I'm in process of building my first pc.The retail processor((1g AMD) comes with its own heatsink fan and I do not plan to overclock it.
My questions:Is it safe to use the supplied fan or should I go with something better?
Before I apply the thermal paste,do I have to scrap completely the thermal pad on the heatsink,or just apply the past over it?
Your imput would be greatly appreciated.
nickp2

If it is the stock heatsink, it should have what's called "phase change" compound - its even better than the best grease/paste out there. But the problem is that it's used once, and then it's used up, and if you take the heatsink off, you'll have to scrape the stuff off and just put on paste.

Depending upon the ambient temperature (are you going to have good case ventilation? Are you in a hot climat?), I would say that you'll be alright, I mean, thousands of systems run perfectly fine with the stock heatsink.

But, if you have to put the heatsink on (as it's not already on the chip), you might as well get a better heatsink if you are concerned about the temperature.

We have a Socket A installation guide if you want to read about how to put it on carefully.

When I got my 1GHz Tbird, I ended up getting a great sale deal with a retail box that was cheaper than anything OEM on pricewatch at the time. Of course, the retail box came with the stock AMD HSF. As I didn't have any other usable HSF at the time, I thought I would just throw it on as-is and run it for awhile until I got a new HSF. Well, was I ever surprised. The stock HSF is very adequate and even allowed me to overclock to 1.4G with acceptable (although a little high) temps.
So, in answer to your question, yes, the stock HSF (I believe it is a Taisol) with the thermal-interface material is more than acceptable if you don't plan on overclocking or only overclock slightly.
An example of how the stock AMD HSF good it is: after I got a new HSF, I put the AMD stock HSF on my old Celeron 533a@800MHz. Well, now that 533a is stable at 880MHz with even cooler temps. Not bad.

btw, my current HSF is a Globalwin WBK38. I ran it with the Delta for less than a day before I said "screw this noise," threw the Delta in the trash, and put a Sunon 80mm 42cfm fan on it by means of the fan guard trick. Because the WBK is already almost 80mm wide, it works every bit a good as the Delta did, and is very quiet.

The retail fan is ALWAYS more than adequate for the CPU it is bundled with if the CPU is run at it's stock speed.

The phase change thermal compound is a one shot deal, though. So make sure that it's on there right the first time or you'll need to reapply some thermal compound.

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Hey. What kind of party is this? There's no booze and only one hooker. -- Bender (Futurama)

Your stock fan should work just fine.

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Serious Soldier

All this is perfectly true for AMD chips. Oddly enough, they have a tendency to run hotter than Intels, but their HSFs do a better job on the whole.

Intel's OEM sinks, on the other hand, I find to be wholly inadequate. They do okay, but they almost seem like they're only there to keep the processor from frying. Operational temperatures may be anything under 160 degrees, but that doesn't mean the CPU is okay running at 155...

Plus there's the entire processor-casing issue with the Slot 1/2 processors. The casing for the CPU doesn't do much for dissipating heat, and so lots of people just strip it right off and cool the CPU slug directly.

On that note, I'm really glad Intel started using CPU slugs again. They're much stronger and more resiliant against poorly designed HSF clips.

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"And knowing is half the battle!"

woohoo! Overclocking!

I personally donno about OEM heatsinks. I've seen a lot that did not cool well enough to speak of. Try running it, if it is under 50F you have a little OC room in the sink left

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HAHAHA, Work's fun.
Then you put in 65 hours in 5 days. What the hell was I thinking?

Don't you mean 50C

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~Jon~
if you have to stop and wonder then you have already lost

no!
unless you CPU is 20F under room temp, you have no room left to OC!

(if you couldn't tell, yes I was joking)

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HAHAHA, Work's fun.
Then you put in 65 hours in 5 days. What the hell was I thinking?