Remounted with Arctic Silver, no change, is ok?

[ceraph]

I have 2 P3 systems, both with Thermaltake Golden Orbs on CUSL2 based motherboards. When I say re-mount, I mean I wiped off the thermalpad from the Orb/CPU and put arctic silver instead.

Before the re-mount, I had idle temperatures around 33C on my P3-733 and 41-2C on the P3-1000. This is in a relatively warm room during the summer. During winter, or in a highly air-conditioned room, the temperature idle for the P3-733 was around 25C.

After the re-mount with Arctic Silver on both machines, I have an idle of 33-4C on the P3-733 and 41C on the P3-1000. This is in the same warm environment.

Did I not apply enough? Did I apply too little? Should my temperatures have changed drastically from the stock thermal pad that comes with the Tt Orbs?

 

[dpopiz]

Well, did you very carefully follow the instructions on the AS site? They have some odd instructions you wouldn't normally think of doing, but by following them correctly, I lost about 5C!

 

[Mikewarrior2]

It probably wont' drop your idle temps. What are you full load temps before and after?



Mike

 

[Nevin]

If you calibrate your diodes per the instructions here, http://www.arcticsilver.com/diode_calibration.htm , you will probably find that your CPUs at idle are pretty much at case temperature. At a true idle, Intel CPUs only dissipate 2 or 3 watts so the determining factor on the temperature is the case temperature rather than the heatsink or thermal compound quality. The valid test is at full load.

Also remember, that once you have melted your pad into the heatsink, it is impossible to remove all of it from the valleys in the metal without heavy-duty industrial chemicals and a high-pressure wash. Any compound you apply after melting a thermal pad will always be somewhat on top of the pad. So if you have had melted Pad A on the heatsink and you switch to compound B, you are not really comparing A to B, you are comparing A to a mixture of A and B. If B is better, you may see some improvement, but probably not as much as if you had put B on in the first place.
Heatsink engineers understand this. Several manufacturers of high-end heatsinks apply Arctic Silver to the mating surface of all the heatsinks they send out for review then wipe it off. (This is known as 'tinting' the metal) They know that if the heatsink is tested later with a lesser compound, it will have a bit of an advantage because the AS will still be filling in most of the microscopic valleys.

Nevin House
Arctic Silver

 

[kgraeme]

I noticed recently that the ASII instructions have been updated to include tinting. How recently did that happen?

 

[Jennifer66]

The golden orb comes with a pad.
When you remove it the thickness difference of when it was there is less so you wont get the same pressure against the cpu core as before.
Try gently bending the mounting tabs on the part your slide on the back outward a bit so you can regain the pressure.

 

[mstudd]

I think, several applications of acetone, and cleaning with a soft rag, is pretty effective at removing the thermal pad, after you scrape it off.
Of course, if you were to lap the heatsink, that would be even better.

 

[Mikewarrior2]

remember to clean off the acetone with isopropyl alcohol...

I believe the tinting stuff is fairly new on the AS website, but it does work. Its very hard to remove a grease that's already been "rubbed in" to the hetasink. Also, it helps eliminate the "i squeezed out half the tube on top of my t-bird" problem.



Mike