Shims on Athlon XP

This is exactly why I'm a fan of the Thermosonic Thermoengine, this heatsink channels heat from the core through the "dead zone" of the fan's airflow, and then radiates the heat to fins located directly in the airflow created by the fan. I also like how the design allows air to circulate around the edges of the CPU core that's not in contact with the heat sink.

Personally, I think that with as hot as these CPU's run, they should have a "cold plate" installed on the core by the manufacturor for better heat dissipation, and more surface area contact with the heatsink.

Do you guys do any research??

Just a really curious question... Ok the copper shim is good for a few things:

1) It prevents you from cracking the core with tight heatsinks.

2) DONT EVER... EVER... EVER... put thermal paste on your ceramic part of the cpu... ESPECIALLY if you are using Arctic Silver or any paste that is conductive. You WILL fry your cpu. The ONLY thing the paste should go on is your core. (the little thing that rises up from the center of your cpu). Its a BAD BAD BAD thing when bridges get connected that shouldn't be!

3) Don't say using a copper shim doesn't help conduct heat away from your cpu, when I installed mine, my idle temp dropped 2 degrees because it made my heatsink LEVEL. The copper shim helps to create MORE spring tension on the heatsink, causing a tighter fit with NO GAPS. The whole point of the shim is to keep your heatsink LEVEL on the CORE so the WHOLE CORE touches the heatsink. Used properly with arctic silver instead of the crappy thermal tape that comes with most heat sinks or with the regular white non conductive paste can drop your cpu temps by up to 10 degrees. When I switched to this combo, it did on my system, and according to the rest over the gang at overclockers cafe, it does for them too...

Couple of notes for people changing the heatsinks for the first time: Always use Arctic Silver I, II, or III depending on your preference, it is waaaaay better than the white paste. 2) Always shine a flashlight UNDER your heatsink from all sides to make sure there is NO space between your heatsink and the core... If there is space, the core doesn't conduct heat to the heatsink effectively. If there is space, it is usually because your clips on your heatsink are BENT and a SHIM fixes this, it keeps your heatsink LEVEL. Bottom line, if you crack your core when using your shim, you are an *****. Nothing personal, but do you know how much force that would take?? If you do something like that, you should really NOT be playing around inside your computer... Chances are 1 person installing a heatsink can't put that much torque on the cpu while holding the heatsink with one hand and securing the clip with the other! BTW: When installing a heatsink, always leave your computer in the final position it will be in when you are done... If you keep your box verticle, and unless you have a server, chances are your box is taller than it is wider... That way it doesn't shift position when you lift it up. Plus, you just can't put that much pressure to crack the core when you have one hand on the backside of your mobo to keep it standing upright and the other trying to secure the clip...

Lets see, to buy a new XP+2000 cpu is about $246 according to www.pricewatch.com if you screw up when changing your heatsink... The price of a shim, $4.95... Seems like more than a fair price to FEEL SAFE when changing your heatsink. Lets face it, good heatsinks, like the Volcano7s or the Alpha PALS are VERY heavy, with very strong springs (as in the case of the thermaltake Volcano7) or tension screws right into your mobo (as in the case of the Alpha) and you can crack your core when installing them if you are careless and don't know what you are doing... 5 bucks for the piece of mind that you won't crack your core is worth it.

Here's a link to help you make the choice whether you want to use a shim or not:

http://www.mikhailtech.com/articles/other/ccshim/

Just wanted to let you know!!

Kris!

C -or- F ?

Ditto Per!
A *2° drop in idle temperture cannot be directly attributed to the shim w/o confirming thru use of a probe. More likely better seating & tension is the reason. Every article I've read says to use ceramic shims, not copper. In fact copper HSF are discouraged unless they are nickel plated, due to tarnishing (green goo) problems.

Newcomer Wolfridr's post is sound & well written. We all seem to agree; Quality Termal Compound & Quality HSF!

