A rookie's question on heatsink setup with Athlon XP

[LoveThisDeal]

Hey, this may sound naive to your guys, so please excuse a rookie.

I was trying to build my first Athlon XP computer. I got a retail Athlon XP 1700 with heatsink/fan. When I looked at the heatsink, there's a square of sticky rubber-like materials in the middle on the top face. Without thinking twice, I started trying to scratch off the material but couldn't get them off easily. Then I start suspecting they are there for purpose. Can you guys instruct me why it's there, and is it necessary to leave it on or another way around? Since I already scratched part of it off, will it prevent the heat dispersion?

 

[Boonesmi]

if your talking about on the bottom of the heatsink, in the place where the heatsink will make contact with the cpu core....

then yes there is a thermal pad, and it usually comes with a plastic protective cover, peal off the plastic cover and leave the thermal pad on (without it, or some other thermal substance your cpu will run much hotter, and probably even dangerously/damagingly hot)

but.... if you did peal off the thermal pad its no big deal... cause thermal pads dont work as well as most other thermal compounds like arctic silver 2/etc



you can buy thermal compound at any pc store

 

[PUNKtotalled]

I can' t say anything more.

 

[LoveThisDeal]

That's very informative. Thanks.

In my case, the most part of the thermal pad still on, but has some scratches down to the metal since I was trying to peal it off. If I just leave it like that, will it cause any unevenness in heat dispersion or some other problems?

 

[PUNKtotalled]

If you still got most of the pad, you can try like that. Don't try any overclock.

 

[FlippyBoy]

i would be very careful and monitor your cpu temps very carefully in its first few days. you have precious little area to remove the heat from your cpu, and you want to make the most of it. if you find that your temps are high, then i would reccomend removing the heatpad alltogether, and buying some arctice silver or similar compund (6-8 bucks, shipped) and applying it. i suspect, though, that as long as you dont overclock, you should be fine with what you have (as long as most of the heatpad is intact).