thermal compound with p4 478

[sheriffA]

I just purchased a pentium 2.26ghz cpu in the retail box. All it has is the chip, fan, and heatsink with the thermal tape. Many people have recommended using thermal compound which i plan to do. My questions are:

Do i remove the thermal tape from the heatsink before I add the compound?
Is it really worth using thermal compound?
What type of thermal compound should I use, i heard arctic silver is the best?
what is the best method for application?

Thanks any help would be great.

 

[minendo]

Yes, Yes and Yes.

Artic Silver Instructions

 

[whitelight]

use a flat edge (like a credit card) to scrape off the thermal tape. then you can either sand the surface down again or just use steel wool to shine it up and remove the rest of the left-over bits (which is what i did because my surface was already pretty smooth and flat).

 

[WangButter]

Don't use steel wool. That will scratch up the surface and make it rougher. You want the contact surface to be as SMOOTH as possible. The best way to clean off your heatsink surface is to use lighter fluid, nail polish remover, or rubbing alcohol.