Probably a very stupid question about mounting a heatsink on an Intel CPU

[AnitaPeterson]

Hi there,

Ummm... I need to ask this.

I bought this P4 Retail CPU, and I'm trying to figure out how to install the heatsink. Before you laugh, consider that the last CPUs I played with were AMD K6 and P3... and I had thermal paste to play with.

However, in my Intel package there were now only two items; the processor itself and the large heatsink. On the base of the heatsink there's a black square patch, made of some sort of rubber (haven't touched it, I don't know exactly). Do I have to understand that this patch plays the role that thermal paste used to play in the past? Just place the heatsink with the patch directly on the CPU, and then fasten it in the socket?

 

[MontyAC]

I would recommend removing the thermal pad and use some Artic Silver paste.

 

[dgerard]

If you want to use the stock thermal pad, be sure to peel off the protective label. My recommendation is also to remove the pad all together and apply a good thermal compund (arctic silver 3 gave me very good results w/CPU temps between 32 to 49C). Hope this helps

 

[John]

The P4's large black thermal pad is composed of a thin 'aluminum' sheet with thermal compound on both sides and adhesive on 2 edges. Some of the faster P4's use a small grey thermal pad.

Just place the heatsink with the patch directly on the CPU, and then fasten it in the socket?

Yep

 

[OverVolt]

Thats the way the HSF was on a P4 2.4B i built. I took off the pad altogether and used some Artic Silver, lowered my temps quite a bit. I had a hard time getting off the sticky glue stuff without scratching up the contacting surface on the HSF. But it shouldn't be too hard to get that thing off, 10minutes max.