You may have the worlds most kick-ass, zillion finned heatsink, forged from the purest copper by the Cupric-DwarfLords, shinily squashed inside (sorry O/C'ers don't have an actual inside as the covers are always left off) your multi-terra hertz system. But if you applied the paste wrong, you might as well have a £5 cheapo HS.

 ------------------------- Thermal Paste Traps Heat! -------------------------

S'true, thermal compound be it Arctic Silver or 24 carat Gold paste, is not as efficient at Xferring heat, *which will always pass from a hotter body to a cooler body* * 1st Law of thermodynamics.

1) Put the paste on, ensure it covers all the HS area that will touch the CPU face.

2) Do NOT put paste on the CPU.

3) Get a credit card and do your damndest to get it all back off again using only the flat side of the card. This will ensure the paste only fills the indentations of your HS. Now paste is far better t Xferring heat than air, look at wall cavity insulation.

4) Place the HS on the chip, fasten it down. Now gently (very gently) rotate the HS in a circular arc, it may only move 2 or 3 millimeteres or so, do this half a dozen times to ensure a proper spread of paste.

Voila! Voici ... whatever - Jobs a good 'un. Now go and tweak it till it melts (mine did, honest - but that's another story)

-- Edited by HippyWarlock at 14:30, 2004-08-15