Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro and Arctic silver.

[dagwoood]

I've changed my motherboard, so I had to remove my Arctic Freezer so as I could move my CPU to my new board. This meant that I had to clean off the pre-applied thermal paste(is it MX-1?)from my CPU and Arctic Freezer, and use Arctic Silver 5 when I installed them in my new mobo.

The question is, should you apply a little bit more AS5 to make sure there's a layer between the whole of the CPU and the bottom of the heatsink?

I ask because in my new board my CPU idle temps are higher than they were before I made the change over. The bottom of the heat sink isn't smooth on the Arctic Freezer, it's quite rough, so I wondered whether you needed to apply a little extra AS5 to get into the small grooves. Also, the pre-applied thermal paste on the Arctic Freezer covers the whole of the bottom of the heat sink and I thought whether you should make sure AS5 is applied in the same way to give better heat conductivity?

Any advice please?

 

[PARUK]

When I got my Freezer I figured I'd have to clean off the default layer of grey stuff and replace it with AS5 sometime, so I did it straight away. I usually do this with any default TIM because some of them are a sod to get off once they've been heated up and bedded in.

Like you, I found the base of the Freezer to be coarsely machined, so I lapped it, partly to improve the surface and partly to be sure that I got rid of all traces of the original TIM.

I then used the AS5 just as it says on their site - small bloblet of AS5 in the center of the cpu's heatspreader. This worked fine in my case.

If I had to guess why you're seeing higher temps, I'd go for:
1) Maybe you didn't fit the cooler quite so well the second time around? Personally I found the Freezer to be a bit fiddly to fit - there seemed to be quite a bit of free-play.

2) There could be traces of the old goop on the base, I guess this could be interfering with the AS5.

I guess you could try just removing the Freezer, giving it a really thorough clean with pure acetone or TIM cleaner, then refit. But if you're brave and have the right sand paper to hand, a quick lapping job could be the best solution?

 

[dagwoood]

Thanks for replying PARUK

I've never heard of the term lapping, but I get the gist of what you meant. I think I'll just remove the HSF so as to re-apply some AS5,making sure it's seated properly. It seemed pretty solid when I fitted it though.

I didn't use any TIM remover originally, just kitchen roll and cotton buds to remove the gunk and then wiped thoroughly with a soft cloth. I've just bought some TIM remover, so I'll see after using that if there's any improvement.

Thanks again, dagwoood.