Uh oh.

[Guest]

Just got my Athlon XP (retail box) and new motherboard.

To install the CPU fan, the instructions remind you to remove the protective plastic strip from the processor side of the heat sink. I've certainly seen those before, but this fan has no such strip, just a square of sorta tacky flesh-colored stuff. There was no "corner" that I could grab and pull it off.

I assumed that this was the magical heat-transfer goop that they included to sit next to the processor.

Well, I installed the fan and cranked up the system for abot ten seconds. I noticed a slight burning smell coming from the CPU, powered down, and pulled off the fan.

Part of the flesh-colored square was now sticking to the CPU and I'm confused.

Did I do everything right? Should I just replace the fan and let the goop settle in? Or did I actually miss something to pull off and the processor will now need to be cleaned up?

Thanks!

 

[Kelledin]

I would suspect there was something to remove there; there usually is a wax-coated or plastic strip to remove when using thermal tape. The burning smell means you probably should have taken something off!

Even if the flesh-colored bit <i>is</i> a thermal pad, I would personally rather scrape it off, polish the HSF surface a bit, and apply some Arctic Silver or other fluid thermal grease. Pads just don't cut it these days...

Probably no harm done, just clean off the CPU and the HSF, scrap the pad, and put on thermal grease.

Kelledin

"/join #hackerz. See the Web. DoS interesting people."

 

[Matisaro]

Yeah, even if you didnt remove the protective cover, 10 seconds assuming the heatsink was on(and since some of the pink [-peep-] stuck to the core you can assume it was on) wont hurt the cpu, the burning smell probably came from another component, remove the pink crap, and put some heatsink paste on there. Then try again, if it works fine there shouldnt be an issue. Whatever was smoking, if it was not the cpu, will probably smoke and die anyways, best to find out which component it is and rma it and get on with life ;-).

~Matisaro~
"The Cash Left In My Pocket,The BEST Benchmark"
~Tbird1.3@1.5~

 

[Guest]

Since a tube of Arctic Silver is probably two days away and I'm impatient, I looked harder...

Like I said, that beige patch had partially stuck to the CPU. I could now see that it was the only layer on the heat sink, I could clearly see metal below it. i just have to assume my fan arrived without the peel-off protective film.

I put it all back together, powered back up, and kept a close eye on CPU temperature. It's looking just fine. I'm back in business.

As for the smell - who knows? Components sometimes smell the first time they get juice flowing through them. In any case, the smell is gone and everything appears to be working fine.

Thanks for the help though.