AMD-New XP 2000

[tekbro]

Am I in trouble?...

I just got my Matsonic (yes, I know) mobo and AMD Athlon XP 2000 (retail pkg) yesterday, along with a 256MB DDR2100 RAM module. All from Newegg. This is my first AMD system since my 486 DX-4, and my first upgrade since my Pentium II 400MHz system purchased in 1998.

I'm nervous about a couple of things:
1) The thermal pad. I got the spring clip almost onto the lugs, when I picked the heat sink up again (doh!). A tiny bit of the material had come off and settled around the outside of the die. I then replaced the heat sink and successfully got the other side of the clip onto the lugs near the top end of the socket. Was it ok to have replaced the heat sink, or do I need to go buy some thermal grease?
(or thermal pad)?

2) I can see thin strip of the processor peeking through from underneath the heat sink. I'm a little worried that the heat sink step might be too far over towards the top of the socket. I want to unclip the heat sink and back it off a little, but I think this would mess up the thermal pad, so I'd have to get another, clean the CPU die and heatsink, etc. How many times can I remove and replace the heatsink before I really have to worry?

Thanks

 

[TheRod]

AMD original thermal pad, will melt with heat, so you dan't have to worry about this issue. With heat and the pressure of the heatsink over the cpu. The thermal pad will melt to ensure a good contect between the heatsink and the CPU die.

If you want to make everything is working fine, install a temperature monitoring software like Motherboard Monitor, and check your CPU temperature in Windows. I run my Athlon 1800+ (Overclock at 2.0GHz) at 70 Celsius 24/7 for almost a year without problems.

--
Would you buy a potato powered chipset?

 

[Titanion]

No one here uses those pads... more stock AMD heatsinks are found modded to fit on GPUs rather than CPUs... and if an AMD stock heatsink does find its way into a CPU (like the stock Barton 2500+ heatsink on my 3rd computer with a Palomino 1900+), the pad is always removed first and replaced with a better thurmal paste... get a rasor and scrape that pad off... get some thurmal paste, even some cheap stuff will be better than the pad... if you think you messed up with the seating of your heatsink, do not take a chance... take it off, look at things, scrape the pad off, clean up the base of the heatsink and the die of the cpu, put a thin layer of paste on the die of the cpu, and gently put the heatsink back on...

*********************

But with that said, you are likely fine... if you are not going to overclock, the pad will be fine as well... I still might take it off and check things over... every time you do it you get a better feel for it... of course you also increase the chance of messing something up...

<font color=red><b>NF7-S/Mobile Barton 2600+
210x12.5 1.808v
1GB Corsair XMS PC3200
Sapphire 9500np@9700np</font color=red><font color=black>
NF7-S/Barton 2500+
200x11.5 1.76v
512MB XMS PC2700
XFX Ti4200<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Titanion on 04/16/04 11:34 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[GIPNOR]

If you aren't overclocking, the thermal pad is fine. For people who want to fine-tune their system, thermal paste can reduce their temps, but it's not necessary if you plan to run at stock speeds.

You want to make sure your heatsink is properly mounted and flush with the die. The thermal pad will take care of the rest with heat and pressure. Just make sure that the thermal pad is completely covering the die. If this isn't the case.... well hell, I can't think of anything <i>close</i> to a successful heatsink mount where the thermal pad doesn't cover the die, heh.

Pay close attention to your temps when you boot it up the first time. If you haven't done something right, your temps will get high fairly quickly. If something doesn't look right, shut down and double check. I've found AMD Athlon processors to be VERY resiliant, so if you pay attention to what you are doing, you should be fine.

Good luck!