New A64 3000 939 and Gigabyte MB - Thermal paste or pad?

[makntraks]

AMD says pad for perm install, paste for dev use....

Actually it is OEM and the heatsink already looks as if it has a pad......

What you say?

makntraks

[Cobra]

PASTE!

Pads are nowhere near the quality of some Arctic Silver. Go for decent thermal grease, spread it evenly and thinly and it will outperform a pad anyday. Trust me - I swapped from a pad to grease on my oldest Athlon XP2500 that I was overclocking, and I knocked four degrees off the load temperature.

[makntraks]

PASTE!

Pads are nowhere near the quality of some Arctic Silver. Go for decent thermal grease, spread it evenly and thinly and it will outperform a pad anyday. Trust me - I swapped from a pad to grease on my oldest Athlon XP2500 that I was overclocking, and I knocked four degrees off the load temperature.

You hit me up to fast!

There is already a "pad" on the bottom of the heatsink - should I just leave it there and still use the paste? AMD says not to use both,,,

Thanks,
makntraks

[Poppa_Meth]

no don't use both. Scrape the pad off with a plastic tool and clean the heatsink with alcohol or goof off. (gets the wax off) Arctic Silver's website has an application guide that details how to remove the pads before application of the AS5.

[makntraks]

Thanks for the quick responses!
Just about enough balls to jump in now but.... "Did I back that up" time is now here....

Hopefully the next time I post will be with my new combo..

Till then gents,
makntraks

[studtrooper]

One word of caution: AS5, along with every other paste WILL deteriorate after time. Ever wonder why both AMD and Intel says your warrenty is void if you use paste over a pad? That is why. AS5 will do ya good, but I would highly reccomend a new coat every 8-10 months. And for all you to say BS, it happened to me. It didn't ruin my proc, but you could definately tell most of the paste evaporated after I took my mamoth Swiftech heatsink off my lovely Athlon XP 2500+ about a year after I first applied it.

[rallynavvie]

Use Arctic Alumina instead. The ceramic-based thermal paste lasts forever. I've used it on every PC I've built and I've never noticed deterioration of it over time (1.5 years under each HSF in my old 2460 and it was still slightly tacky). The stuff is also non-conductive so you shouldn't have to worry as much about bridging something with it (you can be a little sloppy with it).

Just make sure to apply the paste properly. Use a new credit card or something to get a nice even layer on the die. Do the 939s have a large die surface? One other thing I'd recommend if you go the paste route with your HSF is to lap the heatsink slug after you get the thermal pad off. Pretty much ever OEM heatsink and many aftermarket sinks don't have near a neat surface for mounting. Lapping to a shine will get you better results.

[makntraks]

Well I chose the paste... everything is back up and running although I had severe problems installing W2K as it wouldn't recognize my onboard LAN....

WinXP is gonna takee some time getting used to......

Thanks for all the input!

makntraks

[zak_swan]

do not use paste or pad!
i done that and pc was running great....... for 30 seconds.
live and learn.
other stupid things i've done>
bought new speakers cause i thought old ones were knackered, turned out xp had muted volume.
also kicked my printer about cause it was'nt working, maybe it would of worked eventually, but big pair of caterpillars certainly did'nt help.
also switched pc off during dvd writer firmware upgrade. pml!
can anyone top that?!

[otpw1]

@zak_swan
OK I'll bite.
Do you mean you're installing your HSF NAKED???

[rallynavvie]

I think he was saying that putting the HSF on without thermal compound caused it to go right away. Technically if you lap your die and HSF slug to a uniformly mirror finish you should get enough thermal transfer between the CPU and the HSF to allow it to work. But since it's never perfect we still use thermal compounds to enhance the surface and connection between the two.

[otpw1]

I would be more inclined to believe the HSF went on wrong leaving a gap on the CPU. Been there, done that. The only thing that saved mine was temp shutdown was enabled in BIOS. Guess what, it would run for thirty seconds MAX.

[808smokey]

bought new speakers cause i thought old ones were knackered, turned out xp had muted volume.

That is hilarious