Copper Shims and Thermal Paste

[powderman87]

I hear through a friend that copper shims and thermal paste cause CPU's to overheat and burnout. I'm building a comp with an xp 1900+. I can believe that copper shims tend to build up heat, but i can't imagine thermal paste hindering the cooling in any way. Let me know what you guys think, I'm pretty new at this. I'll have a few experience friends helping me with the build though.

[Zazuk]

I have read post here about people saying I fried my cpu, the shim got out of place when I was putting on my heat sink or the shim shorted out on one of the bridges and if you are using ASII it just added to the shorting out of stuff.

I guess what I'm trying to say is if you use a shim be CAREFUL.

[Yodums]

I never heard that one.

But if it is true it doesn't seem to happen very frequent ...

The only time I heard the CPU burning out because of the shim was when the shim was bent, thus the heatsink didn't make contact.

Shouldn't be a problem I don't see how thermal paste interferes as they are both in the same side, unless your talking about when you rub the thermal compound on the heatsink and whats left over when you wipe it off...


Yodums

[ButcherUK]

Shims are pointless anyway, and yes copper shims can cause you to short the bridges if they don't fit your cpu properly. As for thermal paste, it's fine unless you slap like half a pot on at once, a thin layer on the core is perfectly safe.

[powderman87]

Thanks a lot everyone for your quick responses. I got the shim for free with the heatsink/fan. It looks EXTREMELY similar to ones I've see sold for the XP, but no exactly. What are the advantages of using the shim, and do you think it's worth it to use the one I got? Thanks again.

Mike

[The Overclocker]

Originally posted by ButcherUK
Shims are pointless anyway, and yes copper shims can cause you to short the bridges if they don't fit your cpu properly. As for thermal paste, it's fine unless you slap like half a pot on at once, a thin layer on the core is perfectly safe.

pointless?

i have a broken cpu de the the fact that i thought shims were pointless, inow have which does not conduct much heat yet works well

[donny_paycheck]

A shim composed of a dielectric such as mica is a good idea if you're nervous, but I've never cracked a core before (knock on wood). I've put some insane pressure on CPUs before too. Plycon sells some of these (http://www.plycon.com/spacers.htm) mica shims. Anodized aluminum is also non conductive for all practical purposes, but if you're worried then I'd go with a dielectric. As for thermal paste, not much is required but there really is no such thing as too much. Excess will be displaced by the clamping pressure of the heat sink/cold plate and even AS2 supposedly isn't electrically conductive enough to pose a problem, although you should still keep it away from the bridges and surface mounted components on a CPU if they're there.

[Satch]

Question: Is it true that copper heatsinks are heating more and faster that the usual alluminium heatsinks?

So if that is true then you need a bigger fan to cool them down?

And if you use a bigger fan (7200rpm) to cool them why not just
stay loyal to those alluminium 7200RPM Globalwin (46.5 Dcb) heatsinks?

[donny_paycheck]

Originally posted by Satch
Question: Is it true that copper heatsinks are heating more and faster that the usual alluminium heatsinks?

So if that is true then you need a bigger fan to cool them down?

And if you use a bigger fan (7200rpm) to cool them why not just
stay loyal to those alluminium 7200RPM Globalwin (46.5 Dcb) heatsinks?

Copper is more dense than aluminum so it has more mass to it, so the heat sinks warm slower than aluminum versions. As for a fan, bigger is better in either case. The necessary airflow depends on the load on the heat sink. The more heat you want to dissipate, the bigger a fan you should use.