Plenty of fans but high thermal temps?
Crashing during CPU intensive tasks?
Seasoned computer user who might want to check under the hood?


Recently in the tech shop, a computer came in with lockups when just sitting at the desktop from a cold boot.
A quick peek in the BIOS showed that at idle, the CPU was at a concerning temperature.



Removing the dust build-up on the heatsink and fan didn't do much in dropping the temperatures so we went in for a closer look.



Carefully remove the heatsink, grounding your self for good measure.



The poor contact of the thermal paste to the heatsink had left a surprisingly bare chip.



But looking at the heatsink, the heat and air had discoloured the paste quite badly.



The heatsink and CPU were cleaned of the old goo so fresh paste could be applied.



Although this CPU will cool for our purposes just fine, more intense people
may also think about lapping the heat spreader on the CPU to a flat smooth finish.



The proper way to apply paste is a uniform coating about 1mm thick, it will look
as if it is barely covered but this amount allows for the best heat transfer to the metal of the heatsink.



Replace the CPU and heatsink, re-check the temperature and enjoy your handiwork!

what do you use to spread the thermal paste? i find that bread tabs work really well and you can just throw them away when your done, a trick rico told me about

I use an old expired credit card on it's end . It covers a large area of the cpu and usually within a few swipes everything is covered .

I use a razor blade so i know it has a good flat edge. It's great to use so you know how smooth your heatsink is, by checking for any light under the edge of the blade

Nice tut Krush, this is a great idea for a section! Kudos to you!

I prefer not to use the spreading method. I prime the HS contact with a very very thin layer of compound then on the CPU i attach 2 pieces of tape lengthwise, with about 2mm space between the strips. I then draw a line across the gap in the tape, then remove both strips revealing a nice perfect line of compound.

That's it.

When it comes to thermal compound, less is always more.

lapping the sink surface worked quite well for me.
under load, knocked off ~6C. Idle was only 1-2C. After you finish sanding, another variation of the technique is to polish the sink surface with AS5 or w/e, to help fill in the remaining grooves & improve your contact surface.

I've read some user stories where when their CPU and HSF are lapped to a very high grit that using no thermal paste gives them better temps than having a small amount on.

I'm not rich/brave enough to verify it myself but it would be an interesting test for someone here that has a spare system.

Spit it out dude lol

well i have a spare board here, looks like its time to find a cheap dual core and give this a go. should i use intels stock heatsink? or grab an ac freezer 7

Grab a Freezer 7 pro dude