Pentium 4 thermal paste and heatsink question

[Link19]

I just got a replacement Pentium 4 CPU in the mail for the damaged one I sent back that was causing random system reboots. I noticed on the bottom of the heatsink with the new one I got that it had a grey block of something on it that felt like rubber. I just thought that it was a thermal pad and that you should still put thermal paste on it. However, I was just reading AMD's docs about the difference between the lidded CPUs (Athlon 64 and Opteron) vs the non-lidded CPUs like the Athlon XP and Duron where the heatsink contacts the CPU die directly as opposed to a heat spreader like on Pentium 4s and Athlon 64s. AMD stated that they did not recommend thermal paste for socket A CPUs, and recommended a thermal pad instead. They said that they did not recommend any thermal pad for lidded CPUs and only to use thermal paste. So is it ok that I put some Arctic Silver 5 thermal paste on my new Pentium 4 and attached the stock heatsink without taking that grey square shaped thing on the bottom of the heatsink off first? My system has been running fine and no overheating, but I want to ensure that what I did was still correctly done so I will have long term reliability with my computer.

Someone please clear this up for me.

Thanks

 

[Ioo]

better to use one or the other, but not both

do you have a problem? probably not so long as you dont plan on overclocking it.

 

[Travis6586]

Using a thermal pad AND Arctic Silver 5 is not recommended. I guess if you're getting good temperatures with both together, then its up to you to decide whether you want to fix it or not. If it were me, however, I would take the thermal pad off and simply use the Arctic Silver 5. You can remove the old Arctic Silver 5 and the thermal pad with acetone and some cue-tips. Then, without touching the surfaces of your processor or heatsink, reapply a BB-sized amount of Arctic Silver 5. You should be good to go from there! Hope this helps somewhat!