CPU Heatsink Question

Omlet · 24 Jun 2010

I was asked by a friend to help seat a new Arctic Cooling Freezer 64 Pro onto his AMD Phenom 9750 (same as me) CPU. While seating the heatsink, however, I found that I had to push incredibly hard just to get the thing to seat with the included brackets. I was afraid that I could potentially crack the MB, so I pushed it in tight but not to tight and screwed it in.

Upon inspection, I saw that the screws were just near the tip of the end, which could fail and cause the CPU to crash down upon the graphics card, etc.

Now, the heatsink also has some Intel screws that were a bit longer and have about the same thickness. I used those instead and the seating is much better. My question is am I supposed to use the AMD screws included? The CPU is around 42 degrees idle not overclocked. Could that temperature decrease if I were to use the correcr screws that were meant for that MB?

thefabe · 24 Jun 2010

IMO As long as the heatsink is secured and not overtightened and the intel screws are not to long as to make contact with the back of the case.
And you have applied just enough thermal compound to cover the contact (to much is never a good idea). .
42c idle is OK I would expect a little lower maynbe 3c at idle pending on your case air flow it might go down after a burn in time, in other words a few cycles of running the system and letting it cool and heating it up again. pending on the compound used.
I would suggest just keeping an eye on the temps for a few days and see where it levels out at idle and under load, but you should be OK. Fabe

Lordbob75 · 24 Jun 2010

Brand new thermal paste, as thefabe said, needs some burn in time (literally). In a few days it should drop a little bit.

~Lordbob

Omlet · 25 Jun 2010

Well, that particular heatsink was already pre-applied with Arctic Silver 5 which I've been told is one of the best out there. The BIOS reports temps at around 48 degrees while hardware monitor reports 43 degrees.

EDIT:
I'm now getting temps around 39. Hopefully after a few days I'll get a stable temperature.

Night Hawk · 25 Jun 2010

AS5 will tend to report higher temps during the first few days as the bonding process begins. It takes a full two weeks in most cases or some 200hrs. for AS5 to fully bond where the best heat transfer is realized.

The AMD retaining bar with a slide in piece at one end or one solid retainer bar is rigid to see lock at one end while pressing hard at the other in order to lock in place. That's typical there! The bar has to have the tension in order to hold the weight of the hsf inplace even after the paste has fully bonded to avoid it lifting off of the cpu when the case is upright.

archie123 · 26 Jun 2010

yep AS5 takes 200hrs

dont worry about your idle temps (as long as they aint too high obviously) run some benchmarks like prime 95 , custom cpu coolers often idle high but as the cpu core gets hotter the heatsink starts to pull the heat away quicker

for example my cpu idles at 38-43 depending on the weather , but after 10 passes of intel burn test on high it doesnt go over 63 degrees

Night Hawk · 26 Jun 2010

I've been PC Wizard 2010 very reliable for keeping track of temps lately. CPUID - System & hardware benchmark, monitoring, reporting

When clicking the temp gauge that shows the core temps as well as the main cpu temp and stays almost always the same as seen with a fast reboot to look at the hardware monitor in the bios.

I never trust any software 100% while Core Temp readings stay about the same with that as well. That lacks separate core temps readings and is more for dual core models however.