am i supposed to take off the pad on the volcano II?

[m1ke101]

i'm using a volcano II for my 1.2 tbird, and i used to generic thermal paste that came with it. i was wondering was i supposed to take off that little pad on the volcano before applying the paste?

 

[mchammer187]

Yes! make sure you get all of it off, use rubbing alchohol or nail polish remover to get it off.

 

[m1ke101]

does anyone know if this could be causing the high temps i'm getting? because i left the pad on and put thermal paste on also.

 

[kgraeme]

It's one or the other. You can use the phase-change thermal compound that is included, or you can use paste, but not both.

Though many people have biases, if you are running a non-oc system, the phase-change thermal compound is perfectly acceptable. In my own unscientific tests, there was maybe 1-2deg C. difference between using the included thermal compound and using Arctic Silver II on a FOP32-1.

Edit: You are obviously going to have to remove the HSF because you put goop on with the gum. Now your choice has become significantly easier. You can only go with paste now.

 

[m1ke101]

can i leave it as is? or will changing it lower the temps i'm getting?

 

[conlan]

Now that you've applied the paste on top of the pad, your better off to remove it all, and start from scratch. Just make sure you dont gouge up the HSF surface when removing the pad.

 

[m1ke101]

crud...can someone answer my question? will it do any harm to just leave it alone....

 

[Dill]

maybe, maybe not. Are you willing to take that risk? I wouldn't.

 

[Punjab]

Well, how hot is your CPU reading at? I don't know what the heat tolerance of a 1.2 tbird is (because I'm still using a 500 Athlon) but I would probably start worrying if the temp is greater than 55C or maybe 60C (I'm guessing cuz I freak out if my Athlon goes above 45c). You should really get rid of that heatpad though; it's hindering the heat transfer from the CPU to the HS. It might bite you in arse later on. Having 2 thermal interfaces working together doesn't necessarily double their effectiveness.

 

[m1ke101]

hm...thanks for the answer. so to remove it i use rubbing alcohol or nailpolish remover? is there anything else i could use?

 

[Grendel99]

WD-40 works really good too.

 

[conlan]

Goo gone, will take it off, then finish it off with Isoprpyl Alcohol, and yes, as stated above, you should take it off!

 

[overdog]

The Arctic Silver site tells you not to use WD-40 when cleaning your HSF.

Never use any oil or petroleum based cleaners (WD-40, citrus based grease removers and many automotive degreasers) on the base of a heatsink. The oil, which is engineered to not evaporate, will fill in the microscopic valleys in the metal and significantly reduce the effectiveness of any subsequently applied thermal compound.

Nail Polish remover works really well (Although I did have to deal with the embarrassment of walking into the supermarket's cosmetic section browsing the shelves). Soak a paper towel with the nail polish remover, dab it on the base of the heatsink, and let the thermal pad soak in it for about 10 minutes. It should come off real nice after that. Then clean it with some alcohol and a lint free cloth.

 

[Fuzzmuncher]

overdog beat me to it.

one good product to use is fingernail polish removal wipes. I stole a bunch from my girlfriend and after cleaning everything off, swabbed it with isopropyl just to make sure.

 

[Garet Jax]

m1ke101,

Here are the instruction that someone referred to a little early

Arctic Silver Instructions

You should definitely refer to them before applying ASII or removing the paste.

 

[kgraeme]

If you use nail-polish remover, be sure to get the acetone kind. The non-acetone kind just doesn't work and it usually has some kind of nail-strengthener additive that you really don't want either.

Cleaning the HSF will be relatively easy. Cleaning the CPU is a bit trickier. I'm a neat-freak about my components so I spent quite a while trying to completely clean the phase-change gum off of my CPU. I know a lot of people just try to get it off the die and any bridges and they don't worry about the rest gunking up the ceramic.