At 13:46 12/10/08, Tom Waddell <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>Need to know how to apply artic silver. Bought it based on
>recomendation here. Was told to follow directions. No
>directions on box or on web site. Bought new AMD chip. Is
>it recommended to replace the heat transfer paste on fan base with 
>artic silver? How many cpu's will 3.5 grams of artic silver cover?

The makers of Arctic Silver recommend (surprise!) removing
the heat transfer pad that comes pre-installed on the heat
sink base and then applying arctic silver. They note that
it's best to do this before the heat pad ever gets hot and
melts (changes phase) because if that happens, the pad material
will fill in the microscopic irregularities on the heat sink
base and become hard to remove completely.

I used an old credit card to scrape off the heat transfer
pad from the heat sinks that came with my new Intel Core
2 processors. I finished this by using alcohol and cotton
to get the last bits of thermal compound off. The heat sink
surface then ended up with a like new polished look.

My tube of Arctic Silver 5 has a website written (in very
small print) on the label and says you can get instructions
there. See <http://www.arcticsilver.com>.

At this website, click on the picture of "Arctic Silver 5"
to go to the arctic silver 5 webpage:
<http://www.arcticsilver.com/arctic_silver_instructions.htm>.

Half way down, on the right of theat webpage, look for the
link "<arctic_silver_instructions.htm>Thermal Compound Instructions". 
This leads to a
webpage with choices for either Intel or AMD processors.

In your case, choose the AMD link
<http://www.arcticsilver.com/ins_route_step2amdas5.html>.
and choose (from the pictures) a processor that looks most
like yours. It should take you to an instruction sheet.

I suspect 3.5 grams would work for six to ten processors.
Instructions say use a dab about the size of a half grain
of rice. That's a small fraction of the whole tube.

I recently used Arctic Silver 5 on two processors (my
two main computers). On one I used too much arctic silver,
maybe two or three times as much as instructed, and this
computer has run noticeably warmer than the other
computer. (Both computers have the same motherboard,
CPU, fan, etc.) After hours of running, I tried removing
the processor and wiping off half the arctic silver but it
was difficult and I'd recommend that you don't use too
much to start off with.

My computer with the processor with the correct amount
of arctic silver on the heat sink continues to run
noticeably cooler than its twin.

You can google "arctic silver" and end up at the same
website. But not if you spell arctic wrong! I've done
that a time or two.

Regards,
Bill

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