Thermal Grease Question

[Fetus]

Has anyone experienced issues where their thermal grease kind of umm.....lost its integrity? I have Artic Silver already on the chip and I wonder how long its good for. I’m debating if its a bad idea to use epoxy to glue my heatsink to my CPU now. Would using epoxy somehow mess up heat transfer? I was thinking of just putting a little on the outer parts of the CPU.

Also:
Is anyone here using an air-cooled peltier on an Athlon and having decent results?

Thanks!

[Intraveinous]

First off, to effectively peltier cool an athlon, you have to use 120+ watt peltier (higher the better, figure 1.5 to 2 times as many watts as your processor makes in heat). There are pretty much zero heatsinks that will dissapate that much heat.

As far as thermal grease losing integrity, I'm pretty sure it doesn't unless it's an EXTREME amount of time. Like, several years. Most of them say they have an "Unlimited Shelf Life" and most of the tests I've seen show no degredation. If you choose to epoxy, only do so on the outside ceramic part, but I'd recommend against it anyway...
Hope this helps, and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong
Peace
John

[Fetus]

Thanks for the info! It does help. I’ve been looking at some water-cooling systems. I see a few nice ones out there that I could use with a peltier. I'm tempted to buy one although it almost seems wrong not to build your own.

Check this out:
http://becooling.safeshopper.com/3/cat3.htm?812