thermal compound thickness

[james8t2]

ok at first..i put alot on my p4 3.0....and my temps were reading at 50 in bios of a abit ic7...so i went out and bought arctic silver3 and reinstalled the heatsink...this time...i put a layer on the heatspreader... and made sure the heatsink was on properly..now it read s 48.....still seems kinda high...i think i might have put it on too thin though....they say thin is better....but i put in on saran wrap thin....pretty much thinner and a peiece of paper....is that too thin?

 

[Dufrane]

The layer should be paper thin. I believe that chip runs hot

 

[Night718]

if u bothered to read the instructions carefully........ they tell u that if ur mounting surface and ur heat sink are nice and flat...... the thermal compound should be almost translucent a little tiny dot of AS3 is enough for the ENTIRE p4 cpu...."the size of a bb" which is about the size of 1cm^3 or a drop of water

also did u make sure to clean off the old compound b4 u put on the AS3?
some nice acetone or 91% isopropyl alcohol and lint free paper such as monitor wipes or coffee filters work very well.

 

[infinite012]

Did you take off the pad from the bottom of the heatsink? That's a crucial step...

 

[bgeh]

Originally posted by: infinite012
Did you take off the pad from the bottom of the heatsink? That's a crucial step...

yeah, i agree, did you do that?

 

[james8t2]

 

[james8t2]

i have oem....no thermal pad

 

[beatle]

It should be as thin as you can get it. The grease should not end up being between the heatsink and cpu. Rather, it should only take the place of air where there are microscopic imperfections in the 2 surfaces. There's very little air and thus should be very little thermal compound. You should nearly be able to see the IHS or core through the compound.

 

[INemtsev]

Beatle shoots......scooores!!

 

[awolkoff]

Photos and everything

Link

 

[Slammy1]

Your primary cooling comes from the heat sink contacting the heat spreader.

 

[james8t2]

yea thanks beatle...yea i put it on really thin...like as if i was painting the cpu with metallic paint and the only way i knew the thermal compound was on was because of the cooler...so yea it was sarin wrap thin....i was bugging out because my temps in abit ic7 bios are 48-51c....