test of thermal pad on AMD

Lots of talk here recently about thermal pads and what is better etc. I've
seen big drops in temp's ditching the thermal pads and just using plain 'ol
white HS compound instead. Others claim you'll only see a minor change
so...

I just bought a Barton 2500+ on a chaintech 7NIF2 board for by brother. It
was a retail chip with a factory HSF. I just put it on as supplied and when
I booted it up, the idle temp was right at 50C in the bios. Seemed kinda
high but MBM5 said 40C so figured it was OK.

After I got it all set up, the system was pretty noisy from the fans so
wanted to try to quiet it down some. Removed the fan grills, added some
10ohm 1W resistors to the case fan and PSU fan etc. Rechecked and the CPU
temp was the same but now the CPU fan was the loudest one.

So I took the factory HS off and removed the pad. It wasn't like intel's
pad, more like a gooey piece of cheeze? Anyway removed the pad and sanded
the bottom of the HS smooth, it was pretty rough and I know HS compound
likes a smooth surface. The pad was so thick this didn't matter. After I
reinstalled the HS with plain white compound, the idle temp was 11C less,
down at 39C in the bios and 29C in MBM5. Now I could add a resistor to the
CPU fan, drop the RPM 1000 RPM and still is cooler (43C) than it was with
the pad and MUCH quieter!

So anyone installing a retail AMD chip, my advice is to ditch the pad, sand
the bottom of the HS on a piece of glass and throw on some white HS
compound and stay cool/quiet.
--

Stacey

Stacey <> writes:
>I just bought a Barton 2500+ on a chaintech 7NIF2 board for by brother. It
>was a retail chip with a factory HSF. I just put it on as supplied and when
>I booted it up, the idle temp was right at 50C in the bios. Seemed kinda
>high but MBM5 said 40C so figured it was OK.

I've got the same but with ECS N2U400-A board. Room temp was 18C,
BIOS said cpu was about 48C, no case fans, side off the case. I
turned a big room fan against the open side of the case and it
dropped to the lower 40's. Those are about the same as my AMD 2000
with a Vantec TMD Aeroflow and the white goop.

>So I took the factory HS off and removed the pad. It wasn't like intel's
>pad, more like a gooey piece of cheeze?

Instructions said mine was a phase change material, water clear,
looked less than 1mm thick of rubber cement. Trying to get that
clip on the heat sink latched down was impressive, Even with a
screwdriver to apply pressure I couldn't get it to latch. Then
someone banged on the door and I had to move the case. The heat
sink fell off in the process. When I saw this the second time the
material had changed to a dark grey looking material with a big
impression in it where I had been applying all the pressure. I
wasn't sure whether it was one-time-only or not but I went ahead
and got up on the table with the screwdriver and REALLY applied the
pressure, along with prying the edge of the clip to let it slip
into place. Finally it popped on there.

>So anyone installing a retail AMD chip, my advice is to ditch the pad,
>sand the bottom of the HS on a piece of glass and throw on some white
>HS compound and stay cool/quiet.

I didn't notice the bottom of the sink being rough. Maybe I just
didn't look closely enough. What did you use for polishing compound?

But I think I'm leaning in the direction of a big house fan that
will be ducted to drive air through the cases.

While I was doing all this, and listening to the old house fan
roaring away, the house down the street caught fire. That reminded
me of an old fan a friend and I had mounted in a window decades ago
to pump the hot august air out of the house. The fan made a lot
of noise and fortunately we happened to be in the kitchen looking
at it when it went up in flames.

Does anyone know of a relatively cheap smoke detector like device
BUT it will switch off maybe 1000 watts of power when it thinks
that something has caught fire? I'm surprised that there isn't
something like that out there that I've seen. I'm really not wanting
to come home some evening and discover that a fan failed, burned,
and took the whole place with it.

Stacey wrote:

> Anyway removed the pad and sanded
> the bottom of the HS smooth, it was pretty rough and I know HS compound
> likes a smooth surface.

What grit sandpaper did you use?

