thermal interface question

[megabyte800]

While examining the heatsink included with my retail Athlon 64 3700+, I accidentally touched the thermal pad on the bottom. I can see a slight discoloration in a tiny corner of the pad. Is this something I need to worry about?

Thanks in advance.

 

[FghtinIrshNvrDi]

eh, I'm gonna say no. It should still be effective.

In my opinion, you should have bought some aftermarket thermal grease that is silver based. That stuff works much better than the ceramic anyway. You knwo what I'm sayin?

Ryan

 

[PZEROFGH]

yeah, i dont think its going to go boom on you, and yes you should have bought some AS5 to go with that.

buy hey, he might not be OCing

 

[megabyte800]

I thought that you couldn't use both a thermal pad and thermal gel at the same time. I actually was planning on overclocking it, if only a little.

Thanks for your help, by the way.

 

[PZEROFGH]

you remove the thermal pad from the stock heatsink, either put AS5 then put the stock heatsink on. or put AS5 and put a third party heatsink on it.

 

[megabyte800]

Oh. Simple enough. Thanks

 

[Nubius]

use a credit card and 99% isopropyl alcohol to get off that pad....you could also use that in conjunction with first blasting a hair dryer at the hottest setting for a bit so it'll loosen up....don't use something like a razor to get it off...you don't want to scratch up the bottom of your heatsink

 

[bigstanklo]

If your not going to overclock much anyways I would say go ahead and leave it alone providing that your system temps stay relatively stable. I messed my thermal pad up decently bad when trying to troubleshoot my PC and it stays right around 45-48c (i know its a lil high) but has never caused me problems.