HR-07 not doing its job. Heating up the RAM?

[ixeT]

my friend just bought the thermalright HR-07s and used it on his RAMs. Previously, his RAMs could boot and was stable at 1120mhz. But after using the HR-07s, it couldn't boot and even if it did, it overheated after just 5 minutes of stress test and caused the PC to lock up. So he removed the HR-07 but left the thermal tapes intact, just to do a test. And the results were the same, the RAMs overheated. When he removed the thermal tapes, the RAM was back to normal and happily running at 1120mhz. He cleaned the surface of the RAMs but it was still the same. Any ideas why instead of COOLING the RAMs, it instead COOKS it? :?
I also have the HR-07 but I didn't bump into his kind of problems 8O

 

[apt403]

Well, that's weird. Since the thermal tape was the only constant variable when the ram was overheating, I would try a different TIM.

 

[ixeT]

any suggestions on different TIM? are all other thermal tapes' design similar with the ones the Hr-07 use?

 

[apt403]

It depends on how important the thermal tape is for holding the HR-07 to the ram. If the only thing keeping the '07 attached the the stick is the tape, then tape is what should be used, if not, a paste would probably work better. Arctic Silver Ceramique is going to be the best paste. All thermal tape is pretty much the same, just go with the cheapest stuff.

 

[ixeT]

thermalright refers the thermal tapes as "thermal pads". They don't stick the heat sink to the RAMs, they just hold it in place and help to transfer heat. My friend discovered something new. His RAM is single sided. He placed the thermal "pads" only on the side of the RAMs where the chips are and left the other side naked. The RAM was perfectly fine. He did it the other way round, and the RAMs overheated.. I noticed that the RAMs were a bit oily on the no RAM chip side. He told me he cleaned the RAMs with a bottle of "Swan Alcohol" that's used to clean video tapes. Could that be the reason that the RAMs overheat when the pads covered the other side?

 

[apt403]

Oh, yeah, that's probably the cause if the ram doesnt overheat when only the chip side is covered.

All TIM, be it paste, pad or tape are crappy thermal conductors compared to metal. Use to much and the TIM becomes a insulator.

 

[ixeT]

So is there any way to fix this? Besides getting new thermal pads. Will cleaning the RAM with high purity rubbing alcohol help?

 

[apt403]

You said the ram was fine when the pads where only on the side with the ICs, so just do that.

 

[ixeT]

Alright, I'll tell my friend to try that out. Is it alright to use pharmacy alcohol 95% purity? Weird thing is, whether using the thick thermal pad or the thin thermal pad, just placing it on the IC side and the RAMs would overheat :?

 

[apt403]

Yeah, 95% will work fine.