Separation Anxiety

[Kenjimurasame]

Hi All,
My question is about thermal compound and processors.
I built my system in March of 2006. Here are the specs:

2.0 GHz Athlon 64 Venice
Asus A8N nForce Ultra
1 GB DDR2 (Corsair)
80 GB Western Digital Caviar
eVGA 6600GT
NEC 16X DVD-R

System runs fine, no problems, but lacks the speed to power through newer applications.
I bought my processor when it was new, but not at the top of the charts. I?d like to upgrade, but I don?t want to throw away a perfectly good processor.

I?m planning on giving it to a friend, but they want to use a different cooling system than the stock heatsink/fan currently attached. I used a bit of Arctic Silver 5 when I attached the heatsink, and I was careful not to use too much. Now, I?m worried about what will happen when it?s time to separate them.

-How strong has the bond between the heatsink/processor become?

-Can they be separated?

-Is there a safe way to separate them?

-Is there a solvent that can help the separation that won?t damage the processor?

-If they can be separated, is there a good way to remove the remaining compound
off of the processor?

-Are there special tools that I should use? Guessing that hammer/screwdriver is not the
way to go.

Would appreciate any help or advice.
Thanks.

 

[aigomorla]

ummmm easiest way i found to get the sink off is

1. unplug the fan.

2. Then turn the comp on and go into bios... monitor cpu temps on bios, dont let the temps get too high,

3. When they get a little warmish, like 30-40, turn the comp off, then unmount the mounts, and twist the HSF and it should come right off without that much force.

OR Option2. run Orthos/Prime95 on it for about 20-30min. Then imediately shut down, and twist the hsf off.

 

[zagood]

AS5 doesn't get TOO much of a bond to it, at around a year it'll be sticky but not too bad. Follow aigo's advice, or if you want to just give it a shot, unmount then twist with increasing pressure (don't just jerk it). Be ready for it to give way though, you don't want your heatsink to spin around and take out surrounding capacitors.

-z

 

[coolpurplefan]

I once had a Gigabyte Neon Cooler 8 and found that you need to have the black support around the processor to use it. So, twisting the heatsink to break the bond is impossible. I now have a Zalman 7000 and you need to take off that black support thing on the motherboard as well as the backplate. Anyway, with the Zalman 7000, you can twist the heatsink.

Although I do like the Gigabyte Neon Cooler 8 a lot, I may go with another Zalman 7000 alcu led in the future just because of this.

 

[VinDSL]

My experience has been about 50/50... That is, half the time the HSF comes right off -- half the time it's 'welded' on!

Personally, if it's 'welded' on, I wouldn't twist jack! I'd simply pull the whole thing STRAIGHT out of the ZIF... Never had a problem doing this yet!

Once you get the whole thing off your mobo, separate the CPU and HSF with a pocket knife or whatever. Just be careful when you do this or your CPU will go flying across the room when it pops off the HSF...

 

[coolpurplefan]

lol, that made me laugh. I wonder how many people have seen their CPUs flying accross the room.

Good, now I know if I want to replace my motherboard, I should order another motherboard right now. Sheesh, I bought an Abit NV8 for my 3700+ socket 754 because I think my Asus K8N4-E Deluxe is defective. I have a socket 939 4000+ but I don't have a motherboard for it yet. That means if I ruin my processor by taking it off, I'll have no use for my Abit NV8, but, I wanted to build a machine for file sharing and testing anyway.

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: coolpurplefan
lol, that made me laugh. I wonder how many people have seen their CPUs flying accross the room.

Good, now I know if I want to replace my motherboard, I should order another motherboard right now. Sheesh, I bought an Abit NV8 for my 3700+ socket 754 because I think my Asus K8N4-E Deluxe is defective. I have a socket 939 4000+ but I don't have a motherboard for it yet. That means if I ruin my processor by taking it off, I'll have no use for my Abit NV8, but, I wanted to build a machine for file sharing and testing anyway.

Id recomend you stay away from DFI Expert unless u have some knowledge with DFI boards. DFI street is down and its a pita to get any tech support now. Also the board is UBER Finiky with ram and psu. Even OCZ's need proper timing to start from cold boot on a my DFI Expert board.

 

[mozirry]

I pulled it straight out of the motherboard once while it was locked in, fan and cpu and all.

Still works, although I wouldn't reccomend this method

 

[coolpurplefan]

I know you're talking about Arctic Silver 5, but what about Arctic Silver Ceramique? That's what I put on my CPU. I guess it's safe to assume I twist the heatsink no problem?

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: coolpurplefan
I know you're talking about Arctic Silver 5, but what about Arctic Silver Ceramique? That's what I put on my CPU. I guess it's safe to assume I twist the heatsink no problem?

ceramic bounded??? omg you serious??? i never had a problem with ceramic binding. I cant even think of a time when that white stuff bounded.

Im sure it will come off the same way as AS5 if it did bind, because the 2 methods i described heats the HSF slightly so the TIM gets more liquidy and results in it being easy to twist.

 

[coolpurplefan]

Originally posted by: aigomorla

Originally posted by: coolpurplefan
I know you're talking about Arctic Silver 5, but what about Arctic Silver Ceramique? That's what I put on my CPU. I guess it's safe to assume I twist the heatsink no problem?

ceramic bounded??? omg you serious??? i never had a problem with ceramic binding. I cant even think of a time when that white stuff bounded.

Im sure it will come off the same way as AS5 if it did bind, because the 2 methods i described heats the HSF slightly so the TIM gets more liquidy and results in it being easy to twist.

Good, I'm glad I used that instead of AS5. Gee, I never thought I'd replace my motherboard but oh well...