removing thermal pad from cpu

[s4]

i'm removing the thermal pad from my cpu to put on a different heatsink. what's a good way to get all those little pieces that are stuck to the cpu off? these little fragments are really stuck and hard.

this is an xp1800. it came with a cheap-ass heatsink and fan.

 

[PostCode]

That pinkish or greyish crap?

 

[s4]

pink

 

[Justintime]

clean carefully with rubbing alcohol.

 

[s4]

i tried rubbing alcohol but am having problems getting little specs around the sides. someone suggested nail polish remover., but i haven't tried it.

 

[lightstorm]

A soft nylon toothbrush is useful in getting around in tight spaces.

 

[Inkara1]

I think I used an X-Acto knife and rubbing alcohol when I took off the thermal pad to put on the silver goo. I wouldn't necessarily recommend the X-Acto knife (unless you're very careful with it), but it did well enough for my purposes.

 

[PostCode]

I would have to say that as long as you get the stuff off the core, where the heatsink is supposed to be making the only contact, you will be alright. I wouldn't worry about it if there are little bits around the core.

 

[s4]

i installed my new heatsinks on both computers and had 100% success. my computer is a lot quieter now, and i am happy.

 

[Altron]

20-Grit is best for a task liek that. www.rabidhardware.cm did a review on lapping CPUs. They used 40-Grit, but I think you will need something a bit stronger for a thermal pad. use Arctic Silver 3 next time.

 

[s4]

the thermal pad was installed by the people that put the computer together, i used some artic alumina this time.

 

[Altron]

Arctic Alumina is just AS2 mixed with epoxy. DON'T use it on the CPU!
It's for graphic cards and chipsets to glue on heatsink when there is not correct mounting holes. If you thought removing the thermal pad was hard, you will never get off AA. You need to put it in the freezer and pry it apart.

 

[PostCode]

Those thermal pads are actually part of the heatsink. They don't get put on any other way. The onject being that this termal pad melts around the core. It's basicallly a thin layer of heat trasferring material, although the exact substance I'm unclear on. Never really thought about it. Anyway, we don't put them on at the shop. They come preinstalled on the heatsink.

 

[s4]

Do you apply thermal paste on top of the pad, Postcode?

Confession time, I didn't really use Artic Alumina. I went the cheap ass route and just used the pad. I didn't want people to know that I don't overclock and am not into geeky things.

Postcode is right, the pad was already on the new heatsink so I figured that I'd just use it.

 

[s4]

Here is what my temps look like in a 70 F room, under full load they are about 5 C higher:

 

[PostCode]

No. In every case we use the heatsink stock. As of yet we've had no issue with any system overheating...as long as you remember to take the protective piece of paper off the bottom pf the heatsink that covers the compound before putting it on the motherboard. If you don't remove that piece of paper, chances are your going to fry the CPU.

Remember, these systems are stock. No overclocking is done to any system that leaves our store. I can't say that using the stock method will work in cases where overclocking is done, however, this AMD 1700+ on a MSI K7T Turbo2 has a stock heatsink with no extra thermal paste crap and it's jacked up to a 145fsb with no issue whatsoever. Running for over 5 days now since last reboot. No issues at all.

 

[s4]

Good. That's what I wanted to hear. My system is plenty fast enough for me the way it is.