thermal pad or silver compound

[kenshindono]

quick question, my new mb/cpu should be coming in soon, an AMD 64 4000+ Should i use the thermal pad that comes with it or some silver compound? on my older pentium i tossed the pad but now im hearing they're actually usually a better choice

 

[endyen]

If you are not OCing, the pad is usually good enough. The TIM that intel uses is better than Amd's, but the Amd warranty requires you to use thier stuff. I always run it up and check temps with the stuff they send, just in case I get a bad chip.

 

[Scout]

I used my pad at first on my A64 just to make sure I didn't void the warranty till I made sure I had a good chip. Then I scraped it off and went to silver paste. It lowered the CPU temps just a couple of degrees... so that's about the difference.

You might get a bit more difference on a chip that fast... mine was a 2800+ but I had it overclocked.

Scout
700 Mflops in SETI!

 

[kenshindono]

so for now just use the pad eh.. how do i make sure i have a good chip? im replacing this because either my mb or old intel chip went bad so i want to make sure this ones good =P

 

[endyen]

To make sure your chip is good, join the folding team, and run the prog for a week @ 100% cpu usage. ( it will autodetect what you are doing, and hold cpu usage at 100% so it's a great burn-in prog)

 

[kenshindono]

yowza a week. isn't there an easier way?

hrm what program are you refering too

 

[Scout]

Like he said... just use it for a while and stress it out is the really the only way to make sure.

Scout
700 Mflops in SETI!

 

[endyen]

Just trying to get you to contribute to the team. Folding is a good stress test, but 24hrs will tell you if your chip will handle it. Even 1 hr will give a good indication.
You should know that a crash or two during burn-in is no big deal. The on die memory controler need a bit of a workin with the memory.