What cooling compound should I use?

[egravelfl]

Hi,

I just received my ThermalTake Active Memory cooling, Blue orb and Crystal orb chipset cooler.
I also got a tube of Artic Silver 3... now I'm not quite sure if the Artic Silver 3 Thermal Coumpound
that I had bought for the CPU should be use with the Orbs on the video and MB chipset. The other
question is whether the thermal pad/stickers work as well as Artic Silver. If not should I use the
coumpound or the adhesive? My guess is that I would use the compound for the active memory kit
(blue and/or orange casing) and for the chipset and use the adhesive for the fins from the memory
kit on the video ram since they're no clips or screws like the Orbs.

Thanks for the advise.

 

[SuperPickle]

<< My guess is that I would use the compound for the active memory kit (blue and/or orange casing) and for the chipset and use the adhesive for the fins from the memory kit on the video ram since they're no clips or screws like the Orbs >>


You got it. AC does perform better than the tape so I'd use that on all things clipped/pinned/screwed down. AC adhesive is the upper-level alternative to tape for things that need to be stuck direclty to the chip.

I went a different route by spreading AC on the chips (vid RAM), wiping off the corners of the chips, and glueing the corners of the sinks on with super-glue. The glue sticks well, stand up to the heat just fine, and are easy to remove with all the thermal goop on the rest of the chips. Sound hokey, but the sinks get hot so I know they're working.

 

[egravelfl]

cool. so it's pretty much what I thought.

You say you super-glued your Video RAM chips to your heat sink? Is there a reason why you wouldn't
of done the same thing but replacing the super-glue with the adhesive compound since that's what it does
too - glue/stick stuff? Btw, where do you buy thermal goop and how do you go about remove the heat sink
that's been glued together? Do you simply pull on the heatsink? Does it work for both super-glue and
adhesive compount?

I should probably create a new thread for this question but I'll ask anyways. Is there much to gain by replacing
the video card hsf? In particular, the ATI Radeon 8500? Right now I was only planning on replacing the mobo
chipset fan and add some heatsink to the video ram and the mobo ddr ram.

Cheers.

 

[SuperPickle]

The reason I used super glue was because I didn't have any thermal adhesive around at the time. You can remove HS's that are glued on by prying them off with a screwdriver but warning! you need to protect the board underneeth from screwdriver damage. use a buffer like a popsicle stick or somthing to pry against instead of directly on the board. I killed my first mobo when I neglected to do so.

the main gain of an aftermarket HSF on the vid-card is when overclocking or if you are having issues already. Well, I guess it could extend the life of the chip too (but who's gonna keep it that long anyway ) Thermal slime can be found here with cheap shipping or many other resellers. I've never seen it in a store anywhere.