[SOLVED] Painting CPU cooler's heatsink

[Madhava2207]

I recently ordered a black Meshify C. In order to make the system seem uniform, I am considering to paint my CPU cooler's top black. I will not paint any other part like the top of the heat pipes and the fins. I use a Cooler Master Hyper 103. Will that make any difference in cooling performance? Also, will that difference be negligible?
I use an i5-7600 CPU.

 

[Madhava2207]

Thanks a lot to all of you! I will try using a removable paint layer like Bearmann and cryoburner advised me. I will let you all know after I test them out. Probably a week later.

 

[tennis2]

I can't believe this thread. Just tape off the rest of the fins and spray Rustoleum on that sucker.

There are 38 fins. If you paint one side of one fin with FLEX SEAL!! that's only 1.5% reduction in cooling surface area.

 

[Darkbreeze]

LOL. This just gets better with every post.

Yeah, do NOT put Flex Seal on your CPU cooler. Seriously? Let's keep it within the realm of believability.

In reality, it's a Hyper 103. Get some rubber vacuum caps, put them over the top of the ends of the heat pipe, tape off the fins and shoot it any rattle can high temp flat black paint, since it seems we insist on doing it anyhow. I'd recommend against gloss, because every single fingerprint is going to show up, and every spec of dust.

I really don't advise it, but it's not a high end cooler anyhow and you're probably not overclocking so I guess it doesn't really make that much difference compared to the configurations I'm used to advising against this type of thing on.

 

[tennis2]

flex seal was an exaggeration to imply that side of the fin would be reduced to zero heat dissipation. If you use spray paint, the fin will still conduct heat, just not as well as bare aluminum.

 

[Madhava2207]

https://imgur.com/a/o7tuUg5

Painted the heatsink. No or negligible difference in the temperatures. I used the same thermal paste (Noctua NT H1), which was applied in the same manner as the previous configuration.

 

[Darkbreeze]

It's not surprising, so long as you don't paint the heat pipes there shouldn't be any difference in temp from painting only one fin that would be measurable. Painting the heatpipes would likely have resulted in something a little different though.

 

[tennis2]

Why's that? The heat pipes transfer their heat internally until they interface with a fin (you physically can't get paint into the interface). By the time the heat pipes poke through the top fin, they're effectively cooled anyway. Even if we want to assume they aren't, the amount of surface area you're painting on the top nub of the heat pipes is as negligible as the top half of the fin that was painted.
... unless you were insinuating the OP was going to paint the heat pipes below the fin stack (which I didn't see mentioned)

 

[Darkbreeze]

You are a contrary, argumentative individual in every thread I see you in. Sometimes maybe you should just not say anything at all. I already posted the process about how a heat pipe works, if you are unable to comprehend the nature of the processes involved then I don't know what to tell you. Lets just leave off. The OP has done his thing, all is well, further discussion is unnecessary.