What's the BEST way to install a heatsink?

[superfly27]

I installed a Whisper Rock IV (sold as a "Cables Unlimited" on tigerdirect) on a Duron 1.8 GHz (allegedly a reconfigured Athlon XP 2200+) and I've seen temperatures of 38'C to 51'C depending on the temperature in my room.

But, I installed the heatsink with the thermal pad on it.

If I wanted to take off the thermal pad, how do you do it? And I did read something about sanding a heatsink. Should I do that? What's the recommended sandpaper?

 

[l Xes l]

screw the thermal pads... jest get some as5

 

[RichUK]

upside down .. sorry couldn't resist ..

i would recommend getting some Isopropyl Alcohol, which you can use as rubbing alcohol, and clean all of the thermal pad paste whatever off of the core and heatsink (nice and clean) .. then get some 1200 grit sand paper if you really want to get a smooth surface (personaly i wouldn't bother) .. then apply some Artic Silver 5 as per instructions from Artic silver apply heatsink, and away you go

 

[superfly27]

Hey, do you know what the difference would be? I mean thermal pad against thermal grease in same room temperature? Because I've seen some screenshots of people will faster processors than mine and they were like at 32'C man! My low is 38'C I think. I saw it at 51'C on a really warm day.

 

[QurazyQuisp]

You'll probably notice a difference. I have a amd xp 1800+ and I stay consistantly around 34-36c, and about 41-42 on hot days. I don't have the same fan/heatsink, but I'm sure ours are comparable.

 

[MDE]

51C is perfectly fine for a Duron\XP unless you plan on major overclocking.

 

[superfly27]

I shouldn't admit this but I REALLY, REALLY like Unreal Tournament 1999. It only works really well with Win98SE and Directx 8.1
I'm going to end up doing dual boot because I can't stand not playing this game. But I recently got this Asus A7V600-X and Duron 1.8 GHz and Ti4200. I don't want to overclock because I'll miss this machine if I ruin it.

 

[DaNorthface]

if you don't overclock, don't mess with the heatsink. there's no point. you'll have a better chance ruinning the cpu by taking off a heatsink than ruinning it because of the thermal pad.

 

[superfly27]

Have you ever succeeded in taking off a CPU with the heatsink at the same time? Seems it would make it easier if I wanted to try another motherboard. I have a pretty big heatsink however.
http://www.spirecoolers.com/fcc.asp?prodid=105