Can we talk about how bad thermal paste mistakes still are?

I had a guy bring in a PS4 last week that was shutting down mid-game. Opened it up and someone had slapped thermal paste on like it was peanut butter on a sandwich, even got some on the pins. I swear half the repairs I see fail are just from too much paste or the wrong kind. How many times have you seen a simple paste job turn into a mess?

3 comments

3 Comments

ellis.leo1mo ago

Oh man tell me about it. Had a guy use liquid metal on an aluminum cooler once. Fried the whole thing.

jennifer2041mo ago

My buddy thought he was being careful when he swapped the CPU in his old gaming rig, used way too much paste and it squeezed out all over the socket pins. He called me freaking out because the PC wouldn't boot and there was goop everywhere. Took him hours with a toothbrush and some isopropyl alcohol to clean it all off, but he still ended up bending a few pins in the process. That whole build was a nightmare, and he ended up having to replace the motherboard anyway. Total waste of time and money just from being heavy handed with the paste. Ever see someone try to fix that kind of damage with a credit card?

susan_wright341mo ago

The credit card trick only works if the paste hasn't dried yet (which it had in my case). I ended up using a plastic spudger and lots of patience to scrape it off the pins, then hit everything with 91% isopropyl and a toothbrush. Took forever but the board survived somehow.