My epic struggle (arctic silver plug)

Well, as some of you may have read on here, I have had nothing but trouble with my crappy PC Chips board and terribly high temperatures.

I got the board while still a newbie (obviously!) and althogh I eventually noticed that the core voltage was 1.86 by default (!!) I do not know if this was always the case.

Needless to say, 1.86 volts is not a good thing for a 1.2ghz T-bird that is not even being overlocked (nor is capable of being overclocked since the damn board doesn't support overclocking or voltage mods of any kind!)

After trying some no-name thermal compound (two different applications) and seeing worse and worse results of 135-140F (57-60C) I ordered some Arctic Silver 3.

Well today it arrived! After breaking down and washing/lapping my (also crappy) Dragon Orb and applying the AS3 I have instantly gone down to 109-111F (43-44C)!! The 72-200 hour burn-in has not even had 30 minutes taken out of it yet!

Bottom line: If you don't -- USE arctic silver. LAP your heatsink to 600 grit. You will be amazed!

My friend, I suspect your success had little to do with Arctic Silver and everything to do with lapping.

Inept said:

My friend, I suspect your success had little to do with Arctic Silver and everything to do with lapping.

Click to expand...

I agree. no way will AS3 improve temps by 29f
but good to see some luck going ur way.

Hmm, I didn't think lapping would be that great of a help. When I was done with the 600 grit it was definately smoother, as the tiny little parallel machining lines were gone, but there were still tiny scratches going every-which-way from my own circular lappings. There were also some *slightly* deeper scratches that were more apparent near the middle. This was because the sink was very hard to get a good grip on due to it's odd construction so the process did not go as smoothly as it could have.

After I rubbed the AS3 into the sink very well and wiped it off I could barely make out any scratch marks and the larger ones had disappeared totally. The sink was discolored a light green from the silver getting into the cracks apparently. In any case I am obviously pleased with my results.

*I discovered: that McDonalds coffee stir rods work great for applying the compound, and a piece of plexiglass from a picture frame is great when glass is not available for lapping on.*

I have no idea what type of TIM u used at first, but the difference between most generic's and AS3 is a few deg. F. No more.

Lapping, even just to get the lines out, I've personally seen amazing results!! Not sure exactly why, guess it has to do with minimizing air pockets and the amount of TIM the heat has to pass through. This must make a bigger difference than what you would intuitively think. I dunno.

Lap everything, right down to the northbridge cooler (static/active whatever) although, given your mobo, I guess it doesn't really matter.

Never stop modding, man!

1.86V by default?!?!? WTF?

I'll bet you're glad you checked that, huh?

If you think that's bad, my A7V133 RAID's Vcore is all over the place when set in the BIOS (fine with jumpers, though)

Plug for my thread: Asus A7V133 RAID Nightmare

N8

Well, I'm sure it was partly attributed to applying AS3 (although I'm sure lapping was responsible as well). I have seen tests where AS2 performs upto 8C better than generic thermal paste. This definitely accounts for part of the temp decrease.

i wonder how much psychology affects the application, and hence the results. i think ppl will apply less of the as3 as it's more expensive and be more prone to gooping on the cheaper stuff. this, of course, will make the cheaper stuff look a lot worse in comparison.