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Below is another angle shot of C481 and C480 and the LACK of capacitors on those points. On the other side of the socket there are similarly mounted resistors.
Some fried CPUs have been blamed on, not overheating but, the heatsink touching the resistors on the top of the CPU. Even some websites have "reported" this being a potential problem.
I'm sorry. If you have that heatsink on so crooked that it "might" touch a resistor, then it's not touching the CPU enough to offer adequate cooling in the first place and it's going to fry anyway.
Below you an almost make out where the resistors don't even come close to touching the heat sink. Don't even think about using this lame excuse when requesting an RMA number. Not that it CAN'T happen, but because to do so, you would REALLY have to be a screw up.
For those of you who have to have one of these Socket A CPUs right now, but feel that they may not be ready for the challenges of installing a heatsink you may be tempted to use a shim like the one shown below:
Unfortunately, using a shim made of a thermally conductive material, like copper, pulls heat back down from the heatsink and into the ceramic part of the CPU. This isn't a big deal with a non-overclocked CPU since the CPU's temperature shouldn't be near it's threshhold to start with, but when overclocking, the added temperature poses a problem. My take on it? If you're not competent enough to install a heatsink without screwing something up, you're likely not competent enough to overclock. Take offense to that statement? Good.
ONE MORE THING I'd like to run by you before I sign off for the night... I went to an AMD "get together" where they reviewed future product and told us something that FLOORED me. They stated that AMD absolutely DOES NOT recommend thermal grease and would rather one uses phase change thermal compound. Apparently the grease doesn't hold up under the heat and heatsink tension. The expansion and contraction of the two surfaces during on/off cycles causes a "pumping action" that pumps the thermal compound out from on top of the die). SUCK! So much for telling people that they can just run down to Radio Shack to get a tube of thermal grease! I've been telling people they can do this FOR YEARS!
Chromerics (shown below) is on the top of the AMD list of thermal interface materials.
I have to admit that Arctic Silver does have a much higher temperature tolerance than most greases I have used and personally I have never seen AS "break down" under prolonged use on most applications, unlike Radio Shack grease. Despite this AMD still hasn't approved it for use and after I had been using it for several months, I can see why. I had removed a heatsink that had been running with Arctic Silver for several months and never had the heatsink off and saw what could be described as a "blast pattern". All of the Artic Silver had "pumped out" from the where the die was, leaving only an outline of the die and a dry section in the middle. I mentioned this to an AMD tech and he told me that the viscosity of the compound is one reason why it is not recommended by AMD.
The "pump out effect" or "blast pattern".
Sorry it's a crappy picture, but to get the shot I needed I had to use only natural lighting.
What's the other reason? Electrical conductivitiy. Arctic Silver is barely electrilcally conductive at all, but the fact remains that it does have some electrical conductivity. Mind you, of course, that if you only apply a small amount of compound to the die of the CPU, then electrical conductivity should not be an issue because the compound should not come in contact with the resistors on top of the CPU. For lab use (because thermal pads are too expnsive to replace over and over again), AMD recommends one particular brand of paste and I'm a dumb ass and didn't write it down. But the paste they recommend has NO electrical conductivity, but still has the viscosity issues that currently all greases have.
But alas! There is hope! Arctic Silver II is out and it has a HIGHER VISCOSITY than regular Arctic Silver! And so far, this higher viscosity seems to be enough to prevent the pumping phenomenom! Certainly AS raised the viscosity of their product for a reason. I had bought a tube not four months ago and have yet to experience an increase of temperature! I removed the heatsink and found no pumping out.
Explain That
In closing, I would like to voice my opinion that I think the Socket A AMD is a HORRIBLE DESIGN. Word is, at AMD, that they are working on installing a heat spreader. I can understand why they couldn't make the CPU with a heat spreader in the past, because the Thunderbird cores just got way too hot too fast. But the Palominos run so much cooler, AMD can spare the added thermal resistance of a heat plate. To give you an idea, I ran a 1.2 GHz Palomino next to a 1.2 GHz T-Bird next to each other on the same type of motherboard and the heatsink on the T-Bird was warm to the touch throughout. The Palomino's heatsink, even after an hour of Final Reality in software rendering mode, was not even warm at the base! Kick ass!
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