My main system is an AMD Athlon Thunderbird 700@927 Mhz. As you can imagine I've got a very large heatsink and fan on it to keep it cool.
When I installed the fan it had a thermal pad already on it, which I went ahead and used. Over the past couple weeks I've noticed my CPU temperatures slowly beginning to rise. Originally they were at 45C. The last time I checked they were at 53C full load. I knew something was wrong, but I was afraid of damaging the CPU die. (Those of you who have ever seen a Thunderbird or Duron CPU will know what I'm talking about.
)
To make a long story short I decided something must be done, so I *carefully* removed the retaining clip. To my horror the heatsink was stuck to the die. After checking to make sure I could afford a new processor (
) in case I broke this one, I *gently* removed the heatsink. What I found surprised me: The heatsink paste had totally hardened, and had turned tan in color instead of white. Even worse, part of the CPU die itself was chipped off one of the corners. I figured it was dead. (This was a rare CPU too, it was a "blue - copper" thunderbird that had not been locked at the factory! ) I decided I had nothing to lose, so I removed the CPU and carefully cleaned off the die. I then scraped off the thermal pad of the heatsink. I then applied a VERY thin layer of fresh heatsink paste and reinstalled the CPU and heatsink.
Luckly for me the CPU still worked fine, but now my CPU temp is 40C (104F), which is the coolest it's ever been.
The moral of the story,
never use the included thermal compound on a heatsink with a Thunderbird CPU! Invest a few bucks in a tube of Artic Silver or the like. It may save your CPU in a month or two.
I was very lucky that I was able to remove the heatsink and not completely ruin the CPU. I don't recommend anyone ever remove a Thunderbird CPU once it is mounted, so do it right the first time!
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bloom25
-MAW-
(Formerly of the)
THUNDERBIRDS
