what happens if I put TOO much heatsink compound onto a athlon chip?

[andrewdna]

I cant get my mobo to work, I think it may be that I have too much compound (it spilled into the bridges of the cpu) pass the cpu die. What happens if I put too much on the top of the cpu die and into the bridges?

[Darthgary]

If thermal compound gets on the CPU's bottom then it will fry.

[andrewdna]

no, it didnt spill out of the cpu chip, just spreaded into the bridges.

[NDC]

Nothing.. it will just not cool properly...

[Brangwen]

Andrewdna:

What kind of compound are you using? Curious whether it is electrically conductive or (hopefully just) good for heat transferance.

If a grease like Artic Silver, RadShack, etcetera is applied too thinkly to the die, the temps will get unhealthy. Clean it off, then break an old credit card in half (for example) and place a drop or so of the grease in the center of the CPU die. (That's the little square area that contacts the heatsink.) Then spread the grease or compound thin enough that it is covered but you will still be able to (just) see through it. Kind of like holding your hand up to a light and you can sort of see the light through the skin webbing between your thumb and forefinger. Compund is only to fill in the the minute imperfections in the die to insure a good flat on flat even contact between the two metal surfaces (CPU die and HS). This facilitates optimum heat transfer from the die to the HS, as though they were one continous piece of metal.

Good luck.

Brangwen

[andrewdna]

I bought it from radio shack, it's just heatsink paste

[RicheemxX]

this question is in relation to this thread http://www.techimo.com/forum/t81687.html and no i don't believe that this would cause your computer to no boot, and even if you did somehow manage to fry the cpu it would power up the first time and then fry. It wouldn't just not power on. Your best bet is to pull the mobo out of the case and set it on a non-conductive surface place only the needed cards and a single stick of ram and try to boot from there.

[tazman1937]

NON CONDUCTIVE SURFACE!! I fried a mobo about 2 months agho by trying to boot it while it was resting on a metal surface. BAD NEWS!

taz

[jesseejames]

set on box(clean cardboard no metal foil), minimum of components ,make sure all connections are good--clean off cpu and only apply thin (see through) coating of compound(I use a plastic razor blade-wonderful useful thing--to spread it out with) and try again unless you got compound into the mobo it should work

[andrewdna]

thanks folks. i scraped it off with a credit card and reapplied sparingly, also grounded the mobo. it boots! so i think it was b/c there was a little contact with the case, due to a stray screw underneath!