To ASII or not to ASII

[ShallowHal]

Previously I asked a question regarding the little pink patch located underneath the HSF that ships with the XP1700. I had already installed the HSF but had my doubts because of the vague instructions that came with the cpu. Anyway that's when I first heard about using ASII also. Does anyone run (successfully over time) without the ASII or should I go ahead and reinstall the HSF w/ASII? I'm concerned with the delicate nature of the cpu after reading the various bad luck stories.
I haven't powered up the unit yet.

Shuttle AK31
XP1700
Diamondmax 40gb 7200
Visiontek Geforce2 64mb DDR
Crucial 256mb pc2100
Soundblaster Live 5.1

 

[Garet Jax]

Hal,

If I understood your post properly, then the little pink patch is the pre-applied thermal compound on the bottom of the HSF. First off, ASII and the thermal compound are mutually exclusive. They should not be used together.

If you are not planning on OCing your machine and you bought a reasonably good quality HSF, then the pre-applied thermal compound should be sufficient for a while. I say a while because it has the tendency to dry up after a certain amount of time. No idea how long that is.

If you plan on OCing or you have removed the HSF after installation, then the pink patch should be removed and replaced with something of a little higher quality (like artic silver II).

For instructions to do this, look here.