--
spammage trappage: replace fishies_ with yahoo

sooky grumper wrote:

> Stacey wrote:
>
>> Anyway removed the pad and sanded
>> the bottom of the HS smooth, it was pretty rough and I know HS compound
>> likes a smooth surface.
>
> What grit sandpaper did you use?
>

Started with 120, then 220 then 400. Put the sandpaper on some fairly thick
glass to make sure it was flat. It doesn't have to be polished, just
smooth.
--

Stacey

On Sun, 16 May 2004 02:25:31 -0400, Stacey <> wrote:

>Lots of talk here recently about thermal pads and what is better etc. I've
>seen big drops in temp's ditching the thermal pads and just using plain 'ol
>white HS compound instead. Others claim you'll only see a minor change
>so...
>
>I just bought a Barton 2500+ on a chaintech 7NIF2 board for by brother. It
>was a retail chip with a factory HSF. I just put it on as supplied and when
>I booted it up, the idle temp was right at 50C in the bios. Seemed kinda
>high but MBM5 said 40C so figured it was OK.
>
>After I got it all set up, the system was pretty noisy from the fans so
>wanted to try to quiet it down some. Removed the fan grills, added some
>10ohm 1W resistors to the case fan and PSU fan etc. Rechecked and the CPU
>temp was the same but now the CPU fan was the loudest one.
>
>So I took the factory HS off and removed the pad. It wasn't like intel's
>pad, more like a gooey piece of cheeze? Anyway removed the pad and sanded
>the bottom of the HS smooth, it was pretty rough and I know HS compound
>likes a smooth surface. The pad was so thick this didn't matter. After I
>reinstalled the HS with plain white compound, the idle temp was 11C less,
>down at 39C in the bios and 29C in MBM5. Now I could add a resistor to the
>CPU fan, drop the RPM 1000 RPM and still is cooler (43C) than it was with
>the pad and MUCH quieter!
>
>So anyone installing a retail AMD chip, my advice is to ditch the pad, sand
>the bottom of the HS on a piece of glass and throw on some white HS
>compound and stay cool/quiet.

You're right, the original TIM is horrible, but also consider that the
original TIM may take several days to reach max efficiency, and heatsink
surface may vary... none are what I'd call "great" but some a lot rougher
than others. Everyone should get good results following your method but
some may see less drop in temp than you did.

Stacey wrote:
> Lots of talk here recently about thermal pads and what is better etc.
> I've seen big drops in temp's ditching the thermal pads and just
> using plain 'ol white HS compound instead. Others claim you'll only
> see a minor change so...
>
> I just bought a Barton 2500+ on a chaintech 7NIF2 board for by
> brother. It was a retail chip with a factory HSF. I just put it on as
> supplied and when I booted it up, the idle temp was right at 50C in
> the bios. Seemed kinda high but MBM5 said 40C so figured it was OK.
>
> After I got it all set up, the system was pretty noisy from the fans
> so wanted to try to quiet it down some. Removed the fan grills, added
> some 10ohm 1W resistors to the case fan and PSU fan etc. Rechecked
> and the CPU temp was the same but now the CPU fan was the loudest one.
>
> So I took the factory HS off and removed the pad. It wasn't like
> intel's pad, more like a gooey piece of cheeze? Anyway removed the
> pad and sanded the bottom of the HS smooth, it was pretty rough and I
> know HS compound likes a smooth surface. The pad was so thick this
> didn't matter. After I reinstalled the HS with plain white compound,
> the idle temp was 11C less, down at 39C in the bios and 29C in MBM5.
> Now I could add a resistor to the CPU fan, drop the RPM 1000 RPM and
> still is cooler (43C) than it was with the pad and MUCH quieter!
>
> So anyone installing a retail AMD chip, my advice is to ditch the
> pad, sand the bottom of the HS on a piece of glass and throw on some
> white HS compound and stay cool/quiet.

Not a fair test. The pad needs a few days of hard work to heat up and
squeeze out the excess material. If you'd run SETI for a week with the pad,
checked temps, then tried goo it would have been valuable data, as it is,
it's junk science.
--
~misfit~

~misfit~ wrote:

> Stacey wrote:

>
> Not a fair test. The pad needs a few days of hard work to heat up and
> squeeze out the excess material. If you'd run SETI for a week with the
> pad, checked temps, then tried goo it would have been valuable data, as it
> is, it's junk science.
> --


It ran 24/7 for 2 days, how long does it need to run to -start- working
right?

BTW have you ever looked at the surface on the bottom of the newer HS's they
give you in the retail box? Looks like it was surfaced with a 40 grit
grinder.

--

Stacey

I did something similar with my Intel 2.4B processor. Before I lapped the
stock HS, I checked it with a straight-edge, and there was a considerable
concavity (is that a word) in the center of the HS. After lapping the HS,
and replacing the TIM with Arctic Silver 3, the temps dropped by about 10
degrees. This was on a unit that had been running for several weeks prior
to my hacking around on it.

