CPU Installed without thermal grease - how bad is this? 1

[jacksondorado]

Hi,

I pulled my heatsink and fan out and the CPU can right with it. I did not use thermal grease when I first installed it. Now the CPU is stuck to the heatsink.

Can I remove it safely? It seems to be stuck on there pretty good.

 

[ImpetusEra]

Without anything to transfer heat I'd think it would have sizzled up? Perhaps it is actually attached to the heatsink with thermal tape. Run it a little to warm it up then gently pry it off the heatsink. To remount it make sure to clean the residue off both the processor and heatsink before applying thermal grease or thermal tape.

 

[mattjurado]

What kind of CPU is this? Some older AMD chips came with the heatsink glued on. However, sounds like you put the fan on yourself. Sooner or later, the chip will melt away at any of the thin "pad" on the bottom of the heatsink, and overheat, which will likely damage it. You should remove it carefully, but there is a chance that you could damage it in the process. My advice, carefully remove it. And I always recommend using Arctic Silver, the cheap white grease dries up.

Matt J.

 

[jacksondorado]

It is a new Pentium 4. This is the first system I am building myself and was testing how the cpu fit. I think the heatsink has tape on it. I'll be gentle trying to take it off but won't be able to buy grease until tomorrow.

much thanks.

 

[paparazi]

The retail fans come with a foil and black transfer substance attached, I shouldn't be too worried about your P4, they are very tollerant and have built in throttling (depending on model) so don't damage easily like AMD XP's
Just check your temp in the bios before panicing, anything below 65C is fine.
Carefully prize off the heatsink, preferably with something non metalic, thoroughly remove foil pad but just remember on larger die surfaces like the P4 has, don't put too much paste on as this can actually act as a barrier.
Martin


Replying helps further our knowledge, without comment leaves us wondering.

 

[zepper]

Tip: to remove heat sink, gently but firmly twist the heat sink relative to the CPU or other chip rather than pulling or prying. Most heat sink transfer substances have little shear strength relative to tensile strength.
.bh.


He who dares not offend cannot be honest. -- Thomas Paine.

 

[oldcomptrguy]

If it's a new P4, I wouldn't worry. It did come with heat transfer tape installed. Why remove it? It sounds like it has a good seal. As parparaz says, the P4 will shut down before it overheats. And once you break the seal, you will have to clean it all off, and use thermal grease. Using to much of that is as bad or worse than none at all.

 

[jacksondorado]

Thanks for the tips. I am going to leave the processor attached. One thing, though, how do I get the processor pins back into the motherboard. I can't lift up the lever now and lock in the pins because the big heatsink is attached now.

 

[oldcomptrguy]

If you got that CPU off without lifting the lockdown lever, I would think you did some sort of damage to the socket on the board. Better look that over pretty good.

 

[edfair]

You're not going to be able to leave the processor attached. You will have to remove it to get it reinstalled. The Pins may come out with pressure but they won't go back in.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[paparazi]

O I C!
Well unfortunately if you've pulled out the heatsink with the CPU attached you are going to have to seperate them.
Modern heatsinks are sooooo big that they cover the lever locking mechanism so it just has to come apart.
Try and spread the load with a lever either side, don't rush it! work it! slowly (sorry that sounds rude) :>)
a rotational back and forth movement is good but your gonna have difficulty exerting this method with the CPU out of socket.
Good luck!
Martin

Replying helps further our knowledge, without comment leaves us wondering.

 

[jacksondorado]

Just wanted to post the resolution to this problem I had.

I had to use channel lock pliers and a vise to get the CPU off the heatsink, but it worked and did not damage the p4.

I posted another thread asking for help because I wasn't getting the bios screen. It turned out that the RAM I was using was causing the boot failure. Although I was told at Fry's that PC2100 RAM would work, I had to get PC2700 to get the BIOS screen. I'm just waiting to install Windows. Maybe soon, I'll switch to Linux though...