AMD Warranty

I just read that article too. I thought it was pretty lame.

Has anyone ever heard of Artic Silver shorting out a CPU before?

it can if used incorrectly.

Hilbert space is a big place.

Yeah, too much of a good thing equals=bad here. Ever seen a white CPU? Apparently some take pride in it, and end up burning it, thinking they made a silver extreme cooling.

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I'm so dirty....was thinking white for.....different reasons....

Hilbert space is a big place.

Meet you in the OTHER forum, pronto, we need to talk fast!!! :smile:

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Notice how the Thermal Grease AMD recomnends. No one knows where to buy it. Every post I read everyone reconmends Artic Silver 3.

A very stupid decision by AMD, indeed. Hopefully they will change it quickly..

My system: AMD Athlon XP 3000+ CPU / TwinMOS 1Gb DDR400 / Soltek 75-FRN-RL /
Sapphire Radeon 9800 Pro / Antec True Power 550W / Maxtor 80Gb ATA-133 / Hercules GTXP SC / Samsung DVD / Lite-On CDRW

It has been this way since years ago.

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Does Intel support all types of thermal grease?

My system: AMD Athlon XP 3000+ CPU / TwinMOS 1Gb DDR400 / Soltek 75FRN-RL /
Sapphire Radeon 9800 Pro / Antec True Power 550W / Maxtor 80Gb ATA-133 / Hercules GTXP SC /
Samsung DVD / Lite-On CDRW

I don't know, you'll have to check their most recent Intel CPU installation guide. AMD puts their warranty void warning during HSF installation in the guide.

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Ok...still beats me why AMD doesn't allow third-party thermal grease on their products. Sure, if someone used silver thermal grease and destroyed their CPU's, any warranty should be voided, because normal warranty only covers manufacturing errors. But if you just apply the grease on the core and not accidently happen to spread it somewhere else where it can do damage, warranty really should have been ok.

By the way, normal white thermal grease never does any damage no matter where it's applied, isn't this true? I've heard that only silver grease leads current...


My system: AMD Athlon XP 3000+ CPU / TwinMOS 1Gb DDR400 / Soltek 75FRN-RL /
Sapphire Radeon 9800 Pro / Antec True Power 550W / Maxtor 80Gb ATA-133 / Hercules GTXP SC /
Samsung DVD / Lite-On CDRW

Two reasons (and I know this has become a touchy subject)

1) There are some really crappy thermal greases out there.

2) The contact area between the CPU and heatsink is very small on AMD chips, and it's not a truly flat area (AMD's heat islands are very slightly domed).

3) The mounting assembly of heatsink and CPU is not especially rigid and the heatsink can move ontop the CPU rather easily.

Putting these together you get a situation where the grease can actually be pumped out of the thermal junction, leaving you with insufficient thermal conductivity which could (and does) damage the CPU.

AMD's answer to the increasing awareness of this problem seems to be to simply void the warranty instead of improving their products.


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also, on many athlons there are chips (cache?) with their connectors exposed on top. Idiots that don't know their wher the die is might smear the grease everywhere, probably destroying their chip. This does not matter with many types, such as the all to common generic white paste because they do not conduct electricity but its called Arctic SILVER for a reason.

I guess that would be to hard for AMD to improve their product. That would make too much sense.

It helps them avoid many problems that could happen when idiots try to install thermal paste. Doesn't AMD stock coolers use some sort of thermal pad, not a thermal paste that you apply?