thermal grease

[soda911]

hi all i have a celeron2 600 it was overclocked to 900 but there was a lot of heat. I bought a larger fan heatsink combo but it didint make proper contact , so i wen back to the old one took off all the thermal grease put and back and now it wont boot 900 or at 750, was the theraml grease makeing so much difference. How much and whats the area that thermal grease should be applied.

Oh yeah when i put on the larger heatsink fan it chipped a tiny bit of the core, could that be the reason but it still runs fine at 600.

[Tim-]

Thermal compound can and will make that much difference. The cpu core should have a thin, uniform layer of thermal compound. Place a "paper match head" or so of compound in the center and seat the hsf with your hand. Press firmly and move it around a bit to spread it. This usually will give a thin coat over the whole core area.

[soda911]

Is the cpu core the whole chip or is it just the little box in the middle of the chip

[Tim-]

Just the little raised area on the center of the chip.