Somethin REAL basic.

[Ninja-Kreon2]

Well, I'm goin' for an A+ cert. with a friend of mine and I just need to know one simple thing:

How much thermal compound do you use when attaching a heatsink to a CPU (or any chip for that matter)?

[Ageek]

Amount about the size of a pinhead, then spread real thin and put on heatsink-- for new ones. For the ones the A+ talks about, the amount is a small dollop (lump about 1\6th the size of the metal plate in the CPU) which is again spread real smooth.

Think of the older CPUs, look at apicture of like an AMD K6-2 series (any one of those). The metal heatspreading plate on top get coveredwith a thin layer of compuond or a thermally conductive pad is used. The ones I work on-- there are a few-- from the older era get the pad removed and a small amount of Arctic Silver II or ThermalTake silver bearing paste. The new ones get better paste and very tiny amounts because only the little center core gets covered on Athlons that are not Opteron kinds of CPU (those have gone back to the metal heat-spreading plate) and thus should not be called Athlons. Pentium 4's are kinda like the K6-2's-- they get a thin layer of the better paste all over top of metal plate and NO thermal pad. Do not lap CPU top plate, either, only possibly bottom of heat sink if paste does not fill in tiny grooves (which is why paste is better, grooves make for air pockets which make for uneven cooling). Fill grooves with a conductive paste and you have more even cooling again.

Yes, you get to learn at least two sets of paste rules and relate to what CPU to know what answer to give. Look for answer that most closely looks like this logic for the CPU they talk about in question.

John Danielson.

[Ninja-Kreon2]

Alrighty, thanks for the info. I'm assuming the packages of Artic Silver or whatever compound will let me make a drop the size of a pinhead, right? Also, what's good to spread it around? I'm hoping you arn't going to say my finger :D Butter knife or something?

And do I cover the entire top part of the CPU or just the core?

Omg lol.. /mode #icrontic +newb Ninja-kreon2

[Matt]

for the amd xp cpu only the core is coverd for intel you cover all of the shim.

[ml_man]

Spread with a credit card or plastic untensil.

[Ninja-Kreon2]

Thanks guys :)

[Clutch]

Originally posted by ml_man
Spread with a credit card or plastic untensil.


the credit card trick works every time, and yes you will be able to apply a little dab with a tube of as3.

[Stranger]

Don't worry too much about thermal compound questions. Worry about knowing your printer types (dot matrix to laser), problematic symptoms, how to fix them and/or what to replace. Also know your cpu history (286 and up), their range in Mhz, # of transistors and dates. If you've been working with computer hardware for a while everything else is a cakewalk.

[Darkjedi]

heh, your asking about thermal compound for the A+? Time to buy a book. There may be one (most likely none) question about thermal compound. IMO the A+ tests are a joke. they worry to much about things you don't need to know, like how the CPU works and not enough about real life issues when if the field. You don't need to know transister or register count for a CPU, etc... it's not like your going to be taking the thing apart.

[Clutch]

I really think that Comtia needs to revise the A+ test IMHO. I mean seriously, some of the questions are not relevant to the every day questions that a tech sees at all. I didn't know that thermal compound questions were on the test myself. Also know your irq's and a lot about printers and how to boot into safemode, etc.. But just think once you pass it, you don't have to go get it re-issued to you.

[Ninja-Kreon2]

Originally posted by Darkjedi
heh, your asking about thermal compound for the A+? Time to buy a book. There may be one (most likely none) question about thermal compound. IMO the A+ tests are a joke. they worry to much about things you don't need to know, like how the CPU works and not enough about real life issues when if the field. You don't need to know transister or register count for a CPU, etc... it's not like your going to be taking the thing apart.

Not only for the A+. I'm planning on buying a new mobo/proc for this box come my 18th.