How thin a film of Artic Silver Ceramique should I apply?

[mshan]

I have a Zalman CNPS-7000B Cu and AMD Athlon XP 2500+.

How thin a film of Artique Silver Ceramique should I apply?

Should it be translucent or thick enough so that you can't see the cpu chip underneath it?

 

[bjc112]

Don't spread it around, the HSF will..

Just about the size of a grain of rice.

 

[exar333]

theres a few "rules of thumb"

use a "paper-thin" layer

use about 2 white rice grains of volume for a standard HSF....

basically, use just enough to have a very thin layer, but not slathered on...

 

[Gibsons]

Originally posted by: bjc112
Don't spread it around, the HSF will..

Just about the size of a grain of rice.

And put it in the middle, it'll squish out to the proper thickness when you apply the heatsink.

 

[mshan]

My AMD Athlon XP 2500+ doesn't have a heat spreader, so it's surface area is rather small compared to the Zalman HSF's base.

A grain of rice seems like an awful lot of TIM (vs. P4 with heatspreader?) for the Athlon XP?

Should you be able to see any of the cpu chip underneath the layer of TIM when properly applied?

 

[Umberger]

Arctic Silver Instructions.

The thickness of a sheet of paper. On a small contact CPU, spread it before putting the heatsink on.