What is this Heat Pad?

[contrapositive]

I haven't built a PC in a while, but I have the AMD chip and heatsink
installed now. The AMD heatsink came with a heat pad, something I wasn't
readily familiar with. How sensitive is this stuff? I'd be lying if I said
my finger didn't brush against it before installing it. Also, I tried
seating it once or twice before I finally got the heatsink installed and
clipped into place. I noticed it left a bit of a print on the chip after
making contact the first time. Is this all right, or should I remove it,
clean it (with what?) and apply the compound? Thanks.

 

[MCheu]

I haven't built a PC in a while, but I have the AMD chip and heatsink
installed now. The AMD heatsink came with a heat pad, something I wasn't
readily familiar with.

You mean "thermal pad," a "heat pad" is a heating device used to sooth
sore muscles after exercising.

How sensitive is this stuff?

To what? If you mean physical damage, it shouldn't be used if it's
been physically damaged (you can check by visual inspection). It's
not recommended to re-use them, because if you pull the HSF, it will
tear the thermal pad resulting in uneven coverage. The recommended
course of action in that case is to scrape off the pad with a plastic
card (eg. credit card or debit card) and replace the pad with thermal
compound (a dab, like a 0.5mm sphere, is adequate for installing a
CPU).

I'd be lying if I said
my finger didn't brush against it before installing it.

Touching it won't be a problem. Damage caused by scraping it with a
fingernail could be. Visual inspection will reveal any physical
damage. If you see any, scrape it all off and replace it with thermal
compound. Some recommend wiping the heatsink face down with 90+%
isopropyl alcohol or acetone before applying the thermal compound.

Also, I tried
seating it once or twice before I finally got the heatsink installed and
clipped into place. I noticed it left a bit of a print on the chip after
making contact the first time. Is this all right, or should I remove it,
clean it (with what?) and apply the compound? Thanks.

Depends. Have a look and see if the pad is damaged. If in doubt,
scrape it off and use compound.

 

[Larry Roberts]

I haven't built a PC in a while, but I have the AMD chip and heatsink
installed now. The AMD heatsink came with a heat pad, something I wasn't
readily familiar with. How sensitive is this stuff? I'd be lying if I said
my finger didn't brush against it before installing it. Also, I tried
seating it once or twice before I finally got the heatsink installed and
clipped into place. I noticed it left a bit of a print on the chip after
making contact the first time. Is this all right, or should I remove it,
clean it (with what?) and apply the compound? Thanks.

The heatpad is supposed to act like heat compound, and help
conduct heat between the CPU, and HSF, but I always find they cause
more CPU heat. I always remove it, and clean it with alcohol. Then I
apply Arctic Silver 5 compound in a thin layer. Another thing about
those heatpads is that after a while, they seem to bond the HSF to the
CPU, and you have to dangerously pry them apart to replace the HSF.

 

[spodosaurus]

I haven't built a PC in a while, but I have the AMD chip and heatsink
installed now. The AMD heatsink came with a heat pad, something I wasn't
readily familiar with. How sensitive is this stuff? I'd be lying if I said
my finger didn't brush against it before installing it. Also, I tried
seating it once or twice before I finally got the heatsink installed and
clipped into place. I noticed it left a bit of a print on the chip after
making contact the first time. Is this all right, or should I remove it,
clean it (with what?) and apply the compound? Thanks.

Once you start the system with a thermal pad and it melts into place do
not remove the heat sink unless you're prepared to remove the thermal
pad and use thermal paste/grease. There are numerous posts on removal
here as well as on application of thermal compound. I've written
several. A google search of this group's archives will help you get a
variety of opinions on this. As a side note, it's best not to let oils
from the fingers mix with thermal pads or pastes, so don't touch them in
future. I use a non-microwaveable sandwich bag to apply thermal grease,
but this is contained in those posts I made previously in this group.

Regards,

Ari

--
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/

 

[Brian K]

Once you start the system with a thermal pad and it melts into place
do not remove the heat sink unless you're prepared to remove the
thermal pad and use thermal paste/grease. There are numerous posts on
removal here as well as on application of thermal compound. I've
written several. A google search of this group's archives will help
you get a variety of opinions on this. As a side note, it's best not
to let oils from the fingers mix with thermal pads or pastes, so don't
touch them in future. I use a non-microwaveable sandwich bag to apply
thermal grease, but this is contained in those posts I made previously
in this group.

Regards,

Ari

It's been 10 years since I did a build. My last one was a Supermicro
Pentium III class board. It's lasted all this time. Anyway, I wasn't
sure what to do with the Thermal Pad on my AMD 64 3700+ heatsink. I
didn't know it was a Thermal Pad. So, I applied Arctic Silver 5 onto it
and around it. (Not so much as to make a sloppy mess). I am getting
incredibly good operating temperatures. Have I stumbled on a technique
that makes for really effective cooling, or might I regret this further on?

