silicone compound helps with cooling?

[Foundation]

I have a thermalright sk-6 on top of my 1.333ghz athlon at 60C idle which is VERY HIGH for a 40 dollar hsf. It must not be in good contact with the cpu. anyways, should i use the silicone compound instead of the gelvax? And another thing, if i do put silicone compound on the cpu, will I be able to sell it later on when upgrading?

 

[Bovinicus]

It may decrease your temparatures, just make sure you clean the two surfaces well. High purit isopropyl alcohol does a pretty good job. If you want a really decent boost in cooling performance, go with Arctic Silver 3. That compound looks to be excellent.

 

[Lord Evermore]

What exactly is "gelvax"?

If you're referring to the patch of phase change compound that comes on most heatsinks these days, then putting on cheap thermal compound isn't going to help any. The plain old silicone compound like you get from Radio Shack or in a little packet with some heatsinks isn't any better than the phase change patch that's applied to heatsinks at the factory, and in some cases is worse.

Arctic Silver (only used 2 myself) is about 16 times the efficiency in transferring heat from the CPU as silicone compound or the phase change compound. (AS3 is slightly better.) In most cases it will help with cooling, but not always significantly. (AS's website http://www.arcticsilver.com shows a 4 to 15 degree difference possible.) Environment and other cooling used makes a big difference.

Other specialized compounds are also more efficient than silicone compound, but AS isn't so expensive that it's worth going with cheaper stuff, at least in my opinion.

Is your case getting plenty of air into it from the outside? Is the air going into it very warm? Is the inside of the case well laid-out so that there's plenty of airflow to the heatsink? Is the fan mounted to blow down onto the heatsink? (You might try reversing it. Alpha heatsinks are made so that you set the fan to suck air away from the heatsink. I noticed several degrees better cooling, and the same thing works on other heatsinks in some setups.)

If you decide to remove the thermal pad and use AS or another compound, the usual concern enters from mounting and unmounting a heatsink repeatedly. Along with making sure to do that smoothly so as not to crack the core, read the AS website which explains how to apply AS to both the heatsink and the CPU.

As for removal, when you remove the SK6, the thermal pad leaves very little behind on the CPU. The major part can just be picked off with a fingernail, and the rest can be removed with acetone and a lint-free cloth (or even paper towels works for me). Removing it from the heatsink is a bit more of a pain. Copper is very soft. Do NOT scrape the compound from the heatsink. Even slight scratches that you can barely see do reduce the effectiveness of the heatsink, since it's no longer in good contact with the CPU (metal to metal contact is the ideal, you don't WANT to have any thermal compound in between them, except to fill a gap where the metal simply can't touch the CPU, like in scratches or in the lettering on the CPU).

AS and most other compounds can also be removed with acetone, then use alchohol to do the final cleanup. (No such thing as using too much, make sure you get it all off.) Be careful if you use nail polish remover, avoid the kind with gelatin in it; although the alchohol should clean it up, it doesn't hurt to avoid putting contaminants on the CPU. That should make it fine enough for reselling.

 

[kylef]

Great post!