Scratched/defaced bottom of HSF-

[monkyskunk]

Recently I purchased a Athlon XP retail boxed processor(1800+), whilst following the instruction pamphlet provided, I removed the "plastic film" from the bottom of the heatsink as instructed, but unbeknownst to me what I was actually removing was the thermal patch (Stoopid Me ) because there was no "plastic film" to begin with it. The problem I now have is that the bottom of the heatsink is pretty well defaced/scratched, due to the great difficulty in trying to remove that sticky compound.

I think i know already the answer to my question i have for you all now, but does the scratched bottom render the HSF totally unusable now?

As for a possibel replacement, I was looking at the Volcano 6u+. Will this work ok with a SOYO Dragon+ motherboard?

-thanks

 

[Sundog]

Lap the heatsink to make it flat and remove the scratches....


Or a machine shop can do it easily...

 

[BrunoPuntzJones]

use alcohol to clean of the die on the processor and the bottom of the heatsink. then put some sort of thermal interface there and put it back on. if you arent overclocking the retail should work fine.

edit: i just re-read what happened. i misunderstood. if you took a screwdriver to the compound or something like that and put some big gashes in the heatsink, it may need lapping.

 

[LoneWolf1]

<< I think i know already the answer to my question i have for you all now, but does the scratched bottom render the HSF totally unusable now? >>

No it doesn't, but it will lower the efficiency of the heat sink. You could always lap the face of the HS to get the scratches out of it.

 

[ku]

or you can spend $20 bucks on a better heatsink. If you want to lap it, you're going to spend a few bucks anyway (anywhere from $5-20, depending on how smooth you want it to be).

 

[Siva]

how big are the gashes? If they are just a few small surface scratches you could probably still use it, just as long as you have thermal compound, if they are big you should probably lap it, that would take care of any problems.

 

[John]

Go buy a 400 & 600 grit piece of wet/dry sandpaper and sand the bottom of the heatsink down.

 

[monkyskunk]

<< No it doesn't, but it will lower the efficiency of the heat sink. You could always lap the face of the HS to get the scratches out of it. >>



Yeah, I came across lapping in my research about my problem and I initially thought that the efficiency would be lowered if I used as is, but I was really fearful of burning out my spankin' new cpu so I thought I would ask here just to be safe. The bottom is still rather smooth to the touch, but still even minor scratches are not good from what I've read.

Thanks for all the replies so far and any future ones. You all have been a great help

 

[databyss]

I had the same problem... and did the same thing....

It would be nice if they included directions for the hardware that they gave you



I'm just gonna get a better heatsink... a more efficient one