Thermal Paste and How To Use It

[djbbenn]

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[TooFast]

will polishing the heatsink to a mirror shine make a difference???

 

[Dynamic]

Great Work! Beautiful pictures and i love the way you designed your guide as well. Unfortunately, i've been using thermal compound and cleaning materials for over 3 years now on my processors, video card's core, and chipset. So this is just a review for me really, thanks!

 

[djbbenn]

will polishing the heatsink to a mirror shine make a difference???

It can and it can't... With a mirror finish, it usually means you have lapped the heatsink very well and it's very flat. So it's extremly easy to put too much thermal paste on. It has it's advantages and disadvantages. Try checking the lapping article out.


Big thanks too Urlyin and W1zzard for most of the pictures.

-Dan

 

[Urlyin]

Nicely done Dan ...

 

[wazzledoozle]

Heh I never though about the fact that the IHS covers a core when I covered my sempron in AS5. I spent like 15 minutes getting a perfect thin layer over the whole thing

 

[djbbenn]

That's why it's called a heat spreader Wazz... lol

-Dan

 

[Polaris573]

I've always used 90% Isopropyl Alcohol for cleaning. Now that I'm at college I have access to 100% Pure Methanol. I've been wondering how well that would work. Any thoughts?

 

[djbbenn]

I'm not sure about methanol... never even had any before. As long as it completely evaporates and leaves no residue, it should be fine.

90% Isopropyl is great, I use 99%, but it's not very easy to get. If you clean a lot, the ArctiClean is the best.

-Dan

 

[pentastar111]

very nice job in this thread. Informative an precise. @ thumbs up!

 

[DaMulta]

Finally someone makes a thread on how this is done. I had to learn the hard way, and **** up a card in the doing it

Edit:I see it was a while back, still good info in it.

 

[DaMulta]

You need to add a GPU for your guide. I'm out of AS5 or I would do it.

 

[djbbenn]

GPU is the same as a bare die. Just spread the paste as even as you can get it, and slap the sink on.

-Dan

 

[DaMulta]

I know it is, but most people don't/

 

[ARTOSOFT]

I know it is, but most people don't/

I know .

When you make a mistake applying thermal paste, you always can correct it by remove the heatsink, clean it, applied (the correct way) thermal paste.

Regards,
Arto.

 

[strick94u]

I've always used 90% Isopropyl Alcohol for cleaning. Now that I'm at college I have access to 100% Pure Methanol. I've been wondering how well that would work. Any thoughts?

methanol is corrosive I use 3m tape remover it totally drys leaveing nothing but clean, its used in the automotive field to remove tape and grease b4 painting.great artical as allways

 

[tkpenalty]

Is pure whitish thermal paste ceramic?

 

[djbbenn]

Hard to say... Arctic Lumière is almost pure white. Usually if it's a stock paste they are silicon based.

-Dan

 

[Casheti]

When I put my CPU cooler on I put 10 times as much TIM on the CPU as in that picture up above lol. Ah well, as long as it doesn't explode, I'm good.

 

[Ketxxx]

Its worth noting a HS lapped to a near mirror \ mirror finish is far superior to one that isnt. Depending on the HS, probably on average a good 5c superior. As I said though, depending on the HS, and what materials are used and how high quality the materials are used on the HS.

 

[PyroInc]

nice. I used to use the this

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/274/3

as a reference

 

[Casheti]

This is just a mess

and my

 

[PyroInc]

yea I know.... lol that's why I used it as a reference

 

[bassmasta]

holy crap, spent a week and $50 gas trying to find some 99% isopropryl, then while picking up some rubbing alchohol at the store, I see a rack of 99%, and they told me that they can order 100% if i need it that bad.... I feel like such a jackass.

 

[grunt_408]

http://www.arcticsilver.com/pdf/appinstruct/as5/ins_as5_intel_dual_wcap.pdf