--
________
To email me, Edit "blog" from my email address.
Brian M. Kochera
"Some mistakes are too much fun to only make once!"
View My Web Page: http://home.earthlink.net/~brian1951

 

[Rod Speed]

It's been 10 years since I did a build. My last one was a Supermicro
Pentium III class board. It's lasted all this time. Anyway, I wasn't
sure what to do with the Thermal Pad on my AMD 64 3700+ heatsink. I
didn't know it was a Thermal Pad. So, I applied Arctic Silver 5 onto
it and around it. (Not so much as to make a sloppy mess). I am
getting incredibly good operating temperatures. Have I stumbled on a
technique that makes for really effective cooling,
Nope.

or might I regret this further on?

Nope. The worse you might have to do is scape it all off
and start over if you take the HS off for some reason.

 

[spodosaurus]

It's been 10 years since I did a build. My last one was a Supermicro
Pentium III class board. It's lasted all this time. Anyway, I wasn't
sure what to do with the Thermal Pad on my AMD 64 3700+ heatsink. I
didn't know it was a Thermal Pad. So, I applied Arctic Silver 5 onto it
and around it. (Not so much as to make a sloppy mess). I am getting
incredibly good operating temperatures. Have I stumbled on a technique
that makes for really effective cooling, or might I regret this further
on?

I guess a small amount of thermal paste like AS5 could mix with the pad
when the temperature goes up and possibly provide a better solution
(perhaps filling microbubbles in the pad or giving just that little bit
of extra peripheral contact without becoming a heat insulator?)...or:

1- it'll degrade both faster
2- the sensors aren't calibrated well (a common occurance) and your
temps are not reflective of the actual state of the processor
3- the excess will short something (I haven't used AS since AS3, but it
had the potential to be conductive then...)

Let us know how it goes.

Ari



--
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/

 

[Gank]

Anyway, I wasn't
sure what to do with the Thermal Pad on my AMD 64 3700+ heatsink. I

If it's an AMD64 it is thermal grease and not a pad. It just looks sort of
like a pad from the way it has been applied. If you messed it up just
clean it of with 99% isopropyl alcohol (available at the drug store) and
apply new paste.

 

[Gank]

The heatpad is supposed to act like heat compound, and help
conduct heat between the CPU, and HSF, but I always find they cause
more CPU heat. I always remove it, and clean it with alcohol. Then I
apply Arctic Silver 5 compound in a thin layer. Another thing about
those heatpads is that after a while, they seem to bond the HSF to the
CPU, and you have to dangerously pry them apart to replace the HSF.

AMD pre-applies thermal grease now and not thermal pads.

 

[Geoff]

I noticed the same thing. Bought a new MB and a boxed AMD. When I first
looked at it, I thought it was some kind of pad but had a bad time getting
the HSF on the cpu. During the process, the 'pad' had smeared and I
realized it was paste and not a pad.

It smeared pretty well but everything is fine. When running the air
conditoner and keeping the house around 72, the cpu runs at about 32C. When
I have the heat blowing on high, the cpu will get up to 39C (41C max) and
the fan speed picks up.

One time, I had the computer calculate 65432 to the 87654 power and the cpu
temp rose 10 degrees, lol. I let it run for 5 minutes to see what it did to
the temp, never finished the calculation tho.

-g

 

[Clint]

Just an attempted correction. A 0.5mm sphere is the diameter of a
relatively small mechanical pencil lead. You may need more than that.
Follow the directions on the package.

Clint

 

[Larry Roberts]

It's been 10 years since I did a build. My last one was a Supermicro
Pentium III class board.

Wait. Maybe I'm reading this wrong. 10 years ago. A Pentium
III. I didn't think PIII where even out in 96'.

 

[mcheu]

Just an attempted correction. A 0.5mm sphere is the diameter of a
relatively small mechanical pencil lead. You may need more than that.
Follow the directions on the package.

Clint

Sorry, meant 0.5cm. About the size of a BB.

 

[Ben Dover]

I haven't built a PC in a while, but I have the AMD chip and heatsink
installed now. The AMD heatsink came with a heat pad, something I
wasn't readily familiar with. How sensitive is this stuff? I'd be
lying if I said my finger didn't brush against it before installing
it. Also, I tried seating it once or twice before I finally got the
heatsink installed and clipped into place. I noticed it left a bit of
a print on the chip after making contact the first time. Is this all
right, or should I remove it, clean it (with what?) and apply the
compound? Thanks.

The thermal pad will work just fine as is. No thermal compound is needed,
and if used in conjunction with a thermal pad will PREVENT proper transfer
of heat.

 

[Guest]

"contrapositive" <[email protected]> blabbered in




The thermal pad will work just fine as is. No thermal compound is needed,
and if used in conjunction with a thermal pad will PREVENT proper transfer
of heat.

Not wishing to worry people that might have done this, a small amount of
compound is unlikely to make much difference, either way.

Similarly, on normally clocked processors with approved heatsinks, I
haven't come across a problem removing and replacing heatsinks - to the
same processor. Without replacing the thermal pad. The processor temps
before and after have been identical.

Where there could be a problem is fitting a new processor - which won't
have all its minor surface irregularities filled in with pad or
compound, as would be the case of re-fitting the existing processor.

Fitting a new processor - remove the remains of the thermal pad and
starting again with compound. Better still, whilst the heatsink is off,
polish it up to a mirror finish, if it isn't already. IME, simple
polishing knocks the temperature difference down by a degree..