Building a new rig, few random questions

  1. Is it normal to put the CPU and heatsink/fan onto the motherboard after the motherboard has been attached to the case? Or before? I can’t remember which way I did it last time… I suppose it doesn’t matter one way or the other, just wondering what folks normally prefer to do.

  2. My motherboard came with a backplate and retention frame pre-attached, although the user’s manual doesn’t seem aware of that fact. In its CPU instructions, it says to put the CPU into the socket before attaching the retention frame and backplate. This isn’t necessary for any real reason, is it? As long as the retention frame doesn’t get in the way of aligning the CPU pins it should be fine, I’d think. But again, if there is some conventional wisdom on this I’d like to hear it (again can’t remember how I did it last time).

  3. My motherboard doesn’t seem to have a, er, serial port I think it is? The kind of port you used to attach printers back in the day. I guess this is normal for newer mobos, and newer printer-type peripherals are usually USB? I don’t suppose there are any serial-to-USB adaptors you can buy?

  4. Way back when I built my last box some people advised me to scrape off the thermal pad that comes with the Athlon heatsink, and instead use Arctic Silver. Does this really matter? I would hope the thermal pad that AMD actually packages with their chip would be sufficient? I would rather just leave it as is, in part because it is hard to scrape off that pad completely (failed last time & ended up buying a second heatsink). I do have an old tube of Arctic Silver that I bought 3 years ago… does that stuff “go bad” over time or is it still usable now?

The port you used to attach printers with was the parallel port. Very few printers were serial port IIRC.

Oh yeah, parallel port. Ok, I’m sure you’re right.

  1. Install the PSU and plug it into the wall
  2. Screw the motherboard into the motherboard tray
  3. Connect power to motherboard.
  4. Install CPU, then heatsink.

In this way, your case is grounded before you start working with the static-sensitive CPU.

Additionally, some of the clip-on heatsinks for the Pentium 4 put a lot of stress on the motherboard. You want the motherboard anchored down to prevent it from warping. Otherwise, you might not be able to put the heatsinks on.

thermal pad… Arctic Silver. Does this really matter?

If you overclock, yes. If you don’t, no.

Lemme get this straight… I want the motherboard plugged in while installing the CPU and heatsink/fan?

That’s pretty counter intuitive, but I don’t know anything about electrical stuff, so…

I personally wouldn’t recommend it. It seems like playing with fire. What if you bump the power button when you’ve got the CPU in but not the heatsink?

I’d just be real careful to touch something grounded first to work any static out of my system. That’s how I’ve always built computers and I have yet to fry a CPU :D

Yeah. You may have heard people say “touch the case before messing with the insides of your computer.” They say this because the case is connected, through the power supply and power cable, to the grounding pin of your wall outlet.

Touching the case therefore neutralizes any static charge that you’ve accumulated in your body, but only if you’ve got the power supply installed and plugged into the wall.

No no… don’t plug the power supply into your motherboard until you’re finally ready to boot up.

Just screw the power supply in the case and plug it into your wall. That way your case is grounded, and you can discharge static by touching the case.

What I’ve done in the past was just wear one of those anti-static straps. I think last time I built a PC I attached it to one of the case’s metal side-flaps which was lying on the ground. Dunno whether this was a good thing to attach it to. Also Roger, are you talking about grounding the case as separate from grounding myself?

Touching the case therefore neutralizes any static charge that you’ve accumulated in your body, but only if you’ve got the power supply installed and plugged into the wall.

Never mind, that answers it.

Can I get a ruling on the baseplate/retention frame question? There’s no reason why I couldn’t put the CPU and Heatsink in with those components already attached, is there?

edit: Ok Jason, see what you mean about plugging the PSU in. Makes sense.

I removed the baseplate because my Zalman 7000B had a slightly different one and I couldn’t keep the frame since the mechanism for attaching the heatsink was different. If you have a heatsink that can be attached to the standard frame I guess you could just keep the one that’s already there.

