Installation Continued

I tried a slightly smaller amount to see if I had placed too much on the first time. No, this would not do, as the paste did not even go far enough out to adequately cover the core. Part of the issue here is that the Noctua NT-H1 is a very thick paste. A thinner thermal compound would not have as much of an issue here.


Finally I decided to try the method Arctic Silver recommends for their pastes on dual-core Pentium CPUs: a thin, straight line across the die. This seemed to work the best with the thicker Noctua compound. The bad part is the recommended orientation only places the center two heatpipes in contact with the core.


With the CPU cleaned and the thermal paste reapplied, the SpinQ was mounted back on the motherboard. The final installation step is to plug in the fan to the CPU fan header. Before the tray goes back in the case, let's take a look at the area around the CPU socket and see if there are any compatibility issues. The elevated fin section of the SpinQ lifts it high enough to clear any of the heatsinks around the socket, and there are no issues with it hanging over the memory slots - at least on this board. Since the CPU socket is located near the edge of the motherboard, there is a small amount of the fin section that rises above the top edge. Will this be an issue when it goes back into the case?


Unfortunately, yes. The Lian Li PC-A10B has a 120mm fan located directly above the CPU, and this fan needed to come out for the tray to slide in all the way. The amount of clearance in this case is very small, so if your case has more room, this should not be an issue. As shown in the image, there is less than .25 inch between the top of the motherboard and the next 120mm fan. If there was .25 or more inches of room, then there would be no problems at all.


With the fan plugged in and the system running, the SpinQ gives off a gentle blue glow, even with the light off.