I went ahead and ordered the heat pipe for my A8N-SLI Deluxe. It arrived on Friday and I installed it on Sunday. The first thing I noticed when taking the heat pipe out of the packaging was that the tabs that covered the TIM were very loosely attached. When I pulled the tabs off I noticed a lot of specks of dirt/debris on the TIM. I went ahead with the installation anyway because I didn't want to wait another week for a replacement.
Removing the old HSF and MOSFET HS was easy, a couple of pinches on the pins and they came right out. Installation of the new heat pipe was also a breeze. I didn't need to bend it at all. It fit perfectly the first time. I didn't take any temp measurements of the chipset before and after but my case/CPU/mobo temps are all about the same.
Sadly my case noise didn't go down. My video card fan or my Panaflo CPU fan is the big culprit but I don't feel like replacing those.
All in all it was a well spent $21.
EDIT: Oh yeah, I left the black pad that surrounded the chipset core. I figured it couldn't hurt to leave it there and I would probably do more damage trying to scrape it off.
Removing the old HSF and MOSFET HS was easy, a couple of pinches on the pins and they came right out. Installation of the new heat pipe was also a breeze. I didn't need to bend it at all. It fit perfectly the first time. I didn't take any temp measurements of the chipset before and after but my case/CPU/mobo temps are all about the same.
Sadly my case noise didn't go down. My video card fan or my Panaflo CPU fan is the big culprit but I don't feel like replacing those.
All in all it was a well spent $21.
EDIT: Oh yeah, I left the black pad that surrounded the chipset core. I figured it couldn't hurt to leave it there and I would probably do more damage trying to scrape it off.