Silver Thermal for Retail P4 2.6C

[Slasher42]

I ordered a 2.6C - Retail from Newegg.com yesterday.

Thats gonna come with some type of thermal compound on there already right?

Well I was at bestbuy earlier and they had some Silver Thermal Compound that was like $8 and I have a giftcard to Bestbuy so I said what the 'ell and bought some.

Am I gonna have to do anything special to use this on the P4 cpu when it comes in?(ie scrape off the existing compound?)

 

[SoDNighthawk]

I have never bothered removing the old compound from the bottom of an old or even new CPU. I have been building computers since my first Tandy Colour computer 3 from Radio Shack over 20 years ago.

I pulled my XP 3200+ out last week because I ran some cleaning materials through the computer in fact I took the whole P.C apart and cleaned every part.

I did not want the CPU picking up an ESD charge so I popped it out of the motherboard and put it on a grounding pad I have.

When I went to re-install it I simply checked that there was a thin layer of thermal paste still there and that is enough.

The Manufactures thermal pads are part of the warranty and if you remove it and put your own paste on the bottom of the heat sink you will void the warranty.

A electro static discharge is more of a concern to me then mucking around with thermal compound. It only takes a 5 volt discharge to blow part of a trace out of a micro-chip. As human beings we do not even feel a static discharge until 5000 volts. So we cant even tell how much damage we are doing to a CPU or micro chip simply installing it. Remember Voltage without Current is not going to hurt you under 10,000 volts Over that will things get more fun.


Barton 3200+ 400MHz
A7N8X Deluxe
Liquid
2x512 KinstonHyperX PC3200
GeForce FX5900
Maxtor DiamondMaxPlus9@80Gig
SONY CD 52x
SONY RW 52x/24x/52x
SONY DVD 16x/40x

 

[Vapor]

He's talking about Intel (last I check, AMD doesn't make a P4 2.6C). Intel doesn't really care about thermal compounds...only AMD denies waranty if you use a different one. Anyway, he is concerned about losing the thermal pad, not about ESD (though there is concern, especially when working in a carpetted environment).

Slasher: there will be a pad on the bottom of the HSF, remove it and apply your thermal paste.

Damn Rambus.

 

[SoDNighthawk]

Ya I missed the Intel part...I seldom think about intel

Barton 3200+ 400MHz
A7N8X Deluxe
Liquid
2x512 KinstonHyperX PC3200
GeForce FX5900
Maxtor DiamondMaxPlus9@80Gig
SONY CD 52x
SONY RW 52x/24x/52x
SONY DVD 16x/40x

 

[Slasher42]

Is the Silver Thermal Paste actually better then the stock pad that intel puts on?

If it isnt worthwhile I'll just take the Paste back to the store and not mess with it. I certainly dont want to do something that wont help and could damage my new cpu

 

[Crashman]

It's only very slightly better. Intel's material is actually very good. It's applied to both sides of a piece of aluminum foil (not to be confused with a sticker).

You could get a bigger advantage from the compound if you buffed the bottom of the sink to remove the protective oxide coating. I've normally used a Scotchbrite scrubbing pad with good success. Unfortunately Intel might consider that a modified sink and I'm not certain how they're respond.

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[Slasher42]

Hmm... Then I think I'll be taking the silver compound back to Best Buy... it was kinda am impulse by anyway... I was just wandering around the store with a gift card in hand and as I was leaving I could resist not buying something!!