Quick (easy) question - fitting a cpu

Cemetery · 7 Jul 2007 at 21:11

Hi, it has been ages since I have done this, but my brother has just got a bunch of new components & asked me to help. He got a retail intel core 2 duo & I just need to know if I need to apply any thermal paste?

None came with it or the heatsink (last cpu I got was a year or so ago & came with some seperate gunk

) but there are 3 strips of grey material on the bottom of the heatsink already. I am guessing this is some thermal compound? Am I correct or do I need to get something else ordered? I believe I should be good to go, just don't wanna rush it & assume things incorrectly.

Cheers in advance.

gillywibble · 7 Jul 2007 at 21:31

Modern heatsinks quite often come with thermal paste already applied. I presume it also had a plastic cover to prevent the paste being touched?

Go ahead and fit it

theheyes · 7 Jul 2007 at 21:32

It sounds fine. My stock intel fan was covered with a square of thermal paste, not strips, but it should be fine.

Some people would say remove it and apply some better paste but if you're going to go to those lengths you'd probably want a better HSF anyway.

hybrid · 7 Jul 2007 at 21:33

Yip thats fine to use like it is. Those strips on the bottom of the HS are thermal paste and it will melt and spread according when it gets warm.

Only reason you should buy more thermal paste is if you were planning on using another cooler other than the stock one provided.

Hope this helps.

Cemetery · 7 Jul 2007 at 21:34

Cheers, thought that would be the case, just wanted to make sure. Gone with stock as he isn't going to be clocking anything.