Should it be touching.?

[boricua021]

I have a 1 gig t-bird.. Question is should the heatsink be touching the processor? Its a socket A if you haven't figured it out by now and also what areas can I apply thermal grease too? The heatsink has a little sticky pad on it but its real small and on the center of the heatsink. Should I peel that off and put the heatsink directly on the processor. This is my first socket processor so I don't wanna mess it up.

[smaier69]

yes. it should be touching the proc. some people like to get really anal about it and lap the hs and proc, but thats not really necessary.

what i would do is remove the sticky pad (its actually thermal tape. you can just use this with no grease if you want, but taking it off and using grease will only help things out) and put a dab of thermal grease (about the size of a BB-gun BB) on the top of the proc and then place the HS on top of it (allowing the mating of the two to sandwich the thermal grease and spread it around). this will work better to see that there are no air/gaps between the two, which is what may happen if you manually smear the grease around before you place the HS on the proc.

just dont overdo it with the amount of grease. you can take a couple trial runs first before you clip on the HS, just to see if your amount/placement of the grease is enough or correct. just give it a try and then pull the HS back up and check the contact area to see if its being covered. clean off the areas with rubbing alcohol and then try it again. repeat until you are comfortable that you have it right, and then do it for reals.

[ 04-23-2001: Message edited by: smaier69 ]

[Nemesis]

the althons, dont need anything, not even the pad that comes with the heatsinks, the metal on the chip, should sit tight on the heatsink, as althons can blow very easy, but if you want take the pad off and add some grease, mine sits bare no pad no grease.