Is there any thermal paste between the CPU and heatsink of a Dell 4550 desktop?

[abovewood]

Is there any thermal paste between the CPU and heatsink of a Dell 4550 desktop?

I received a Dell 4550 P4 2.4ghz from Dell. When I opened up the case for the first, I found the heatsink wasn't attached to the CPU. I attached it back and the PC didn't have a problem during the ten minutes I used it.

Now I remember not seeing any thermal paste or pad between the CPU and the heatsink. I wonder there should be and Dell forgot to apply it.

If you have taken out the P4 CPU from such a computer, please let me know the answer.

 

[chocoruacal]

Sounds like you have a phone call to make to Dell Customer Service!

 

[SladeZero]

Hey there,

Sounds like that pot smoking DELL DUDE made your comp....sorry to hear that.

Slade

 

[MichaelD]

There should always be a thermal pad or thermal paste (either, not both!) b/t a CPU slug and the HS!

If you had neither, a phone call to customer service is in order...your CPU may be damaged, or another component in the case may be damaged from having the HS banging around in there during shipment.

Good lcuk.

 

[Redviffer]

Most certainly contact them with what you found, you certainly paid enough (or more than enough, I'm quite sure) for that thing and it should be covered. I'd be more concerned with the possible damage of the heatsink banging around than the P4 cpu burning up (Intel cpu's have pretty good thermal protection built in).

 

[Oakenfold]

There should be that black stuff that loves to gunk up everything.

 

[abovewood]

I should have called them the first day. I did a quick boot up after attaching the heatsink and it seemed fine.
I am glad that I opened up the computer 1st to see if I got 1x256mb or 2x 128mb memory (I got 1x256mb).
It was hard to believe that big heatsink was just hanging around the case.

thanks everyone.

 

[ElFenix]

theres supposed to be

 

[Salvador]

Dude.. You got a Dell. They must've bumped the Dell dude down from the commercials to the assembly line.

Seriously, when I got my Dell, they used a thermal pad and not paste. When I had a Dell tech (can you believe that they sent a tech to do this?) come out and replace a buzzy hs/f, he asked me if I wanted to use thermal paste instead and I said yes. The guy didn't even know how to use the thermal paste though. I gave him my AS3 and he laid a big glob on it and right before he was about to reatach the hs, I asked him if he was planning on removing some of that paste. He goes, "oh yeah.. that would be a good idea". Doh!

Like what has been previously mentioned, a call into Dell support is definitely in order here.

Good luck.

Sal

 

[abovewood]

update

I opened up another good working Dell and checked the heatsink/CPU.
There is no thermal pad or paste that I can see.
There is a thin sheet of metal heat spreader, that is it.

Can any dell 4550 owner confirm this?

 

[SgtZulu]

Call Dell for tech support?

thanx for the lol