Pentium III fc-pga + Copper Shim = Scary Mistake

[wnied]

Wanted to relate an experience with all you techies like myself, whom are always looking to tweak their machines for the best overall performance. I recently bought a tube of arctic silver and a copper shim for my pentium 3 933mhz cpu.
I wanted it to run cooler, so I purchased these two items with that sole purpose in mind. Upon receiving the silver goo and the copper shim, I first dabbed a little AS on the cpu core and a little on the 4 corners of the copper shim. Placed the global win HS and fan back on and booted. at first my Asus CUSL2 board told me my processor was a 466e.
I went into the BIOS and chose the proper settings, then reboted....Nothing. My heart sank, and my face turned white. I powered down and cold booted after 30 seconds...it posted my cpu again as a 466e. Blah I thought! Took the goo off the copper shim, cleaned the core, then repasted the core only with a very thin layer of goo. Placed HS and fan on and rebooted, same result. Now I was getting frustrated. took off remaining goo and cleaned core. Used regular goo this time and only on core. Rebooted....Another bad boot. Took a potshot and took off my copper shim, repasted the core with thin coat of Arctic Silver, and replaced HS and fan. JACKPOT! Posted as a 933 and ran smoothly. Replaced the copper shim...another bad boot. So to me buying this copper piece of sh1t wasnt worth the $5 bux I spent on it. Has anyone else had a bad experience with their copper shim?

lmk,
wnied

 

[spamboy]

Never tried a copper shim, but thanks for the warning.

 

[twong82]

never tried but i just purchased one. I hope it doesn't happen to me

 

[Regalk]

Why people buy copper shims is beyond me. The object is to get the HS on the CPU core as level as possible avoiding any tiltings. Sometimes placing a shim can tilt the HS just a bit thereby avoiding 100% contact and problems.
I once made my own shim (aluminium) back in the days when there was no HS ready for the new coppermine core and it worked except it was very thin and was only meant to stabilize my then Alpha (old model). Now i use the Chrome ORB (meant for AMD) and temps are in the mid 20s (P3-700 at 933). The chrome orbs fit very tight on the cpu so it literally hugs the core very snugly.
Ironically I would not use a chrome orb on an AMD core since they are more fragile and the ORB can be a pain to take off.

 

[Kompressor]

Do the copper shims make that much of a difference? I was thinking of buying a few for my machines.

kompressor

 

[Mikewarrior2]

they don't make a temp difference.


Mike

 

[Spoooon]

Shims aren't meant to reduce temperature period. Some sites mislead people buy selling them as such. All they do is help stabilize the HSF. If you are careful, you don't need to worry about it. If you aren't, or are afraid of making a mistake, they are worth the 8-10 bucks they cost.