[geeks] Heat sink on a P3

[Joshua Newton]

On Tue, 26 Feb 2008 15:23:27 -0500, "hike" <mh1272 at gmail.com> said:
> On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 2:11 PM, Joshua Boyd <jdboyd at jdboyd.net> wrote:
> 
> > The fan died on a P3 I use for serving music and other miscellenous
> > storage.
> >
> > I bought a new fan/heatsink combo at a local computer shop.  The new
> > heatsink seems a little loose, meaning that I can slide it around a
> > small amount even though the clip is on it.  It does have silicone
> > thermal paste between the die and heatsink.
> >
> > My question is should it conduct heat well enough even though it isn't
> > massively tight like other heatsink clips I've dealt with (like the one
> > I took off, or the ones on the P4s at work).
> 
> 
> the heatsink should be tight against the cpu.
> a loose heatsink will not conduct heat as it should or as is needed.

Seconded.  You should have a very, very thin (<= 0.1mm) layer of goo
between the heatsink and the CPU.  Thermally conductive gel is actually
pretty terrible at conducting heat, but it's better than the thousands
of tiny air gaps you end up with if you *don't* use it.  Any place where
the heatsink is compressed tightly enough to make direct metal-to-metal
contact with the CPU-- that's a good thing.  Just don't crush your CPU,
especially if it's a recent enough P3 to be in FCPGA packaging.

If you're having trouble finding a Socket 370 / Socket A heatsink unit
that clamps tightly enough, you might consider keeping the old heatsink,
giving it a good rinsing to get the baked-on dust out of it, and
replacing the fan.  <plug>You can get loads of fans, fan adapters
(80mm->60mm and the like) and other cooling gear in all shapes and sizes
for cheap at svc.com.</plug>  I don't work there, but I've been doing
occasional business with them for the last five years-- any time I need
small parts for cheap that NewEgg will screw me out of lots of S&H on. 
If you'd prefer a complete sink/fan product, SVC still sells a very few
units at http://www.svc.com/soca4cool.html -- all of which are probably
going to be tremendous overkill for a P3, no matter what age or speed. 
But that's okay: they'll keep your P3 really, *really* cool.  They're
pretty big; consider taking measurements if you think there's a chance
they'll overlap cards, board components, or whatever; or maybe just
stand too high inside the case.

And, if you're using the cheap white silicone goo, you may want to
consider getting a syringe of some of the "performance" stuff for a few
bucks.  There's a tiny delta in actual thermal transfer performance, but
the heat from a faster P3 will eventually (at least months, maybe
longer) bake the oil out of the cheap goo and leave you with a white,
crumbly brick that impedes thermal transfer.  I recommend Arctic Alumina
(ceramic particles; not aluminum-- I have no idea) for easy clean-up. 
But anything cheap and "performance" should do.  One of the small
syringes should be fine; a little of that stuff goes a very, very long
way.

As a last resort, I think I have one or two S370/SA heatsinks I might be
willing to part with for a small sum.  I'd have to check my parts bins.