Newbie OC/Cooling questions

[MadHatter]

I have a couple of questions about cooling when overclocking a video card. I've never overclocked a piece of hardware before, mostly been afraid behind having it burst into flames and destroyed do to overclocking it. I have a GeForce2 MX, could someone please help me with these:

1. For 8 bucks I can buy a Blue Orb HSF. However, I couldn't help but notice that the fan would require a power-source. There is no such connection on the eVGA GeForce2 MX board, and it looks like the only connection type on the mobo for that is been used up by something else. How do you guys work around this?

2. Do I need to apply that thermal-adhesive on to the video processor, even though the HSF "clamps" down through two holes on the outer edges of the video processor? Does the thermal-adhesive provide a better way of transfering heat off of the processor and on to the heatsink, or will having the two metals touch be sufficient?

 

[MadHatter]

Also a third question....

3. I read some suggestions about RAM heat-sinks, to simply make some by cutting a bigger heat-sink into smaller pieces. What sort of equipment do you guys use to achieve this?

 

[ejsmith2]

1. Some solid core 22-gauge wire and some tape.
2. Use anything except nothing for gel. Silicone at radio-smack will work;AS is better.
3. Use a sawz-all, dremel, jigsaw, hacksaw, rotozip, torch.

Have fun.

 

[MadHatter]

"1. Some solid core 22-gauge wire and some tape."
Umm... what do I do with this? :-/

"2. Use anything except nothing for gel. Silicone at radio-smack will work;AS is better."
I don't know what 'AS' is. I shouldn't get gel then? Also... I still don't know, what purpose does the thermal adhesive serve?

 

[ejsmith2]

The wire is to connect the fan to your power supply. The AS is arctic silver. The thermal adhesive is just an epoxy form of arctic silver. You can make it yourself (more or less; probably a little less) with some arctic silver and a drop of superglue.