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Oh god I think I did my thermal grease wrong
KungFu
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
edit: the original point of my thread here was solved, but it seems discussion of applying thermal grease, heatsinks, and cooling discussion has taken over. So discuss that in this thread if you want (how you do it - on the heatsink or on the cpu? do you like the intel method of mounting cpu & heatsink?) etc
tldr my core 2 duo reached like 90C within seconds of turning on and I fear my grease applying skills suck, what are some good ways to do it and fix this.
So I spent the last couple of hours assembling my new computer from parts I got through Newegg. I am quite confident in myself when it comes to putting any piece of hardware in or removing - except for the processor. Im always very nervous that my grease wasn't enough, or too little, or not spread out enough etc and the past couple of times, I had an experienced friend do it.
Well, I was trying to put my Intel E8400 & heatsink/fan combo on my mobo and the cpu went in quite fine. But when it came to put on the stock heatsink/fan, I couldn't get the pin mechanisms down or to "click" in so I spent a long time watching videos on youtube of how other people did it so simply with barely a press whereas mine felt like they weren't snapping in quite the same.
Well, I took it off and looked at it to try again, but now the paste that came with it pre-applied was messed up. So I cleaned up the CPU & heatsink bottom up with some fingernail polish remover & coffee filter and then applied new grease from a tube. I spread it around on the bottom of the heatsink using my finger through a plastic bag and it looked good after a lot of spreading and smearing. So I smacked it down and clicked in the heatsink and assembled the rest of my comp.
Now heres the problem: I turn it on and it is cool to see my plan come to fruition, but Im cautious. I go to the BIOS and look at PC Health and notice my CPU is at 60C. Oh, now it is 63C. Now it is 65C. 70C. And in a matter of 10 seconds, it went to about 90C and I shut it off.
So now Im afraid to turn it on because oh god it is cooking.All the videos look so easy and yet I managed to messed it up.
This temperature is too high, correct? What do you guys do to clean up the old gunk and then what tricks do you use for applying the grease?
edit: For those who haven't read down a bit, one of the clips on the heatsink popped out. Works fine now - though I worry it will pop again...
tldr my core 2 duo reached like 90C within seconds of turning on and I fear my grease applying skills suck, what are some good ways to do it and fix this.
So I spent the last couple of hours assembling my new computer from parts I got through Newegg. I am quite confident in myself when it comes to putting any piece of hardware in or removing - except for the processor. Im always very nervous that my grease wasn't enough, or too little, or not spread out enough etc and the past couple of times, I had an experienced friend do it.
Well, I was trying to put my Intel E8400 & heatsink/fan combo on my mobo and the cpu went in quite fine. But when it came to put on the stock heatsink/fan, I couldn't get the pin mechanisms down or to "click" in so I spent a long time watching videos on youtube of how other people did it so simply with barely a press whereas mine felt like they weren't snapping in quite the same.
Well, I took it off and looked at it to try again, but now the paste that came with it pre-applied was messed up. So I cleaned up the CPU & heatsink bottom up with some fingernail polish remover & coffee filter and then applied new grease from a tube. I spread it around on the bottom of the heatsink using my finger through a plastic bag and it looked good after a lot of spreading and smearing. So I smacked it down and clicked in the heatsink and assembled the rest of my comp.
Now heres the problem: I turn it on and it is cool to see my plan come to fruition, but Im cautious. I go to the BIOS and look at PC Health and notice my CPU is at 60C. Oh, now it is 63C. Now it is 65C. 70C. And in a matter of 10 seconds, it went to about 90C and I shut it off.
So now Im afraid to turn it on because oh god it is cooking.All the videos look so easy and yet I managed to messed it up.
This temperature is too high, correct? What do you guys do to clean up the old gunk and then what tricks do you use for applying the grease?
edit: For those who haven't read down a bit, one of the clips on the heatsink popped out. Works fine now - though I worry it will pop again...
