[michinmuri]

Has anyone ever tried or thought of using solder as thermal paste? I know that it would a pretty permanent bond between the CPU and heatsink but wouldn't it be a better heat transfer than using paste? I'm thinking of doing it for giggles.

 

[michinmuri]

I just read in wiki that even the lower ones melt at like 430F. They should work and without damaging the CPU. I did some reasearch before asking this seemingly "dumb" question.

 

[michinmuri]

kewl. is there any evidence that it works better than, say, AS5?

 

[michinmuri]

Well, I guess I need to look at the heat transfer rate of certain solder mixes and the transfer rate of AS5 and all that. They also have some solders that contain silver, but the melting points are very high, but some have been made that are low. I bet that kind is very expensive.

 

[michinmuri]

Quote:

Originally Posted by CoolerMasterD You live in Lexington! ZOMG!

Nothing special about that, other than if you also live here, it's obviously a small world. I actually met someone on here that I was in band and graduated with.

 

[michinmuri]

Quote:

Originally Posted by TEntel At least on person on this forum has taken a heatgun to his CPU in order to reflow the solder under the IHS.

I don't wanna go that far (I think.) I just want better conductivity than paste, and was thinking maybe solder would be a good bet even if permanent.

 

[michinmuri]

CPU and heat sink are lapped down to copper, so the transferance of heat between those two surfaces will be better than stock. Just wanted to get some opinions/facts to see if it would work better than AS5 andt he like due to it being a liguid versus a paste.

003, I will use liquid pro in my next build, that will not be so permanent. This one I may give to a friend soon and could care less if the heat sink and CPU are (mostly) permanently attached.

 

[michinmuri]

Here's this...

http://www.indium.com/documents/appl...otes/98104.pdf

Looks like indium is the way to go, but not sure where to get it or how much it is.

As for adding the solder; carefully. My vision is toget the CPU as close to the liquid solder as possible, then when it sems like the right time to place it, drop it on there, but use gloves and goggles for protection against a potential splash. Also, just like grease, only a rice or pea sized bit will be needed.

As for the cooler, why would I want to reheat the solder? Oh, I think I see what you mean. It's hard to close the little lever on the CPU lock on the mobo with a hulking cooler on it. I guess you could put the CPU in the socket, drop a small amount of solder on there and then put the cooler on. This might be the only problem with this method.

 

[michinmuri]

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Duke This lends a new meaning to "I pulled my CPU out of the socket with the HS"

I do this all the time. Not sure how to when you (unfortunately) apply too much grease. It becomes more like glue than thermal compound.

Also, look at this...

http://www.indium.com/TIM/

possibly an enthusiasts dream.

 

[michinmuri]

unfortunately no. Don't have the money yet, and I want to get more research. Also, I'd like to get a better heatsink (lapped TRUE possibly) and lap the CPU a bit more. Since lapping I've actually gotten a stable OC of 3GHz, which was my goal when I built this thing. I've gotten it to about 3.15 GHZ, but of course wasn't stable in windows. Also, I might want to track down a 5000+ BE before I do this, just to see how far I can push it. If I get this new job I am loking at, I'l be building something new, but for 4-6 months. Gonna wait for a Deneb BE that has a good stepping. Once I get this done I'll post some stuff.

 

[michinmuri]

One thought of mine was to actually use some sort of drill (possibly have some enigineeer-type person to use a CNC machine) to groove out about a 1mm deep hole (in the shape of the CPU IHS) so the HS will actually cover the sides of the IHS a bit.

Also, anyone have recommendations on what cooler to use? I'm sure my current one will work but if I am goign to do this right I wanna see how far I can drop these temps. With a simple lap job and some diamond-based thermal paste versus AS5, I've gotten my FSB up about 6 clicks, which put me @2.99 Ghz on the CPU and 499MHz on the RAM. I know the RAM can go up to roughly 530 before becoming unstable, so I want to make sure I can get the best solder and HS available so I can keep my CPU from being he bottleneck. Here's some stuff I've been looking at. Anyone of these seem lke a great choice, or does someone else have a better option? I do prefer the ones that have the copper pipes where they will touch the CPU, and would like the base to be as small as possible in order to avoid conflict wih the lever that locks the CPU in place. Also, 4-pin fan connector. Anywho...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835202005

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835887016

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...2E16835185046R

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835106075

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835154002

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835202004

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835233014

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835202007

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835101010

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835101022

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835101017

 

[michinmuri]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Goolash How about this: remove the IHS, using a heat gun if it was soldered on (imbed the pins in something that won't melt, so the pins won't desolder and fall off, also be careful not to bump it, or you will spend some time re-soldering the capacitor banks around the cpu itself), then give the heatsink and the CPU to someone who has access to a solder reflow oven (such as myself), along with the purest silver solder paste you can find, and they can sandwich a very fine layer of the solder paste between the CPU and the heatsink base, rub it around, etc, to work the solder paste into the imperfections, just like you would with thermal paste, and run it through the reflow oven. Voila, your fancy heatsink is now your IHS, too, and the capacitors, which filter the power supply to the CPU will now be open to air, which will keep them cooler when you're overvolting the bejeezers outta the poor thing. Better yet, while you have everything apart, look up the part number printed on the top of the capacitor banks, find the spec sheet, and order replacements with a higher voltage tolerance. Come to think of it, if the stock IHS is already soldered to the CPU, it probably would be rather tricky. CPUs are connected to their circuit board using little balls all along the underside of the chip, meaning the slightest bump during removal of the IHS could create solder shorts all over the place. And if that happens, well, some few of us (the same ones with access to a reflow oven, probably), could possibly remove it and try to clean off all the solder, then reapply solder paste to each of the hundreds of tiny little solder pads, and then, -maybe- manage to realign the chip by hand before running it through the oven, but I imagine it would be pretty tough to do by hand. The solder paste they apply at the factory is probably microns thick, and applied by robots in a hermetically sealed room, or some such.

Sounds interesting. One day I'll get to this. My taxes are going to help me pay off about 4-5 credit cards, so spare change is in the horizon.