Best thermal paste

[Richard]

A few days ago I had a problem with two Opterons running hot. I have a new
mainboard to try.

I bought the type of heatsink that comes with a square block of grease
already applied. But I already used those heatsinks with the old mainboard.
Now there's a couple small specks where there's no grease.

Do I need to clean all that old grease off and apply something new? What do
you recommend? I don't want something that will cause the heatsink to stick
to the CPU, but I need something that works good.

Thanks

 

[Richard]

A few days ago I had a problem with two Opterons running hot. I have a new
mainboard to try.

I bought the type of heatsink that comes with a square block of grease
already applied. But I already used those heatsinks with the old mainboard.
Now there's a couple small specks where there's no grease.

Do I need to clean all that old grease off and apply something new? What do
you recommend? I don't want something that will cause the heatsink to stick
to the CPU, but I need something that works good.

I cleaned both sides up and used Arctic Silver 5
I didn't do the lapping stuff.. don't know if I should have.

 

[spodosaurus]

A few days ago I had a problem with two Opterons running hot. I have a new
mainboard to try.

I bought the type of heatsink that comes with a square block of grease
already applied. But I already used those heatsinks with the old mainboard.
Now there's a couple small specks where there's no grease.

Do I need to clean all that old grease off and apply something new? What do
you recommend? I don't want something that will cause the heatsink to stick
to the CPU, but I need something that works good.

Thanks

There are detailed answers to this question on dozens of occaisions in
this group's archives on google groups. Perhaps you could try looking
for yourself, even briefly, before asking what's been asked and answered
a hundred times before.

--
spammage trappage: remove the underscores to reply

I'm going to die rather sooner than I'd like. I tried to protect my
neighbours from crime, and became the victim of it. Complications in
hospital following this resulted in a serious illness. I now need a bone
marrow transplant. Many people around the world are waiting for a marrow
transplant, too. Please volunteer to be a marrow donor:
http://www.abmdr.org.au/
http://www.marrow.org/

 

[spodosaurus]

I cleaned both sides up and used Arctic Silver 5
I didn't do the lapping stuff.. don't know if I should have.

I wouldn't bother with lapping.

--
spammage trappage: remove the underscores to reply

I'm going to die rather sooner than I'd like. I tried to protect my
neighbours from crime, and became the victim of it. Complications in
hospital following this resulted in a serious illness. I now need a bone
marrow transplant. Many people around the world are waiting for a marrow
transplant, too. Please volunteer to be a marrow donor:
http://www.abmdr.org.au/
http://www.marrow.org/

 

[Sparex]

I've never took/wasted the time in lapping a HS.. Artic Silver 5 if
applied right takes care of even some major factory HS Base problems.

 

[BuffaloJack]

The heatsink compound is the smallest part of a hot chip problem. Al
of of the HS compounds work as long as they don't liquify and run out
A hot processor chip is ALWAYS the result of inadequate attention t
cooling. This can manifest itself as dust and dirt coating the H
fins, a fan that doesn't move sufficient air. putting the PC wher
it can't ventilate properly (the hot exhaust isn't allowed to leav
but gets sucked right back in the box). You might just have so muc
stuffed into the box that air circulation if reduced

By the way, I do the thermal design and layout of circuit boards fo
military systems for a living. The very best and very worst H
compounds won't show more than about 2 or 3 degrees difference i
chip temperature. Lack of HS compound can be disasterout though