Really great post. I think this should maybe be copied into the review section or something.

I second that.

great photos, made it clear as day. i had done all this stuff on desktop pcs before but was reluctant to do it on a "desknote" such as my 4780. upon opening it, i was a bit disheartened to find out that my heatsink is around 1/2 the size of yours... the other "half" of the duct is taken up by this little black box.. i dont know what it is. it would really be great if they could fully extend that heatsink so i wouldnt have to worry about this thing getting so hot i got it all apart, cleaned the goo off (quite a pain) applied my last scrapings of as3, bolted it all together, and prayed while i booted. so far so good.

Sticky anyone?

Great post! Having done this some myself, I have a couple of things to say. These fall into the realm of personal preference, and should be taken as such.

I use Goof-Off to clean the thermal paste off of the heat sinks. I find that it works a lot faster (and better) than rubbing alcohol. You need to be careful, however, and make sure that you are not using an oil-based cleaner! (I think Goof-Off is a Xylitol based cleaner, but I might be sniffing too much Goof-off.) To be safe, you should probably limit yourself to either rubbing alcohol or Goof-Off.

Also, I have used both plastic baggies and saran-wrap (plastic wrap) to spread the AS around. I like the saran-wrap better because it fits my finger better (more tightly), and provides more tactile feedback (think big mitten versus thin glove).

To use saran-wrap, tear off a bit of saranwrap, place your index finger in the middle of it, pull up the edges, and clamp them with your thumb and middle finger. Just be careful not to touch the outside surface of the wrap! (If people want a picture, I'll see what I can do - it's really quite simple and, when you do it, natural.)

Lens paper can also be used to remove the excess AS, but it does not work as well as the lint-free cloth.

Again, this is a great post! These are just slightly different manners to accomplish the exact same thing. Do what works best for you.

Good tips LeF'. I have yet another vote for a STICKY! It would be nice to keep all the big and little fixes near the top of the pond. The number of times I've seen folks kind enough to repeat yet again how to do an OS reinstall, how to flash the BIOS, how to clean fans, yada yada yada. Santa, may we have a STICKY for Christmas?

thanks for the excellent post gf. i did my 8890 with arctic silver 5 ($7.95 for a 3.5 gram tube). took about 40 minutes, of which about 30 was spent cleaning off the old thermal paste - especially the glue that was used to secure the pad to the heat spreader. i was surprised at how much dust had accumulated on the heat sink after only two months. i plan on checking and cleaning it about every three months or so from now on.

here is a link to the arctic silver site. pretty much the same info as gf has given us.

http://www.arcticsilver.com/arctic_s...structions.htm

so far, after a few hours of use, the fan kicks in about half as much as it did previously. i did notice that, judging from the amount of the original thermal paste on the cpu, there was only about 20% contact between the thermal pad and the cpu. i would not have tried this had it not been for gf's instructions.

This guide by artic silver seems to suggest that the paste in the middle of the cpue and then applying the heatsink on top and wriggling is the way to go for the P4 - any thoughts? Is it even possible to wriggle 5680's heatsink?

The wiggling to remove air bubbles is a great idea, but I can't remember if my heatsink had any "wiggling room" or not...I remember it's a pretty tight fit. On the other hand, I didn't actually try to wiggle it so I can't say for sure.

Just thought I would give people a rundown on my results from this. I used Dynex silver because Arctic was all out at my local store. Before the application of the thermal paste my machine would start at around 42/3 degrees - it would then climb slowly up to around 46/47 at which stage the fans would kick in. After the paste (I did not lap the heatsink - also I probably used a little too much paste because to me wiping the heatsink clean just looked so wrong - I did it but left a little more on the cpu than perhaps I could have) my computer now stays pretty much 42/43 idle and does not climb at all while idle. That is a HUGE improvement in my opinion - 5-4 Deg C cooler running means that my fans are not constantly kicking in to cool the machine.

Thanks G money - without this guide I never would have done this I am sure.

Oh and PS: A credit card is good for getting the thermal pad off but for spreading the compound I found a thin guitar plektrum to be the shizniz

Sticky Bump Sticky Bump Sticky Bump Sticky Bump!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

To everyone who has given insights into alternate methods of doing this project, these are very helpful and convenient for a person who might not have the exact materials that I specified in my guide. They are all great ideas, so thank you for adding them!

Congratulations to everyone who has done this and seen great results. It really does make a difference. Not only that, but the knowledge you gain is priceless. If only one person had done this project and succeeded, I still would've been happy.

i ordered some arctic silver 5 to replace the arctic silver 3 i used on the core. i read that it lowers load temps over FIVE degrees celsius and idle temps over four degrees... when the system gets as hot as this, i will take that improvement gladly. now, all they need to do is improve the cooling of the hard drive, video core, and the cdrom

Just out in interest - what are peoples idle and load temps - mine are basically 42 C idle and 51-53 C load.

how would i find out? you cant use the tempgauge on the 47XX series far as i know. all i know is it gets warm.