Cleaning Intel Heatsink (Black Residue & Foil, Replacing CPU)

[ginakra]

My husband and I are replacing a motherboard and cpu in an older computer. The cpu is a p4 socket 478 I believe. My question involves removing thermal paste/tape from the heatsink. We are using our original heatsink, and when we removed it, there was a black square on the metal that was scrapable with a fingernail. We figured it was old thermal compound so we removed it. What is left is a silver sticker of some kind.

Do we remove everything down to the bare metal, or is the silver sqaure sticker some kind of pad that should stay there?

Probably a really dumb question, we're inexperienced. Can't seem to find an exact answer anywhere, would appreciate the help.

Thanks,
Gina

 

[Twoboxer]

Full disclosure: I've never done a P4 stock cooler.

If I got that, I'd remove it, since the objective is to mate the cpu top to the heatsink bottom, with thermal paste filling in small gaps because the surfaces aren't perfect.

That sticker or pad had to be thermally conductive, and was prolly a part of the thermal glue (?) used at the time. Absent the goo that prolly came with it, it can only get in the way now.

 

[Crashman]

My husband and I are replacing a motherboard and cpu in an older computer. The cpu is a p4 socket 478 I believe. My question involves removing thermal paste/tape from the heatsink. We are using our original heatsink, and when we removed it, there was a black square on the metal that was scrapable with a fingernail. We figured it was old thermal compound so we removed it. What is left is a silver sticker of some kind.

Do we remove everything down to the bare metal, or is the silver sqaure sticker some kind of pad that should stay there?

Probably a really dumb question, we're inexperienced. Can't seem to find an exact answer anywhere, would appreciate the help.

Thanks,
Gina

You could have reused the thermal material, which is made of a thermoplastic material of wax-like consistency. Now that you've cleaned it off, you can't reuse it.

The foil had this material on both sides. If you peel the foil, you'll probably find a thick enough layer of black stuff underneath it that you can use that instead of a new layer of thermal paste.

If there's not enough original thermal material to reuse after peeling the foil, you can clean the sink and apply regular paste.

 

[Shadow703793]

Do we remove everything down to the bare metal, or is the silver sqaure sticker some kind of pad that should stay there?

It's the rest of the pad. I highly recommend you just getting rid of the pad compleately and using some thermal paste.

Here is what you could/should do:

1. Get some 90%+ Alcohol and some cotton and clean the rest of the pad off of the CPU heatsink.

2. Clean up the CPU the same way.

3. Use some new thermal paste on it. This is what most of us here use (it's probably over kill for your need): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835100007
Use a bead the size of 1-2 grains of rice in the center of the CPU. Then cover your finger with some cling wrap and spread it out very thinly over the CPU.

PS: Cheaper Thermal paste for your need:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835100301

Note: The AS5 has free shipping while this one doesn't. When you add the cost of shipping you may be better off going with the AS5. In my case, with shipping, it came out to $7.50. So going with the AS5 is better for me (considering Price vs. performance).

 

[ginakra]

Thanks so much, everyone! We didn't have time to wait for the AS5, we got some Dynex brand from the local Best Buy. It's a silver compound as well (99.5% micronized silver, 75%-80% silver content by weight). Is the AS5 really worth the wait of shipping? If so, I would certainly change my mind Thanks for the amount reference, Shadow. The instructions say "apply a small amount" I was on a search for how much a "small amount" is

 

[Wisecracker]

"a small amount" = "a rice-grain size bead"

 

[apache_lives]

brasso (brass pollish or even silver pollish) also cleans that crap off but make sure you get rid of the brasso afterward

 

[Shadow703793]

^True, but you'd still have to clean off the BrasO with Alcohol after.

Thanks so much, everyone! We didn't have time to wait for the AS5, we got some Dynex brand from the local Best Buy. It's a silver compound as well (99.5% micronized silver, 75%-80% silver content by weight). Is the AS5 really worth the wait of shipping? If so, I would certainly change my mind Thanks for the amount reference, Shadow. The instructions say "apply a small amount" I was on a search for how much a "small amount" is

AS5 isn't worth the wait unless you plan to do heavy OC (BSEL mod any one? ). I love my old Celeron D 315.

Small amount is about 1-2 rice grains. Or a ver small Corn kernel.

 

[coozie7]

I wish this place would sort its software act out, another double posted thread!:

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/forum2.php?config=tomshardwareuk.inc&cat=10&post=263453&page=1&p=1&sondage=0&owntopic=1&trash=0&trash_post=0&print=0&numreponse=0&quote_only=0&new=0&nojs=0