Help with a Push+Pull set up on my Heatsink.

[saint7269]

Hi all. I was thinking adding a 2nd fan to my heatsink. It's set up right now as a push only. I was wondering how it would work if I just plug in the 2nd fan using a molex power pins. I'm idling a 38c and 49c running prime95.
But i'm using that Best Buy crap thermal paste. I'll be changing that out as well. When I first put the CPU and heatsink on a few months ago I would idle around 32c is spikes a few weeks ago to around 40c+ idle and mid 50's when in game/prime95. So i took in apart to clean and the paste had run everywhere it was a mess. I'm guessing to much paste + crappy paste = mess. I was using the Best Buy stuff because I was out of anything good and it was easy to get. Sorry about running on I'll finsh this up. I'm running a AMD 960t at 3.8ghz atm. I would like to work on keeping it stable over clocked as a 6 core but I'm worried about heat. Any help and/or thoughts you guys could give would be welcome.

Heatsink I'm using.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835233081

Thermal compound I'm going to buy.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835186038

 

[BVKnight]

Hi all. I was thinking adding a 2nd fan to my heatsink. It's set up right now as a push only. I was wondering how it would work if I just plug in the 2nd fan using a molex power pins. I'm idling a 38c and 49c running prime95.
But i'm using that Best Buy crap thermal paste. I'll be changing that out as well. When I first put the CPU and heatsink on a few months ago I would idle around 32c is spikes a few weeks ago to around 40c+ idle and mid 50's when in game/prime95. So i took in apart to clean and the paste had run everywhere it was a mess. I'm guessing to much paste + crappy paste = mess. I was using the Best Buy stuff because I was out of anything good and it was easy to get. Sorry about running on I'll finsh this up. I'm running a AMD 960t at 3.8ghz atm. I would like to work on keeping it stable over clocked as a 6 core but I'm worried about heat. Any help and/or thoughts you guys could give would be welcome.

Heatsink I'm using.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835233081

Thermal compound I'm going to buy.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835186038

Adding a second fan to your CPU heatsink is questionable: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/336137-28-does-push-pull-setup-decrease-temps
Buying a higher-quality fan would probably produce more of a difference. I've heard good things about the Gentle Typhoons.

If you plug in the second fan directly to the power supply, it will always run at full speed, when generally you want your fans to match their rpm. If you don't have a second CPU_FAN header on your motherboard, I would get something like this: http://www.svc.com/fc444pwm-12bks.html . This will allow your motherboard to control the two fans identically, as if they were one. You may have to get a 3-pin version (they have one on that site) if you are using 3-pin fans, I'm not sure if your motherboard will control it correctly if you plug 3-pin fans into the adapter but 4 pins into the motherboard.

The MX-4 is a great paste, that may make a big difference too. Don't forget, you need very little thermal paste. The idea is as thin a layer as possible.

 

[saint7269]

Thank you for the help. I ordered the parts today.

 

[saint7269]

Best answer selected by saint7269.