Re: Best heat sink compound?

On Wed, 3 Dec 2003 13:46:40 -0000, "Roger Hamlett"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Gave us:

>
>"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.

  Being a non-conductor, it is very unlikely that it could find
anywhere to migrate to that would cause an electrical "problem".

  You may well be talking shit on that "point".

  Now, that silver crap is conductive.

  There are specific applications for each.  The grease/cream is 100%
non-conductive. and requires an all but zero gap. 

  The silver filled media is also a direct mate interface material,
but can still pass heat well in tests where small gaps were
introduced, or the two surfaces were not coplanar.