Clint

"~misfit~" <> wrote in message
news:9TUpc.6137$...
> Stacey wrote:
> > Lots of talk here recently about thermal pads and what is better etc.
> > I've seen big drops in temp's ditching the thermal pads and just
> > using plain 'ol white HS compound instead. Others claim you'll only
> > see a minor change so...
> >
> > I just bought a Barton 2500+ on a chaintech 7NIF2 board for by
> > brother. It was a retail chip with a factory HSF. I just put it on as
> > supplied and when I booted it up, the idle temp was right at 50C in
> > the bios. Seemed kinda high but MBM5 said 40C so figured it was OK.
> >
> > After I got it all set up, the system was pretty noisy from the fans
> > so wanted to try to quiet it down some. Removed the fan grills, added
> > some 10ohm 1W resistors to the case fan and PSU fan etc. Rechecked
> > and the CPU temp was the same but now the CPU fan was the loudest one.
> >
> > So I took the factory HS off and removed the pad. It wasn't like
> > intel's pad, more like a gooey piece of cheeze? Anyway removed the
> > pad and sanded the bottom of the HS smooth, it was pretty rough and I
> > know HS compound likes a smooth surface. The pad was so thick this
> > didn't matter. After I reinstalled the HS with plain white compound,
> > the idle temp was 11C less, down at 39C in the bios and 29C in MBM5.
> > Now I could add a resistor to the CPU fan, drop the RPM 1000 RPM and
> > still is cooler (43C) than it was with the pad and MUCH quieter!
> >
> > So anyone installing a retail AMD chip, my advice is to ditch the
> > pad, sand the bottom of the HS on a piece of glass and throw on some
> > white HS compound and stay cool/quiet.
>
> Not a fair test. The pad needs a few days of hard work to heat up and
> squeeze out the excess material. If you'd run SETI for a week with the
pad,
> checked temps, then tried goo it would have been valuable data, as it is,
> it's junk science.
> --
> ~misfit~
>
>

Stacey wrote:

> Lots of talk here recently about thermal pads and what is better etc. I've
> seen big drops in temp's ditching the thermal pads and just using plain 'ol
> white HS compound instead. Others claim you'll only see a minor change
> so...
>
> I just bought a Barton 2500+ on a chaintech 7NIF2 board for by brother. It
> was a retail chip with a factory HSF. I just put it on as supplied and when
> I booted it up, the idle temp was right at 50C in the bios. Seemed kinda
> high but MBM5 said 40C so figured it was OK.
>
> After I got it all set up, the system was pretty noisy from the fans so
> wanted to try to quiet it down some. Removed the fan grills, added some
> 10ohm 1W resistors to the case fan and PSU fan etc. Rechecked and the CPU
> temp was the same but now the CPU fan was the loudest one.
>
> So I took the factory HS off and removed the pad. It wasn't like intel's
> pad, more like a gooey piece of cheeze? Anyway removed the pad and sanded
> the bottom of the HS smooth, it was pretty rough and I know HS compound
> likes a smooth surface. The pad was so thick this didn't matter. After I
> reinstalled the HS with plain white compound, the idle temp was 11C less,
> down at 39C in the bios and 29C in MBM5. Now I could add a resistor to the
> CPU fan, drop the RPM 1000 RPM and still is cooler (43C) than it was with
> the pad and MUCH quieter!
>
> So anyone installing a retail AMD chip, my advice is to ditch the pad, sand
> the bottom of the HS on a piece of glass and throw on some white HS
> compound and stay cool/quiet.

I replaced a customers XP 1800+ with a 2200+ the other day and the cpu
temp at idle went from 60C to 45C

--
-Luke-
If cars had advanced at the same rate as Micr0$oft technology, they'd be
flying by now.
But who wants a car that crashes 8 times a day?
Registered Linux User #345134

Don Taylor wrote:
> Does anyone know of a relatively cheap smoke detector like device
> BUT it will switch off maybe 1000 watts of power when it thinks
> that something has caught fire? I'm surprised that there isn't
> something like that out there that I've seen. I'm really not wanting
> to come home some evening and discover that a fan failed, burned,
> and took the whole place with it.

Cheap smoke alarm with a relay? Maybe you'd want some help with keeping the
relay contacts connected - I suspect it would eat batteries. The other
concern is of course fail safety... no point in having a battery open
circuit the relay - when the battery runs out, it'll close again.

Besides, if the thing is on fire, there seems little point in switching it
off. Kind of a bit late?

Ben
--
I'm not just a number. To many, I'm known as a String...