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Tofu wrote: Here be Littleboots, destroyer of threads and master of drunkposting.
What's a good alternative heatsink/fan to the core 2 duo's defaultly provided one? And is it expensive?
Usually any chemicals is frowned upon with electronics. You don't know what the chemicals will do to the silicon and copper. Most of the time, a simple, clean, white cloth is plenty good enough.
You said you removed all the old grease right? Was there any wax material that you removed also? There should be nothing left but the metal heat spreader on top of the CPU and the metal of the bottom of the heat sink.
You also didn't specify your brand/type of thermal grease. It may make a difference.
I'll refer you to This page of different Arctic Silver instructions. For a more specific application, try This PDF using their Arctic Silver 5 grease on a Dual Core Intel chip. It shows how to orient the chip and where exactly to put the grease.
My experiences with this stuff have usually been fine. And usually you don't need much, but "a grain of rice" is a bit understating it I think. The worry is not so much heat dissipation I would think, it's all thermally conductive, it's that you're compressing it between two pieces of metal and if too much is there, it would ooze out the side and short out some things. My 2c there.
Someone mentioned earlier that less is more, and I'm inclined to agree. From the AS5 website, I placed an amount equal to about 2 grains of rice side by side lengthwise and didn't even smear it - it suggested just placing the heatsink down and wiggling it around a bit to spread it out. It seems to have worked, as OC'd my processor runs at 38C under load.
I didn't stick with the stock fan, however, and used a Zalman 9500. Only issue is the size (need to make sure you have the clearance), and you'll need to remove the motherboard to put in the mounting bracket. I got crazy when putting together my rig and took apart my 8800 to apply AS5 instead of the thermal pad it came with (it runs at 45C load).
I would suggest making triple sure the heatsink is sitting properly. It not seating correctly would easily explain your rather toasty temps.
Also I used fingernail polish remover because a couple guides for cleaning said to.
Well, I'd think you wouldn't want to rub the grease and acids on your fingers on any CPU's contacts, present or past. I'm sure if you touched the bottom of the CPU or touched the socket and there was no ESD the CPU would work its just you might have started some corrosion that would take effect after some time.
Tofu wrote: Here be Littleboots, destroyer of threads and master of drunkposting.
according to Intel's site, 72.4°C is the maximum operating temp for the E8400. the other chips probably have different tolerances.
also, ToyD, high-purity (+90%) isopropyl alcohol and "clean" acetone are usually acceptable cleaning agents for computer parts when you have to remove thermal grease or residue or the like. of course you shouldn't be slathering the stuff all over circuit traces or connectors or anything. but on top of the intel integrated heat spreaders or on heatsinks, or on other non-conductive computer parts, small amounts of alcohol or acetone can be useful.
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so i used cheap vodka.
Temps were running at like 70C (high i know) after vodka cleaning and thermal reapply: 50C.
This was an AMD btw.
This is me giving an example of what not to do.
I am cursed.
Back when computers were made for men.
Also, used rubbing alcohol this time (was out of fingernail polish remover, though it is the same stuff really).
Oh, and my replacement cooler clicked into the mobo so much more easily than the stock one did. It felt too easy.
That said, I'm no overclocker... default thermal tape ftw. Running fine since 2006!
Though I tend to agree that "one grain of rice" is a bit less than I use.
I just want mounting brackets. Is that too much to ask?
My core 2 duo heat sink half fell off my mobo. It's such a shitty piece of shit.
did it have thermal paste on it? if it did, go for it. If it didn't, It might be worth contacting the manufacturer to see if that might cause an issue or not.
No thermal paste from what I could tell. It's a Gateway M285-E if anyone has any experience with em... I'm gonna snoop around for some info. Is it possible the silver bit is a heat spreader built into the heat sink? It's a big ass heat-sink/pipes that covers most of the hardware across the bottom of the board, and has a fan on it.
