AS3 ate my Northwood!

[EdipisReks]

well, not quite, but close. i had been noticing that my temps were a bit high lately, so i decided to reapply the arctic silver III. i had applied a pin mod on my CPU, since the EP4BDA undervolts, and i decided to very carefully remove the heatsink to keep from disturbing the little piece of wire keeping my computer stable. well, i was expecting the heatsink to be glued to the CPU!! 2 minutes of careful tugging, the heatsink comes off, with the CPU still on the bottom! the damn thing pulled the CPU out of a locked socket!

fortunately nothing was damaged, other than my nerves, and my temps are considerably lower with the fresh paste. the pin mod of course came out and i'm back to the bad ole' days of "come con come on come on, please boot up please boot up, please boot up". i guess that the claims of AS3 not drying out didn't take fast northwoods into account. i'm certainly gonna reapply the paste more often. i wish i knew that AS3 was such a good adhesive the last time i had to glue something .

 

[BigJ]

Hehe, this is happening alot recently. Many people are finding you need to do a twisting motion while removing the HSF as to not rip the CPU out.

 

[EdipisReks]

i did the twisting. the CPU was really really well bonded to the heatsink. as in "scratch the damn thing off with a screw driver" well.

 

[THUGSROOK]

you used too much as3

 

[mechBgon]

Put two wet pieces of glass against eachother, and try pulling them apart It's not necessarily the paste drying out, it's just viscous coupling between two fairly flat surfaces with a thin layer of semi-liquid material between them

 

[EdipisReks]

Originally posted by: THUGSROOK
you used too much as3

no, i certainly did not. the layer i applied 6 months ago was semi transparent.

Originally posted by: mechBgon
It's not necessarily the paste drying out, it's just viscous coupling between two fairly flat surfaces with a thin layer of semi-liquid material between them

the as3 was powdery around the edges and slightly damp in the middle. believe me, it was dried out.

 

[JSSheridan]

Originally posted by: mechBgon
Put two wet pieces of glass against eachother, and try pulling them apart It's not necessarily the paste drying out, it's just viscous coupling between two fairly flat surfaces with a thin layer of semi-liquid material between them

There are some phenomenon associated with water that wouldn't occur with other fluids. There is no coupling with oil or gasoline for instance, just think about the valves of your car where you want to reduce the coupling. Water experiences hydrogen bonding where the hydrogen atoms in molecule A bond with the oxygen atom in molecule B. These properties are manifest in the example above, in cases when water flows against gravity, and when solid H2O is less dense than liquid H2O, which is not typical of most substances.

As for whether AS 3 demonstrates the same phenomenon, I don't have a clue, but I would like to know. Peace.

 

[THUGSROOK]

are you sure it was real as3?

what vcore were you running?

(i use as2)

 

[EdipisReks]

i bought it svcompucycle, and yes, it is real AS3. my vcore is 1.55.

 

[oldfart]

I also use ASII. I tried ASIII, but it did seem "drier" than ASII to me.

 

[ChampionAtTufshop]

i use as2 as well
...never used as3 cuz i dont feel the need to buy it when i have a tube of as2 still lol

if as3 was dry near the edges, maybe it [hs] wasnt makeing 100% flush contact with cpu?

like you know how nvidia makes gpus concave ....i think i read a lapping guide thing where somebody found the nvidia ihs to be opposite of concave....hmmm...dont rememebr term from physics lol

so:
( = nvidia
) = intel??

 

[ShoNuff]

Originally posted by: THUGSROOK
are you sure it was real as3?

what vcore were you running?

(i use as2)

Thugs, I noticed in another post a while ago that you preferred AS2. Out of curiosity, why is that?

 

[oldfart]

Originally posted by: ChampionAtTufshop
i use as2 as well
...never used as3 cuz i dont feel the need to buy it when i have a tube of as2 still lol

if as3 was dry near the edges, maybe it [hs] wasnt makeing 100% flush contact with cpu?

like you know how nvidia makes gpus concave ....i think i read a lapping guide thing where somebody found the nvidia ihs to be opposite of concave....hmmm...dont rememebr term from physics lol

so:
( = nvidia
) = intel??

That would be convex

 

[THUGSROOK]

Originally posted by: ShoNuff
Thugs, I noticed in another post a while ago that you preferred AS2. Out of curiosity, why is that?

i never said i prefer, cause ive never had as3

even with all my cpu swap outs i do, a tube of AS last me a year or more.
ive still got a full tube of as2 left too.

the only reason i try to streer ppl clear of as3 is cause of reports like this

 

[Duvie]

I am with Thugs on this....I use AS2 and the same tube has lasted me a year and my stuff after 5-6 months was still as wet as the day I put it on...

 

[mschell]

Never had a problem with AS drying out but I'm still using the original AS (not 1, 2 etc.) Seems to still work good. One tip in removing your CPU cooler is doing it immediately after shutting down the computer as heat softens the compound somewhat. If that?s not possible then a hair drier or heat gun can be used to warm the HS. A little twisting while lifting one corner also helps.

 

[KF]

Isn't the whole idea of AS3 that it is supposed to "set up" after a few days or a week, and become solid like like a phase change TIM pad? When that happens, it supposed to drop temperatures. In other words, it is not supposed to be wet when you take the heat sink off. This is different than AS and AS2.

 

[ShoNuff]

Originally posted by: THUGSROOK

Originally posted by: ShoNuff
Thugs, I noticed in another post a while ago that you preferred AS2. Out of curiosity, why is that?

i never said i prefer, cause ive never had as3

even with all my cpu swap outs i do, a tube of AS last me a year or more.
ive still got a full tube of as2 left too.

the only reason i try to streer ppl clear of as3 is cause of reports like this

O.K., I understand now. With more people using AS3 vs. AS2 you are bound to get more reports of CPU's getting "Stuck".

 

[Kraid2xd]

I had the same problem but managed to find the source... two identical athlon 1700+, fresh tube of as3, two ax7's. 1 year later (oc'd), bought a pair of slk-800's, took off both hsf. Although they came off easily, the as3 on one cpu was kinda flaky along edges as you said. Then I remebered.... when I opened the tube of as3 for first time, the first squirt of as3 looked somewhat watery and diluted... I thought, hey no biggie, and applied a thin film. For second cpu, I was about to use the same glob, but it was running low so I squeeze out another glob. This time, it came out thicker and more uniform... applied the as3 to second cpu and attached h/sf, both systems booted up fine. My guess is, when you first applied the as3, the contents of the tube kinda settled, and you got mostly the oily solvent instead of the silver. I'm betting the solvent in AS3, in the absence of good heat conduction by the silver, dried up, leaving you with a crusty film and a sticky goo from whatever was left of the solvent... Gonna confirm this later by heating a little as3 in a test tube over bunsen burner, but my advice is that next time, shake well before smearing....

 

[EdipisReks]

my cpu and heatsink are lapped perfectly flat, so there was no problem with either surface being convex or concave, and i took the heatsink off right after shutting the computer down and the sink was still warm. i don't remember if any of the solvent was still liquid when i applied the stuff a year ago, but that is a possibility. i wonder if the whole problem is being caused by a combination of high surface area between the heatspreader and heatsink and the very fine pins holding the CPU to the socket. with pins that fine, i can't imagine that it locks into the socket as well as older chips.

 

[Dm301]

happened to me too (Thugs also thinks I used too much paste...)

 

[THUGSROOK]

Kraid2xd ~ excellent possible explaination!

Dm301 ~ hey ive done it too i didnt hurt anything tho

thats when i started using an extreamly thin layer of paste on p4s ~ lower temps and easier to remove and clean up too