First Build (AMD)

Here's a how to video. Kind of old, but short and sweet. Everybody has their own idea of how to spread it. But, this works, too.

How to Apply Thermal Compound to a CPU - YouTube

Think I will try the "X" method... How Thermal Compound Spreads - YouTube

I'm really more worried about far too little than I am too much at this juncture.

Just in case I have to do it again for some reason, is 70% alcohol pure enough for cleaning the CPU/HSF?

To much is as bad as not enough. I put a pea size in the center and haven't had any issues.

That's about what I put, chickened out last minute on the x lol... did the blob. Noctua is a pain to get to bite, though. Wow. And huge bummer... the 200mm fan had to go off the side panel. It was only JUST too thick to close over this HSF (why in the heck did they have to leave the heat pipes sticking so far out?). So now, eventually, I need to try and go find another that I can use (thankfully, there are other mounting configurations), but that's a long while from now... hopefully the cooling especially to the GPU won't suffer too much without it. Gigabyte also really should have designed it with that fan mounted on the outside like the dust filter is, dang it.

This basically just leaves the GPU and the wiring to the PSU... I'll start with the GPU.

And damn, just realized I can't reach to plug in the CPU fan either. So I have to do it all again.

A bit of the damned TIM got onto a couple of pins... its not conductive but now I have no idea what is going to happen. I dipped it in the alcohol and I also used a alcohol pad to very gently get it off. This sucks. I don't know how it happened... just did. This is why I didn't want to have to do it twice. I had the correct amount on there. It was perfect.

I did... even though it was very little, I'm pretty sure its all in vain after that point. I'm still trying anyway. I only hope this won't short out the entire thing or I'm totally screwed. I had one shot at this, financially speaking. I'm trying to wire it up now... Yeah... trying to keep breathing but all I honestly want to do is have a panic attack.