What would you do about this?

[gamer4life]

I just got my 3500 with the stock hs/fan, should i just go with the thermal pad already on there or should i take the pad off with some alcohol and put on some AS5?

What would you do?

 

[lobadobadingdong]

AS5 if you have it, and plan to OC, otherwise the pad is good enough for a non-OC'd system.

 

[Corporate Thug]

AS5

 

[gamer4life]

ok thanks, i will go ahead and order the AS5 since i plan to OC eventually

 

[BW86]

good idea

 

[LifeStealer]

Does using AS5 void the warranty now?

 

[gamer4life]

i sure hope not considering i paid over 300 bucks for this baby.

 

[rhino56]

goof off works a lot better for thermal pads then alcohol. but clean it afterwords with the alcohol

 

[Porter21]

i would use some arctic silver.

 

[fanboi]

Quote from my local comp shop techie:

"Using anything other than the supplied thermal pad voids the warranty. That being said, they don't KNOW that you used AS5 if you clean it properly. So as long as the CPU has some remnants of the stock thermal pad on it, as far as I'm concerned, the warranty is still good. Just don't TELL me you used AS5.*wink wink, nudge nudge".

i.e., clean it, run your comp for a few hours with the stock HS+original thermal pad on it, and all is good.

Which is why I always keep the stock HSF and thermal pad locked up in case something happens.