I also read in the manual that you shouldn’t install memory into a nForce 250 that is plugged in, it was apparently very sensitive. I don’t think it said anything about the processor, but I didn’t plug it in just in case.

But MAKE SURE THE MASTER SWITCH ON THE BACK OF THE POWER SUPPLY IS OFF before messing around in there.

Particularly before plugging into into the motherboard.

Yeesh.

I haven’t test fitted it yet but I hope it works. The Athlon I ordered didn’t come with its own baseplate and retention frame, even though the instructions seem to indicate that it should.

I’m confident this should be OK as long as the installed items aren’t blocking the CPU. I haven’t built an Athlon system, but the motherboard for the Pentium 4 system I built last year came with the retention frame installed (no backplate needed). I added the CPU & heatsink to the installed frame with no mishaps. I can’t think of a reason why AMD hardware should be so different from Intel chips to mandate a specific order for installation.

Is the thermal pad on the bottom of the heatsink sufficient by itself, or should I put some goop on the top of the CPU as well? Can two different thermal materials be used together?

Anyone know if a 3 year old tube of Arctic Silver is still usable?

No, and here’s why:

The purpose of a thermal interface material (TIM) is to maximize contact (and thus, heat transfer) between two surfaces.

Even though the top of your CPU and the bottom of your heatsink may look perfectly smooth to you, these surfaces are covered in microscopic bumps and pits. When you put these uneven surfaces together, only about 20% of the heatsink and CPU surface can ever make direct contact.* The interstitial gaps between them are filled with air, an insulator.

So, to conduct heat better, we have to fill these gaps with something that conducts heat better than air. Mind you, filing in the gaps is not as good as having 100% surface contact, but it sure beats 20%!

The white pad on the bottom of your heatsink is what is called a phase-change material. It’s solid now, but under heat and pressure, it liquifies to fill in the gaps. The best phase-change materials are as good at transferring heat as the beast thermal greases are.**

If you were to use TWO thermal interface materials, you would diminish the heat transfer. You would increase the thickness of the TIMs, and therefore the distance between the heatsink and the CPU.

Anyone know if a 3 year old tube of Arctic Silver is still usable?

Yes. But if you’re going to go to the trouble, you may as well buy a tube of the newer Arctic Silver 5 formulation. It conducts heat better than the Arctic Silver 2 you probably have.

  • You can increase the contact area by polishing the metal surfaces in a process known as lapping. But even if you manage to double the area of direct contact to 40%, you’re still going to want to use a TIM between the surfaces.

** Some people go to the trouble of using thermal grease because:

  1. People who overclock tend to be paranoid about their heat, and want the best TIM money can buy.
  2. Heatsink manufacturers use a decent phase-change material, but it’s not the best.
  3. By using thermal grease, you can control how much is put on. The theory is that if you smear only a VERY VERY VERY thin layer of grease, it will be enough to just fill in all the microscopic pits, while leaving the raised surfaces uncovered. So, you still get some direct surface contact (which has the best heat transfer).

In exchange for all this effort, the CPU runs about 5C cooler…

Ok, thanks. I know I’m not gonna overclock so I will just go with what AMD provided. I’m gonna assume they have some clue what they are doing.

Yet another HS/fan question… it seems like the heatsink could orient onto the retention frame in either of two directions. I know you have to put it on “lengthwise” so that it matches the dimensions of the frame, but otherwise there is no obvious cue as to which direction to put it, and in fact the frame seems to have a little nub to catch the heatsink’s lever on either side. So I’m guessing it doesn’t matter… but not sure. (The illustrations on the instructions aren’t clear enough to help much.)

I know there are a lot of heatsinks & a lot of mobos, just wondering if there is any conventional wisdom on this.

Take a picture and post it.

Sorry it’s so crappy, that’s a DV image. Don’t have a digital still camera.

Anyway that is the orientation I was thinking of going with and I can’t see a problem with it. The retention frame has corresponding nubs on both left and right sides that would seem to catch the heatsink’s lever arm, so it looks like it’s supposed to work both ways.