* C -or- F ? Apx. 2°f drop would = 1.1°c, conversely a 2°c drop = 3.6°f

Yup! I totally agree. Putting a shim on gave my HSF better tension and made it completely level... So why the SHIM ITSELF didn't decrease my temperatures, it was a cog in the wheel of my cooling system . The decrease was in C, and was monitored by Motherboard Monitor 5. If you don't use it, check it out, once you set it up correctly, it is an excellent tool. Here's a link for you guys:

http://mbm.livewiredev.com/

How many fans do you guys have in your box?? I've done a few minor adjustments with inexpensive equipment to make my system run really cold. Here's the few things I've done.

1) I have 2 3 fan hard drive coolers. I have four 5.25 drive bays. I took the bottom where the is no drive to restrict airflow, and put one in their, sucking cool air in. I took one of the hd coolers apart and put the fans in backwards so they blow out, and put that in the top 5.25 slot, so it blows warm air from the top of my system out.

2) Cleaned up the top blow hole by cuttting it out and put an 80mm enermax thermal control fan on it, but put the sensor on the heatsink so it always runs at 3100 rpms blowinr air up and out of my system.

3) Cleaned up the bottom blow hole by cutting it out and put the same 80mm enermax fan on it with sensor also on cpu heatsink.

4) Took 3, yes 3 slot fans. Took my soundblaster card and put it in bottom slot, put a slot fan above it, blowing any warm air out that rises off the back of the card.

4b) Took my second slot fan and put it in the AMR slot above the AGP slot because I don't have an AMR modem. This takes hot air rising from the Geforce3 TI500 and blows it out the back.

4c) Took apart the slot fan so that it sucks in air, rather than blow it out, and turned it upside down (real easy, for one, you can pull them right apart with your bare hands to reseat the fan, and to turn it upside down, the bracket is reversable, so it takes about 2 mins to do) and put this under my video card, so the cool air sucks in and blows on the card. It is a good 6 inches away from the bottom slot fan, so while it may be getting a little hot air feedback from that, that is outweighed by the cooler air it is getting from the room, rather than in the case...

5) Got a thermaltake volcano7, but took the heat sensor off of it, so it aways runs at 5500rpms. Of course, with a SHIM hehe. And Arctic Silver II, III wasn't out yet when I did it, and I'm not going to order III until I run out of the II.

6) Took my original chipset heatsink off, took off the crappy thermal tape, cleaned the chipset with nail polish remover, cleaned the heatsink as well, and then sanded it down with a metal finishing pad, put arctic silver on the chipset and the superglued the edges of the heatsink down. Then I took an old 60x60x20 heatsink fan and superglued that to the heatsink, and it keeps my chipset really cold. I can overclock way higher now (about 14% higher now) just because of the chipset cooling.

7) Got thermaltakes ACTIVE memory cooling kit (a 40x40x20mm fan on your memory) Takes about 5 mins to install. And keeps your memory very cool!

Now my system runs really cold between 40-44 degrees, and that is overclocked to 1725 with 150fsb...

Next project is to put two of the 80mm fans in the left side, 1 blowing down by the pci slots, and one blowing up high by the cpu. I'll have to put one more fan up high to keep the air movement in and out relatively the same. And, next week, I'm adding rounded cables, they should help with better air flow...

Well, thats my neverending battle It seems I can always find a pet project to do... Also, you need a really good Power Supply to to this, personally mine is 425W with a 230TCO.

Getting back to the original idea of the post, Motherboard Monitor 5 will also monitor your voltages to tell you if your PSU isn't quite up to the task!

Thanks for all the good thoughts on my first post here!

Be cool! :grinthumb

Kris!

Uhh...Wolf...How in the heck did you get a 60x60x20 fan on top of your chipset?! Even if you did get one on there, he fan motor is directly on top of what you want to cool.
What kind of processor do you have? Athlon XP 1800+, right? Your multiplier is only 11.5...

