How much of a difference can thermal grease make cooling a processor?

[AMDJunkie]

I recently built a computer for my friend with the parts he bought and I noticed that though he had a CPU fan he didn't buy thermal grease. Him being impatient and wanting his computer up as soon as possible, I just installed the processor (Athlon XP 2000+) with the fan. The MSI board automatically set everything at a CPU/Mem/AGP bus ratio of 100/200/66, and the processor ran about mid 50's C (about 130 F). Before setting it to 133/266/66 as the hardware was rated to run, I set an automatic shutoff at 78 C. Now my friend is calling me saying his computer shut down several times last night randomly, and he thinks it's because the processor got to hot, and now he's going out to pick up some thermal grease. My question is, will it make that much of a difference? Why is the sytem running hot even at rated speed too?

Edit: The fan used is a Coolermaster DP5 7H53F, with 4300 RPM fan. Is this underpowered?

 

[bacillus]

did the hsf come with a preinstalled thermal pad?
if it didn't then some thermal grease will really make a difference to cpu temps!

 

[Mikewarrior2]

thermal grease can make a significant difference... Fellow BBS member Warcon found a 100mhz+ difference in overclock between various greases. And he was using a water-cooling setup.

In terms of temps, 1-3C typically from socket-thermistors, 2-10C internal diode.



Mike

 

[Markfw]

I just got a XP 2000 with the "pad" and was running 65c. I scraped it off, and put on thermal grease, and it ran at 60c. Later I changed some case fan placements, and got it down to 51c, but the 5c difference was just the pad to grease. Quite a difference. Without grease OR pad, you may even fry your CPU, so don't try that.

 

[Yossarian]

Very foolish to let your friend's impatience override doing things the right way. I'm surprised the chip hasn't fried yet.

 

[WarCon]

I too am fairly surprised it simply hasn't cooked itself. It must be a fairly flat heatsink and the individual is a very lucky person.

Thermal compound isn't a suggestion. It is a requirement. I would also make sure you are using guaranteed high temperature thermal compound when you do put it on. If you just go by that "new" Radio Shack goop, you might as well leave off the thermal compound. I recommend Arctic Silver compounds, especially AS3, as it is guaranteed to remain stable over 180C (356F).

In the future, you should refuse to mount it if you really are friends with the individual. Let him know its not an optional component.

 

[AMDJunkie]

Actually, without the grease and at a 100 bus it was only at 56 C, which rather impressed me, cranking it up to 133 brought it to about 60. He told me it started shutting itself off (80 C) when he put the side panels back on his case. So today I called him up and we went out to TCWO and picked up a Volcano 7 and some thermal grease, spread it on thicks, and we're hitting about 47 C~53 C after a couple looks into the BIOS.

 

[Ben50]

You want to make the layer of thermal grease as thin as possible while still covering the entire chip. The whole point of the thermal grease is to prevent little air pockets from forming between the cpu and the heatsink. If you put too much grease on the cpu, the grease insulates the cpu so you aren't getting good heat transfer.

 

[EdipisReks]

i generally put a layer on that i can just barely start to see through. that has always given me the best results.

 

[Linux23]

Originally posted by: AMD Junkie
Actually, without the grease and at a 100 bus it was only at 56 C, which rather impressed me, cranking it up to 133 brought it to about 60. He told me it started shutting itself off (80 C) when he put the side panels back on his case. So today I called him up and we went out to TCWO and picked up a Volcano 7 and some thermal grease, spread it on thicks, and we're hitting about 47 C~53 C after a couple looks into the BIOS.

white some of that grease off, and put a paper thin layer on. you will notice the difference.