He, back in the socket A days the upper side of the CPU DIE wasn't shielded - that meant if you applied the heat sink slightly at an angle you most likely destroyed it. - Then there was the horrible bracket system where you essentially had to move the heat sink on the fragile CPU die, so you could get it to the right position. Then there was the issue of removing the brackets, as they tend to get stuck and warped because of the heat. Trying to pry them away with a screw driver without doing a "misplaced shot on the billiard table" - scratch was always an adventure.
The Shuttle socket A CPU PCs have the best CPU install system ever. Unlock, put CPU in, lock, add spacer, add thermal paste, put the heat sink on it, screw in 4 screws, done.
To be honest, the Intel CPU installing system is still ass - and not intuitive (at leas not for me). Usually I am used to lock something after attaching it, but tuning the little pins is actually the "unlock position". Took me a while to figure that out during my first install (P4 CPU back in the day). Secondly, sometimes the whole mechanism seems tight, although the heat sink isn't actually at the correct position. Thirdly its often a hell to remove it, if it decided to get only partly mounted. (even worse when the mainboard makes the "I am going to break now" noises while you pull the plastic pins out.)
I would only worry about it leaking out of the socket or something screwy with the headspreader but thats probably nonsense. I'm not qualified enough to say Yea or Nay though. I haven't dealt with nearly enough laptops.
I've never had trouble with installing the new Intel twisty-pin clips after the first one. And even then that was because I was wary of the noises coming from the MB: Though the crunchy noises the MB makes when you pull the pins out are disturbing, I've known them to make worse noises during installation.
Personally, I actually quite like the plastic clip things because just this once, there is zero chance of the screwdriver slipping and gouging innumerable small, yet extremely vital, components off your 'board.
The pinless ZIF sockets are nice too...
So my own story with Core 2 heatsinks is a tale of three motherboards. Though nothing whatever to do with heatsink problems. Turns out that E6550 chipsjust don't wok without their special magic bus speed and also, when the manual tells you not to reset the CMOS with the board still plugged in, it really means it.
Anyway, for the third board I replaced the now patchy original goop with five dots about 1/3 the size of a grain of rice, evenly distributed about the centre and four corners of the chip's built in spreader. Seems to be working so far.
Just remember to press the heat-sink down onto the grease to spread it out a bit before you start pushing the pins in.
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But now sitting at BIOS after about 10 minutes its getting upto 42c doing nothing. I'm worried what it will reach when I actually start playing a game. Or am I just being paranoid here?
why don't you just remove the processor, clean off the old thermal grease, regrease it and reseat it? i know it's a royal pain in the butt, but in the end it's worth it.
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I'm running a core 2 duo e6600.
A few days ago I went from super good performance in games to shitty shitty shitty performance, but still stable and playable (i.e. 60fps solid to 10 fps solid)
Concerned, I check temp and found that my cpu was running at 80 degrees idle, gaming, whatever, always 80 degrees. The system is perfectly stable and responsive, just, bad fps in games. I'm guessing this could be because the system is throttling itself due to the heat, but after d/ling a throttlewatch program, I had absolutely no idea what I was looking at.
I mounted an additional fan on the MB, no change in cpu temp, I reapplied thermal paste to the heatsink, no change.
So right now I pretty much have zero clue what's wrong but from reading this I'm thinking maybe the heatsink isnt mounted properly or came loose. Problem is, Ive removed and reattatched the heatsink since then and its not fixed, so clearly I dont know what im doing if that is the problem.
Driving me crazy! What should I do and in what order?
What is the temp of other devices in your case? Hard droves and GPU?
Is the temp always listed as 80 degrees? It may not be measuring correctly.
Are you checking temp in the bios? If not, check it there.
Does the videocard look alright?
Doublecheck the heatsink clips?
http://www.frostytech.com/top5heatsinks.cfm
i went with the Thermalright Ultra 120 extreme. it's a freakin' behemoth, but it works exceptionally well
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