• Welcome to Overclockers Forums! Join us to reply in threads, receive reduced ads, and to customize your site experience!

Is my boss wrong???

Overclockers is supported by our readers. When you click a link to make a purchase, we may earn a commission. Learn More.
Chris-the dude

Chris-the dude

Member
​
Joined
Feb 10, 2002
Location
Chicago burbs
I really wanted call the subject: Is my boss a dumbass??, but I refrained.

So I was at work yesterday, building a new PC for one of our customers. Its a P4 1.6 GHz machine with an intel B845 something motherboard. My boss comes over to "show me how to mount the HSF". Now keep in mind I've done this before on my Athlon XP rig, so its not a big deal. The HSF has one of those black thermal pads on the bottom, so I'm like ok, looks like we don't need any thermal grease. Then he tells me I'm supposed to use thermal grease and the pad to ensure heat transfer. And I'm like WHAT??? Where did you hear that? And secretly I'm thinking "The overclocker.com forum goers would laugh at you for saying that".

As far as my experience has been, those black thermal pads are crap to begin with. Besides that, you're only supposed to use thermal pads or grease, not both. He also said that he's always done it this way and never had any problems, so there is some merit in that.

Anyways, I'd just like to hear the truth from the experts, and I'd also like to be able to call my boss an idiot behind his back :-D So let me know what you think!

Chris
 
when not oc'ing and not using athlons you're very unlikely to run into problems that you'd notice if you use the pad AND grease.. with k6-2's and other that time prosessors it really didn't matter too much how you planted the heatsink unless you were going to do some oc'ing..

and with p4's throttling and all it's very very unlikely that he would have seen any problems that he could have guessed to be because of the hsf.. he could be complaining that his gfx card is crap and stutters on video tho!
 
adding greese to a pad is only gonna make the temps raise even higher than with just a pad.... your boss is an idoit:p
 
one interface (pad or grease etc) not two. He is incorrect in using both...as to being an idiot...that can't be determined from this one mistake but could be part of a larger assessment.
wj
 
your boss is wrong,

thermal paste and pads are only there to fill the tiny dents and groves in the heatsink and cpu die/ casing the idea is not to creat a gap filled with anything.

that is why thermal pads dont work as well - they cover all of the cpu not just the gaps.
 
i cringe at the sight of thoose pads

they are crap to begin with adding thermal grease to it will just make a bad situation worse,

your boss should be bagging my groceries
 
You can. It wouldn't be smart, but you can. From an overclockers standpoint, it wouldn't be smart seeing as how CPU temperatures are important. For an average consumer, I doubt they would care for how hot the CPU runs. As longs as it's stable, it's good to go
 
that's funny, he sais use both and he's a boss? I think you should take his job, and you should start telling him what to do. I'm hoping you show him these posts. LOL
 
yah, he's totally wrong. He obviously does not fully understand what that pad or paste is really there for.

But he's still your boss, so that makes him right :D

My philosophy is, "Never argue with the guy that signs your paycheck"! :D
 
In the grand scheme of building a computer for your average user, it doesn't matter. You'll have more problems stemming from bad airflow than the fact that you have thermal grease and a pad on there.

the overclocker said:
that is why thermal pads dont work as well - they cover all of the cpu not just the gaps.
Click to expand...

Grease covers the whole CPU, too.

The pads don't work well cause they're made out of wax or something. They have horrible thermal conductivity.
 
Thelemac said:
In the grand scheme of building a computer for your average user, it doesn't matter. You'll have more problems stemming from bad airflow than the fact that you have thermal grease and a pad on there.



Grease covers the whole CPU, too.

The pads don't work well cause they're made out of wax or something. They have horrible thermal conductivity.
Click to expand...

sorry, i may not have written it well, i meant that using a thermal pad puts a barrier between the cpu and the heatsink, and that thermal paste only goes in ther places that does not touch the heatsink, the rest is squezed out so parts of the cpu touch the heatsink.

however some thermal pads are good, aspparently the pad on the thermo engine was better then AS, i never go to test it though because i ahd already scraped it off, the reson it worked well was because it was a phase change one that thinned out to make a better thermal bond when it was heated.
 
I had a feeling you meant that it was creating a barrier...but when the CPU heats up, doesn't the pad "melt" into place? So over time it would get squeezed out and only fill in the gaps?

Now don't get me wrong, I am by NO means a thermal pad fan!!!

Infact, every thermal pad should be scraped off ON SIGHT!

Tell you boss to let you take the extra time to scrape them off. Then for 5 bucks you can buy a nice big tube of silicon thermal paste (just like comes in the blister packs), and put grease on them from now on. Its just a better solution in the long run, and those tubes can do ALOT of cpu's and only cost like 3-5 bucks. (I'm not talking AS size tubes here...I got a 20g tube for like 3 bucks)

Now Speeze/Spire/Fanner tech (whatever they wish to be called!) got some credit from me. THey had thermal pads and poorly finished bases on their Superrock HSF's, but now they have mirrorlike bases and preapplied thermal grease.

I still wipe that off, but its plain to tell its some type of grease, not a pad. It wipes off wtih a paper towel...

Mike
 
ROFL, 12 Replies in the span of just a few hours! Well, I am very delighted to know that I know more than my boss on the subject :-D

I don't think I'll be showing him this thread since I made some derogatory comments towards him in my initial thread, although I am contemlplating showing it to some co-workers :)

Thanks for the replies people. Right now I feel pretty proud to be a part of these forums:cool:
 
Yes, your boss is a dumbass. Every site that I've been on always stresses not to have both grease and pad. And your boss has been doing this for everyone? :eek:
 
yes, he's done this for all the P4 machines he's built. Don't let me give you the wrong impression however- He doesnt sell a whole lot of machines. I'd guess less than 15 P4's in the last year, and they all go to business clients. Besides that, we warranty all machines for three years. I'll make sure the grease/pad combo doesn't happen again though ;-)

Chris
 
You might want to try and sorta act suprised the next time the subject is up and say something like "Oh! Well, I just read a few reviews of cooling and stuff, and they say that you should only have one or the other." Kinda leave it open ended so that he could possibly go and look into it himself. I think it would be better to enlighten him, and have him doing things right instead having more unproperly cooled systems out there in the world.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Pepi93
Replacing thermal paste/pads in new notebook?
Replies
15
Views
771
ihrsetrdr
ihrsetrdr
W
YOTTAMASTER 20Gbps enclosure review.
Replies
0
Views
850
wade7575
W
Voodoo Rufus
eVGA 1080Ti Kingpin rehabilitation
Replies
10
Views
733
Zerileous
Zerileous
N
Poor memory clocks caused by TG contact frame?
Replies
9
Views
757
nstgc
N
Railgun
AM5/Zen4 is pretty limited
Replies
11
Views
1K
freeagent
freeagent
Back