Arctic Silver III

[WPKenny]

Ohh. It is nice.

Up till now I been using those little see through sachets you get with your CPU. But I decided I'd do a little spring cleaning today and fiddle about with the airflow in my machine. I took off the HSF and cleaned it all up.

I was all ready to put it back in when I realised I couldn't find my little sachet of thermal goo. I searched hihgh and low and eventually gave in and got Damini to drive down to the local computer shop and picked up some Arctic Silver. It cost me £5.99 which is a bit pricey compared to the few pence the little sachets cost but it's shaved over 5 degrees off my operating temp.

In fact in my rush to get the thing up and running again I forgot to plug in the fan on the heat sink and it stayed pretty damn low even then.

\o/

 

[Teh Krypt]

Poor damini, your making her go grey sending her to the shops for you

 

[WPKenny]

She was my chauffer. The shop's in the middle of town and there was no where to park so she pulled over while I ran in.

 

[Xavier]

Just don't forget that the only stuff which won't invalidate your AMD warranty is those products based on shin-etsu paste. Arctic Silver I/II/III leaves a residue on a CPUs surface even when scrubbed vigourously and AMD has told retailers as of a few months ago not to honor any reported faults where it's found on the chip.

 

[Jonty]

Originally posted by Xavier
Just don't forget that the only stuff which won't invalidate your AMD warranty is those products based on shin-etsu paste. Arctic Silver I/II/III leaves a residue on a CPUs surface even when scrubbed vigourously and AMD has told retailers as of a few months ago not to honor any reported faults where it's found on the chip.

Very true, although I wasn't aware of the reasoning

Kind Regards

 

[Teh Krypt]

Its because they smell. The only reason

 

[WPKenny]

Originally posted by Xavier
Just don't forget that the only stuff which won't invalidate your AMD warranty is those products based on shin-etsu paste. Arctic Silver I/II/III leaves a residue on a CPUs surface even when scrubbed vigourously and AMD has told retailers as of a few months ago not to honor any reported faults where it's found on the chip.

Isn't there only like a bout 3 products you can use that WON'T invalidate your wrranty? And aren't they really hard to get hold of?

So I'd guess that there's quite a few people out there that have invalidated their warranties but in reality will still get help from the people they bought the chip off.

 

[smurkin]

I thought amd recommended those stick pads these days...no goo

(btw...your little goo paket probably got stuck to your shoe...and you walked it all over the place...well...thats what happened to me )

 

[ECA]

shin-etsu is the fucking dogs.

 

[kameleon]

I use retail cpus no question of them invalidating the warranty then

 

[Xavier]

Aye, skin-etsu is teh dogs, checking the first two sites I can think of, overclock.co.uk and overclockers.co.uk, both sell the shin-etsu TIM thermal pads made by akasa, which are awesome and very easy to use - overclock also sell Coolermasters own Premium Shin-Etsu paste.

They both do, of course sell Arctic Silver, but then there are a lot of fanboys who think they know better than AMD, though from our testing Shin-Etsu is way more effective.

Anyhow, I'd better get back to the benchmarkage, got a rather spinky article in the pipeline for Tuesday and need to get on with it.

Xav

 

[Ch3tan]

To revive an old thread rather than start anew.

Bought some coolermaster shin-etsu in Maplins today, applied it after cleaning the old stuff (just with a cloth). It was very hard compared to the shuttle grease and was hard to spread. My temps have been about 5 degrees higher with my cpu peaking at 70 degrees using prime95, is it simply a case of letting it burn in or have I just made a botch up of applying it.

For cleaning paste off to apply new stuff, I used a lint free cloth but wasnt sure what I could safely use on the CPU surface to remove the old remenants.

 

[Deadmanwalking]

I used oizo

 

[Sawtooth]

I thought I read somewhere that goo had to be replaced every 3 months? Seemed excessive to me. Personally wouldnt do that unless my temp started to rise. AMD do indeed recommend the pads. Also read that the extrreme goo people lap the heatsink. Sounds a bit too hardcore for me.

 

[Xavier]

Spread the shin-etsu as thinly as possible on the top of your CPU, you can use a cotton bud and nail varnish remover to remove any thermal goop, just don't dip the CPU in it

If you have a shim it's a really easy job, just put a small dollop on the die, use a credit card and drag the thermal goo across lengthways then widthways, as thin as you can without letting any ooze over the sides.

