Application of AS5 with a CNPS7000-AlCu?

[Mullzy]

So what's worked best for those of you which use Arctic Silver 5 and a big heatsink like the Zalman CNPS7000-AlCu?

Zalman says, "apply thermal paste and smooth out to thinly cover the whole surface of your P4."

Arctic Silver says, "apply x amount to the middle of your P4, apply pressure with your heatsink and twist a couple times to create a round even patch that covers most of your CPU."

Spreading AS5 is a real pain (you lose a lot to whatever you try to spread it with) but I was concerned about the Arctic Silver method not getting maximum contact out of my big arse Zalman.

Thoughts? Thanks!

 

[exar333]

Iv always used Zalman's method and thats the method that I see most people her recommend....I like to put on a latex glove, smear some paste on that, and then ge a nice thin film on the cpu...then you dont have that crap all over your hand either

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: exar333
Iv always used Zalman's method and thats the method that I see most people her recommend....I like to put on a latex glove, smear some paste on that, and then ge a nice thin film on the cpu...then you dont have that crap all over your hand either

Why would you use your hand? That would only contaminate the thermal compound

Anyway... I don't see how the size of your heatsink has anything to do with the application of thermal compound. The heatspreader of the P4 doesn't increase at all with a bigger heatsink... and no heatsinks are so small that they only make partial contact with the heatspreader. So... I don't see where the confusion is. Just apply it the way Arctic Silver recommends.

 

[Margalus]

Originally posted by: Mullzy
So what's worked best for those of you which use Arctic Silver 5 and a big heatsink like the Zalman CNPS7000-AlCu?

Zalman says, "apply thermal paste and smooth out to thinly cover the whole surface of your P4."

if you do that your cpu will get much warmer than with the other method. as5 is too thick to do that, it will act like a blanket between the heatsink and core. Unless you scrape 99% of it off and make it so thin that you can almost read the lettering on the top of the cpu.

 

[Zebo]

I put some rubber gloves on and place a thin cloudy layer on both HS and processor.

 

[Mullzy]

Jeff7181,
You're probably right. It just seemed odd to me that quite a bit of surface area on the bottom of my heatsink would have no compound at all between it and the heat spreader. I thought perhaps that was actually somewhat inefficient.

The biggest thing about doing it the Arctic Silver way is probably getting a VERY thin amount evenly applied.

On my last CPU I tried spreading it around but had a really hard time getting it even because it's so tacky. Some parts would be nice and thin but other parts would be a lot thicker... and the more I played with it the worse it seemed to get.

Even though the entire surface of the heatsink was covered it probably wasn't doing as good a job as an evenly applied amount covering less of the heat spreader.

Thanks for your input though. I got some of the good comments I was looking for.