Removing Thermal Pads

I have noticed that many of your opinions side greatly against using thermal pads that are furnished with heat sinks. Such as those that are on the heat sinks that come with CPU's.


My question is when a heat sink has a thermal pad affixed to it. Is there a right way to remove it, and what is the right way to remove it. So I can apply some thermal paste

 

I have scraped the thermal pad off of the each heat sink I have installed by following this procedure:
Heatsink
1 Using a PLASTIC pan scraper (fairly sharp edge) I scrape off what I can.
2 The remainder I soak/wipe off with acetone or GooGone using only a soft cotton cloth.
3 Clean off any remaining residue and buff heatsink with the cloth.

Processor (if the pad has already been used)
1 CAREFULLY scrape off any of the pad residue with broken Qtip.

I saw a 7 - 10 degree (F) improvement in temp when switching to grease on a setup that originally used a pad.

Good luck!

 

Just so that you know, most manufactures are voiding warranties to those who use the paste. There is a very good reason why they are spending extra money and furnishing you with the pad and not the paste

 

If you are not over clocking don't go with the paste. The thermal pad that is supplied is perfectly fine for a stock CPU. The only time you would need to use paste would be when overclocking, and in this case Arctic Silver is the best. It makes sense to use the thermal pad given. The processor companies want to make sure your computer chip lasts past the warranty period. It would be counter productive to use a method that was not perfect for the chip and cause lots of returns, therefore causing a loss in profit. The chip manufactures go through great lengths to make sure their heat sink and thermal pads do the job intended. I have never had an overheating problem on modern processors with a stock coolers yet, and I repair computers for a living. Just make sure the heatsink and fan are AMD or Intel certified and not just paired together by the retailer. If they both came in a brand labeled sealed box, then the odds are they are certified and fine.

 

AMEN!

I second that !

What most people don't know (and that the chip manufactures do) is that thermal paste often times becomes thermal GLUE