Some people apply thermal paste to both surfaces before mating them together, tho it's hard to discern any real benefit from the comparisons I've seen.

Xav

 

[Insane]

i must be the strange guy who applys thermal paste directly to the HSF. :uhoh:

I just make a nice thin square over where the die rests on the HSF and mount it on top.

the freaky thing is that both the XP2600+ and the XP1600+ chips run at almost the same temperature! both on the retail HSF's (the 2600+ is on the original thermal pad, the 1600+ on artic silver II)

which reminds me, gotta fit an 80mm to the back of my dads machine before the Celeron 1.7 fries itself... where'd i put my dremel \o/

 

[Xavier]

Originally posted by Insane
i must be the strange guy who applys thermal paste directly to the HSF. :uhoh:

*points at the weirdo*

As long as you don't whack gob loads on it's hardly a fatal mistake, the optimal amount is almost surface residue, remember the idea is to fill in the gaps between the surfaces of the heatsink and die to help provide a better thermal interface between the two, not an insulating membrane. It's only really risky if you use gunk like Arctic silver, which as I've mentioned above is electrically conductive - put too much on the chip, especially with AMDs and it oozes over your surface components in time - killing your processor quicker than you can say 'peon'.

It's so conductive in fact that a certain technation writer unlocked his AthlonXP using Arctic Silver II!

Oh, and very few people seem to realise it, but the optimal way to use those thermal TIM pads is to run the fansink with the fan off* in the bios at a minimum of 60C for a minute or two, combination of heat and pressure will squeeze the TIM as thin as it needs to be and provide a near-ideal 'mate'.


Xav

*Any damage caused by experiementing with the above is at your own risk.

 

[Will]

Originally posted by Xavier
It's only really risky if you use gunk like Arctic silver, which as I've mentioned above is electrically conductive - put too much on the chip, especially with AMDs and it oozes over your surface components in time - killing your processor quicker than you can say 'peon'.

It's so conductive in fact that a certain technation writer unlocked his AthlonXP using Arctic Silver II!

While much safer than electrically conductive silver and copper greases, Arctic Silver 5 should be kept away from electrical traces, pins, and leads. While it is not electrically conductive, the compound is very slightly capacitive and could potentially cause problems if it bridges two close-proximity electrical paths

Sorry, couldn't let that one pass. I remembered reading the instructions for Artic Silver 2 (now gone) and they said the same

 

[ECA]

Originally posted by Ch3tan
To revive an old thread rather than start anew.

Bought some coolermaster shin-etsu in Maplins today, applied it after cleaning the old stuff (just with a cloth). It was very hard compared to the shuttle grease and was hard to spread. My temps have been about 5 degrees higher with my cpu peaking at 70 degrees using prime95, is it simply a case of letting it burn in or have I just made a botch up of applying it.

For cleaning paste off to apply new stuff, I used a lint free cloth but wasnt sure what I could safely use on the CPU surface to remove the old remenants.

It takes around 3-7 days to set in properly. In fact on one comparison site after 4 days of testing the shin-etsu was still going lower.

 

[Ch3tan]

Yeah its stopped going higher than 65 now, thats 5 degrees lower than yesterday, while under full load (using UD grid). Still no where near the 62 max that I got with the shuttle thermal grease, but I will give it a little longer. I applied a very thin coat to both heatsink and CPU, but I am almost certain I didnt clean the old stuff off enough. Will give it 7 days then ECA.

 

[Xavier]

Originally posted by Will
Sorry, couldn't let that one pass. I remembered reading the instructions for Artic Silver 2 (now gone) and they said the same

Well, there's an AXIA-Y (1Ghz) @ 1.5Ghz with nothing but sellotape and arctic silver II here responsible for the 15x multiplier

 

[Insane]

Originally posted by Xavier
Well, there's an AXIA-Y (1Ghz) @ 1.5Ghz with nothing but sellotape and arctic silver II here responsible for the 15x multiplier

something similar to our old XP1600+ chip.
used the wire from the phone cable to bridge the gaps then super-glued them into place
took it up to 1.53Ghz on stock cooler, then watercooled to just above 1.66Ghz before the board got fussy. (Kt266a board)
come to think of it, might have just been a bad connection with the wires when we done it :uhoh:

 

[Ch3tan]

Riiiight, now my BIOS is letting me set the cpu multiplier. Just out of nowhere. Wierd.


/edit -It was there for two reboots, I was too scared to change it. Now it's gone again. Wish I had chnaged it while the option was there :/