Thermal Compound or not?

[barlav]

I'm building an AMD 1Ghz T-Bird PC. I'm going to use the GlobalWin FOP32-1 fan/heatsink which has a thermal pad. I will not be overclocking. Will the thermal pad suffice or should I go the route of using thermal compound? Thanks!

 

[acroig]

My experience is that you should remove the thermal pad, clean with acetone or alcohol, apply thermal compound (preferably arctic silver) and go from there.

 

[Mem]

If you are not overclocking then you don`t need to remove it.

 

[barlav]

Thanks

 

[Mustanggt]

I dont know how good the Thermal pad is on your heatsink but I would not take the chance I would go with compound or AS.

 

[Mem]

I use the standard thermal Compound that comes with my Taisol heatsink/fan (on a 900T-bird)& it cools it just fine,this taken from Globalwin FAQ,

Q: Should we use heat paste?

Not necessarily. Theoretically heat paste is a help to get better heat contact. However, if you do wrong when assembly, then the use of heat paste would cause you more inconveniences as well as reducing its function. So, what is the right assembly way: the knack is to make sure the heat paste is to be very thin, flat spread averagely and very firmly(-technique required) attach to the bottom surface of your heatsink. There is a potential problem: in the beginning of the use, the effect is indeed better then without, but after one year when the paste is getting hard, it doesn't have the function. On the contrary, it blocks the contact between CPU and heatsink bottom. Result? Incredibly terrible!!