Re: Best heat sink compound?

"Daniel L. Belton" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Roger Hamlett wrote:
>
> > "Daniel L. Belton" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> > news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> >
> >>Robert Baer wrote:
> >>
> >>>"Daniel L. Belton" wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>>DaveC wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>>White "tooth" paste kind, or clear greasy "hair stuff" kind?
> >>>>
> >>>>Actually, the silvery kind :)
> >>>>
> >>>>http://www.arcticsilver.com
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>  The "arctic silver compound" is *bad* stuff.
> >>>  It migrates all over hell and back, not only making a crappy looking
> >>>mess, but also has been reported to do damage to electrical contacts.
> >>
> >>Never had that problem here using it for more than 4 years on several
> >>hundred CPU's and chipsets
> >
> > The problem is not with the paste, but with people applying it...
> > I had one guy, who was having problems with his machine. Knowing he had
just
> > upgraded the processor, I asked what he had used for the thermal
contact. He
> > assured me it was fine, with 'plenty of grease'. Inspection showed that
he
> > had used perhaps 1/3rd of a tube, on one processor!.
> > Applied in a very thin layer, it works well, but the paste is so thin,
that
> > if there is even a small amount of surplus, it may well migrate to
places
> > which cause problems.
> >
> > Best Wishes
> >
> >
>
> Yikes!  1/3 of a tube?  that's about.... ohhhh... 20 times more than
> nedded... hehehe
>
> You are correct that it must be applied very sparingly, but the same is
> true of any compound.  Even the white goop run all over the place if you
> put 20 times too much on it....  and I wonder what would happen if 20 of
> those thermal pads were used... :)
I ended up washing the entire chip three times in isopropyl alcohol. Artic
silver, does seem to be slightly 'worse' than normal compounds for
migration, so the need to be 'sparing' is even more than normal.
Unfortunately, a lot of the people installing heatsinks on processors, have
never done anything like this, and follow the 'more is better' school of goo
application...
Generally it is rare to see more than two thermal pads being tried!. The
reason is that people don't have spare ones, and end up just applying one
that came with the processor, and leaving the one that was allready on the
heatsink in place. Leaving the plastic 'tape' over the face of this one is
also quite common.

Best Wishes