In an attempt to fix my problems I’ve ordered a new motherboard. The Athlon XP 2200+ on the current MB came with a sticky “thermal pad” instead of thermal paste.
Will I need to scrape this off somehow and then reapply new thermal stuff before seating the new processor or is this pad “multiuse” or something.
Also, I have Radio Shack brand thermal goop, is that good enough or am going to shoot myself in the foot? I mean, do you really need Arctic Silver?
Try the thermal pad first, see how hot your particular configuration gets. If you eventually decide you need goop, then you scrape off the the thermal pad.
I dunno XPav, the concensus here at work seems to be that those pads are absolutely not suitable for reuse.
A guy here has offered to let me have a smidgen of his arctic silver, so I’ll probably just do that.
Radio Shack brand should be fine, as long as it’s applied correctly.
Scraping off thermal pads is a bitch. Try leaving alchohol on it for a few hours, periodically re-wetting it.
I’m also assuming that I should scrape this darn pad off with something that is highly unlikely to damage my CPU right? Some crappy piece of plastic?
Sounds like fun.
:evil:
The pads definitely aren’t suitable for reuse. Goof off is excellent for getting the gunk off.
Well, I actually ended up buying a new heatsink/fan, but because there is a heatsink/fan on the northbride or southbridge, the new cpu heatsink/fan doesn’t fit.
I was thinking of simply reusing the old heatsink/fan, but the only thermal paste I have is Radio Shack brand.
So we return to the original question:
Can I use Radio Shack brand thermal paste!?
:D
Somtimes heatsinks will come with a little bit of grease. You might use that. Generic stuff is fine, if you ask me. You’re talking about getting like .8 degree difference between generic and top of the line stuff. If you’re not a crazy overclocking, don’t bother with arctic. Arctic Silver actually voids your warrenty if you use it with a boxed Athlon.
Why?
I’m not sure, I think I read somewhere that AMD indicated Arctic Silver actually conducted electricity to such a degree as to be unacceptable to them. I think mostly it’s about them wanting you to use what comes in the box in order to elimate any questions about who is at fault when a customer makes a claim.
Well, it ended up being a moot point. I ended up getting a new JetArt (whoever they are) heatsink/fan at Compusa that came with its own thermal past applicator.
Of course I didn’t realize this until I got home, so I accidentally purchased a mini packet of thermal goop for $3 at Compusa.
Oh well.
Anyway, I installed everything and it seems to be working great. So far I’ve had no bizarre reboots.
Installing the CPU and heatsink/fan seems to get a little less nervewracking the second time.
Well, I guess I’m just talking to myself at this point, but I got my PC back up and running yesterday.
Thanks for all the tips everybody.
So far the machine seems very stable, and I got the side benefit of having a new MB that’s quite a bit more upgradeable than the previous one. This one has 4 PC2100 DIMM slots (3 at PC2700) and supports up to an Athlon XP 3000+.
It’s also got some kind of C-Media hardware based surround sound audio…anybody know anything about this chipset?