shims - what are they good for?

[farmercal]

What the heck is a CPU shim used for? Does it improve heat sink coolingney? I keep seeing them for sale at all the online stores but I don't see any benefits from them. Am I missing something here?

 

[fatbaby]

shims are to protect cores from the burdens of a hsf...

Of course, damaging the core with the hsf is obviously a user error and is quite uncommon if you take your time

Shims have little or no effect on heat dissapation.

In extreme cases, shims have prevented the hsf from fully touching the core and resulting in a dead cpu

You do not need a shim, as they are more of a hassle..

But if you are getting one, i reccomend copper shims (over alu or whatever else), and i also reccomend that it is nonconductive

 

[MoFunk]

shims, are you talking about men that dress like women? Just kidding. I have installed MANY heatsinks on AMD and Intel systems and have NEVER buted a core. (knock on wood) as long as you are using your head while installing your HSF, you should have no problem. Put the money you would spend on a shim for something more productive IMHO.

 

[SHoddyCOmp]

Edit - What he said ^

 

[farmercal]

Thanks folks. I kind of thought that but wanted to make sure before I installed my next chip.

 

[haiwan]

3 of the 4 of the little foam pads on the corner of my cpu came off (dont ask how). Do I need to use a shim or something?

My temps are like 56/30 for a 1.33 GHz T-Bird

 

[Zim Hosein]

Originally posted by: haiwan
3 of the 4 of the little foam pads on the corner of my cpu came off (dont ask how). Do I need to use a shim or something?
My temps are like 56/30 for a 1.33 GHz T-Bird

haiwan, if your system is running stable w/o any lockups, you're doing fine

 

[Pilsnerpete]

so how'd you doit haiwan?

 

[haiwan]

Yah it is stable, it just seems like a high temp and I thought that could be the reason.

pilsnerpete - one of them just came off, bad adhesive i guess. the other 2 came off as i was trying to use a screwdriver to get the hs clip on. something slipped and i ended up sliding the screwdriver along the chip, taking most of the 2 pads off. needless to say i was glad when it still worked

 

[fatbaby]

haiwan,

the shim is suppose to balance itself on those little pads

i wouldnt do it =D

 

[L00PY]

I'm pretty anti-shim but I could see the use of one after you've lost your foam pads. Normally when you're mounting a heatsink, the pads keep the HS above the core. Without any pads, the HS will be resting entirely on the core while mounting. Worse yet with two or more of them missing, you'd have it resting unevenly on the core. In theory, with the perfect shim (a nice one with cutouts and all), if you had one or more pads missing, the heatsink would be resting unevenly on the shim (instead of the core) prior to mounting.

Of course it's best to leave the pads on. And if it's all mounted and running I'd leave it alone. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.