Thermal tape vs. non-termal tape

[thirdlegstump]

Just wondering how different the cooling effectiveness is between thermal tape versus say a 3M mounting square? While doing some cleaning I removed "gunk" off my 200MHz laptop CPU not realizing it was there as both a shim and a thermal transfer pad. Since it's crashing upon bootup with AC only, I'm thinking it's not thick enough to bridge the gap between the CPU and heatsink.

 

[stevty2889]

You need to use thermal paste, a 3M mounting square isn't gonna work..you have to use something that is designed for thermal transfer, a 3M pad would more than likely be an insulator, and trap the heat in rather than help to transfer it.

 

[thirdlegstump]

Werd. Thanks for the tip.

 

[Jeff7]

Sometimes a design requires a thermal pad and not just thermal paste. I have a Compaq laptop that has a 600MHz P3, and it had a thick yellow thermal pad on it.
I replaced it with a custom-sliced square of copper, with Arctic Silver on both sides. I also put Arctic Silver between the heatblock thing (it's a combination heat pipe and heatsink dealy) and the big metal keyboard shield. This seems to have drastically improved the thing's cooling capability - the CPU fan runs less, but the entire keyboard warms up now. So by my estimate, the thermal transfer to the heatsink has been improved considerably over the thick thermal pad, and the keyboard shield is also acting as a large heatsink.