applying thermal adhesive? how to? HELP

[MysticX23]

i'm about to put a fatty(well, its big, but not heavy, just thin) heatsink on my 8500 for passive cooling. i have some thermal adhesive from zalman left over, but not sure if i have enuf. how would i apply it? thick or thin? ...if i apply a thin (which is the only thing i can do at the moment) are there draw backs? any substitutions I can use such as crazy glue? also should i mix it with any arctic ceramique or will that ruin it? hhaaha...just curious. i'm gonna do it sooon.

 

[Chang10is]

I'm no expert on this matter, but applying crazy glue sounds pretty... well... crazy. The possibility of having the heatsink stuck to the processor does not sound like a good idea at all, especially since this would probably make it impossible to remove the processor from the mobo (since the heatsink usually blocks the level that locks the processor onto the board). As far as I know, applying a thin layer is better than a thick layer. The paste is to maximize the contact area between the core and heatsink since neither surfaces can be perfectly smooth. If you apply a thick coat, the heat needs to travel through more material, which would impede thermal conductivity.

 

[cmetz]

MysticX2, thermal adhesive is for small heat-sinks to cover soldered-on chips, such as on a manufactured board (I've used it for embedded systems). A field-replacable part like a socketed CPU should not use thermal adhesive, it should use non-adhesive thermal compound, so that you can disassemble things later if need be.

For a how-to, see:

http://www.arcticsilver.com/arctic_silver_instructions.htm