Removal of thermal pad

[Anthony Elcocks]

Hi,
I am having a little heat problem with a P4 3.4 in an ABIT AA8 Duramax
mobo.
It idles at 50 celcius and peaks at 68 under load (3d games such as
morrowind and nwn)

People have told me that thermal grease would reduce my temp 10-15 celcius.
Reading up about removing the heatsink and pad and cleaning them has scared
the heck out of me, especially the one that talked about sanding the bottom
of the heatsink with fine-grade sandpaper.

I also read somehere that the grease deteriorates over time and needs to be
replaced every 6months or so. Is this true ?
Any tips hints, or suggestions ?

 

[kony]

Hi,
I am having a little heat problem with a P4 3.4 in an ABIT AA8 Duramax
mobo.
It idles at 50 celcius and peaks at 68 under load (3d games such as
morrowind and nwn)

People have told me that thermal grease would reduce my temp 10-15 celcius.
Reading up about removing the heatsink and pad and cleaning them has scared
the heck out of me, especially the one that talked about sanding the bottom
of the heatsink with fine-grade sandpaper.

I also read somehere that the grease deteriorates over time and needs to be
replaced every 6months or so. Is this true ?
Any tips hints, or suggestions ?

On a CPU with a heatspreader to lower the thermal density
such as a P4, even generic silicone based heatsink grease
should last minimum of 2-3 years if not longer. Better
synthetic based grease such as Arctic
Silver/Ceramique/Alumina should last even longer, with the
Arctic Silver being the best choice if the heatsink base
isn't very smooth and/or flat. Additionally, the lower you
get the temp, the longer the compound should last.

Even so, it may help to lap it with "fine-grade sandpaper'.
particlarly if the base is not very, VERY smooth and flat.

In a bad heatsink-base and bad mounting there might be a
gain of 10-15C by redoing both but generally the difference
is less, more like 3-8C difference. Even so that might be
enough to make it worthwhile, the main goal should not
necessarily be getting the temp as low as possible but
rather enough that the system is always stable, including at
full load in highest ambient room temps and with a minor
amount of dust buildup in the heatsink (so as to not have
too short a required maintenance interval to clean out
dust).

You might find the old thermal pad easiest to remove with
petroluem-based solvents and a (plastic scraping tool so as
to not scratch the soft aluminum or copper) credit card.
Apply fresh compound in a very thin layer, not necessarily
over the entire CPU heat-spreader but in the middle 65% and
it will squish, spread out when the heatsink is fastened and
the system has thermal-cycled a few times.

 

[Wayne Stallwood]

You might find the old thermal pad easiest to remove with
petroluem-based solvents and a (plastic scraping tool so as
to not scratch the soft aluminum or copper) credit card.
Apply fresh compound in a very thin layer, not necessarily
over the entire CPU heat-spreader but in the middle 65% and
it will squish, spread out when the heatsink is fastened and
the system has thermal-cycled a few times.

In addition to Kony's suggestions I would also take a look at the case
cooling. Having the best contact in the world between the CPU and the
heatsink isn't going to help much if your case temp is going through the
roof.

Given the heat output of the current generation of P4's I would recommend at
least one case fan in addition to the one on the PSU.

On a standard ATX case, fans at the front of the case should intake and fans
at the back should exhaust. Personally I would add an exhaust first if you
have no case fans at the moment.