Arctic cooling mx1 before which I found to be rather thick when cold and not the eaiest stuff to apply (MX1 is a thick paste where as the zalman stuff is more like a thick liquid)

my first attempt with the zalman stuff was a little too thick for my likeing.
So I wiped it off and tried again, got a nice thin layer on both the cpu heat spreader and cooler base.

not sure on temp differnce as I didn't bother with the mx1 on my new thermalright ultima, however the zalman stuff is very easy to apply. :)

I would say that a thin coating is better than just in the middle because of the nature of this paste, however do check your contact, put the cooler on top (don't lock it in place) press it down, then remove it and check the paste to see what the contact was like.
The reason I sugest this is that sometimes the heat spreaders on the intell cpu's can be a bit concave and will not make contact in the middle with a thin layer of paste.
If you have one of these rather concave cpu's then you'll need to consider lapping it.

it's only a e2140 so I don't think I'll get into lapping!

I bought it on the basis that you can supposedly clock it to e6750 2.66ghz speeds easily (which it did:)), with the plan being to upgrade to the best quad I could get when the LGA775 socket is dumped (i think in a year or so?)

The temps weren't even that bad with the stock cooler, it seemed to cope with 2.66ghz fine (upto about 60c on full load after 10-20mins) - & this is my first attempt at clocking! Kind of regretting buying the bigger cooler, but presumably will come in helpful if and when I updgrade the CPU.

I love this stuff because of the included applicator, it doesn't give the best temps but for 1C temp increase the ease of use is worth it.

I ignore the instructions on applying to both surfaces and just apply it to the CPU. Does the trick nicely.