Dear John,
That is not tarnish. I specifically requested our factory to over solder the areas where heatpipes contacted fin and base to ensure 100 % conduction. And a little discoloration on copper from excess heat when soldering. If you want your SP-94 to be extremely shinny, you can use a little toothpaste with a small strip of cotton cloth and polish those area the way you polish dress shoes. The discoloration will not effect the thermal performance enough to be determine.(we are talking 0.00x °C/W, and that translate to 0.1~2°C on an extremely overclocked P4 3.0C at ~3.6GHz) Thank you for choosing Thermalright products.
Sincerely,
Jim Wei
Thermalright, Inc.