Thermal Tape Trouble

[Ethereal_Dragon]

OK, I bought an Athlon XP 2200+(retail) a few months ago at a local computer show for a good price. Last week, I finally recieved all the rest of my components and assembled the computer. I used a Thermaltake Volcano 9 (the orange one with manual speed control & temp speed sontrol.) When I got the Thermaltake the guy at the store took one out of a box and showed it to me. He also told me that I could just put the thermal tape on it and that was all I had to do. So I did that, connected it to the mobo, and hooked everything up. (At that point, I had the fan running at full speed.) The computer wouldn't boot up at all, so I waited, and tried the next day. Still nothing.

At this point I was pretty pissed off, so I took everything out of the chassis, and was going to put it all together again. The last few things to remove were the mobo, processor, and heatsink / fan. So I take off the Thermaltake, and stuck to the bottom of it is that little brownish/purplish thing (about the size of a fingernail) that is on the top of the processor to spread the heat (i am guessing).

So I am sitting there with the Thermaltake, I am about 99% sure that the processor is busted. If I make it look like that little thing is still on the CPU, do you think the store that I got the CPU from will do an exchange?

So, I guess that my question is this:

When using a heat sink that has thermal tape, should I also use thermal grease, with/without the tap? or what?

=====--------------------=====
The cheat is, GROUNDED!

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[Quetzacoatl]

Well...first of all, if you know it's broken, that's pretty f***ing unethical to return it that way. And no, I doubt they would be dumb enough to accept it without looking at the processor and testing it. Next time, don't use thermal tape, it sucks, use the thermal grease instead, you can reapply the heatsink with fresh grease each time and not have to worry about scraping it off.

Instead of Rdram, why not just merge 4 Sdram channels...

 

[Lonemagi]

Little brownish purple thing? Athlons dont have a heat spreader like Pentium4's. Is the tape brown purple? If not, I do belive that is the top of your cpu core.

[edit] I dont blive that normal thermal tape (like 3M "frag" tape) is reccomended by AMD. I think they only allow for thermal compund that sticks to the heatsink ("bubblegum") or something like Actic Silver. Also, use ne or the other, you are just trying to get rid of the air bubbles between the cpu and sink [/edit]
<font color=blue>...we are not responcible for any amount of idiocy you apply to our advice.<font color=blue><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Lonemagi on 01/31/03 07:13 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Ethereal_Dragon]

I do suppose that is what it was. I don't know a whole lot about the CPU's themselves. It was a dark color and about the size of the fingernail on your pinky finger.

=====--------------------=====
The cheat is, GROUNDED!

http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail.html

 

[Ethereal_Dragon]

Yes, I do realize that that is unethical, and cheating. I was just trying to relieve the stress of have to spend even more cash to get another CPU.

=====--------------------=====
The cheat is, GROUNDED!

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[Lonemagi]

Sounds like you ripped the cpu core from the CPU!

<font color=blue>...we are not responcible for any amount of idiocy you apply to our advice.<font color=blue>

 

[LCARS]

Why is it unethical? If the CPU doesn't work straight out of the box, then why not exchange it? That what warranties are for. There's no solid evidence to suggest that you burned it up.

If both sides of the thermal tape were uncovered and sticky, then I can't see any reason why the CPU would burn up *instantly* like you describe. Was the HSF clipped down correctly?

 

[svol]

I don't think many stores will give you a new CPU when you damaged it during install with a non-retail HSF. But it doesn't hurt to try.

My dual-PSU PC is so powerfull that the neighbourhood dimms when I turn it on