Nope, you didn't read it...

or you are mistaken. I said the CHIPSET, not the CPU... It is superglued to the heatsink on the CHIPSET... I'll put up a link to the pictures if you want to see how to do it...

Kris.

Multiplier??

Who said anything about changing the multiplier?? The multiplier stays at 11.5... You are changing the FSB to 150, so instead of of 1527 (11.5 times 132.79FSB) it is 1725 (11.5 times 150.00 FSB). The only way to overclock using the ECS K7S5A is to change the FSB speed... You can't change the multiplier or voltage in bios on that board, only FSB speed. Plus, not really sure I want to play with my L1 bridges to do that. It was hard enough to connect the L11 (L7s on older ones) to increase the voltage to the cpu to handle the extra speed...

Be Cool!
:grinthumb
Kris.

prevent the cracking of your CPU core

http://www.cpufx.com/

somebody telling it like it is!

One thing I've seen a few dozen times that may make using a shim useful is there are some that think clamping the heatsink down super hard makes the heatsink work better and using a shim will protect the cpu from the super tight heatsink clamping.
Heck, for a bit even I thought this way till my engineer friend and some research told me different. I know there are some heatsink clamps that are what I'd call defective, in which they do put too much pressure on the cpu's core and a shim may help in this case. I went with the Alpha PAL8045 with no shim because it is so well designed to not put undue pressure on the core and also fits on evenly if directions are followed so a shim isn't going to be useful. Using springs and the 4 holes built into the motherboard was a great idea, I never liked the clamp on method much, there is just another chance to screw something up with the clamps except for a few types that are well designed so a screwdriver isn't required and won't put force on the core unevenly as some cheaper types can do. The Alpha is A very good heatsink as well. If common sence is used along with a well designed heatsink a shim is not really needed but may give a little bit of assurance that the core won't crack.
One thing that has bothered me about the clamp on method as well though I don't know how much it effects it but most of those types of heatsinks that use a clamp has the clamp area right over the top of the cpu core. While it's good for putting the pressure evenly it also has no fins in this area and the heat has to spread out to the fins while the Alpha and other no clamp types don't have the space down the middle where there is no fin's. I wonder if this is one reason why the Alpha and that other one do so well in cooling, they have a bit more surface area right above the cpu and also the air flow isn't blocked or interfered with by the clamp? Just something that has always kind of bugged me.

I would've killed for a shim...

Well. I'm a believer in shims now. The heatsink I got crushed the core of my Athlon XP. I had to send it in for an RMA...which was pretty inconvenient...I think a shim would've prevented this. Or not? No matter - the clip strength was a little too much. Hence my signature...

You have to be REALLY careful with those Athlon CPUs....

I've never broken one, but having a good look at the chip, I can see how a little carelessness would get it broken.

Shame, those Slot A chips were built like little tanks.

It occured a long time after I had installed the heat sink. Like about a month and a half. I hadn't taken it off any time before that :rolleyes: I'm not saying it's not strictly my fault, just that it didn't seem like it was.

I like my Vantec! Better than my FOB 32-1

Clip problems happen w/ every cooler. In fact the clips are very similar. I think I read they are spec'ed to exert 20 ft-lbs of tension to the core. One thing I have learned is to remove the motherboard & install the cooler. If i'ts sliding around & not seated properly, then that's when the (accident) problems occur. Some dudes even flex the clips first, but the tension is very important.

Is so much force necessary? I mean I understand the need for the heatsink not to move along the CPU, and the position most people's boxes are in, this being upright and the heatsink very susceptible to slide and become uneven, but a simple clip with a 3 hook design to take advantage of most if not all socket A system board's 3 hooks will easily eliminate this problem. The cooler I got from Vantec obviously wasn't made with socket A in mind, why? I don't know. Just that that clip design COULD have been used, and would allow the clip tension to be held back somewhat. 20 lbs/ft is amazing. Athlon XP dies weren't made to be pressed down upon with force like that. They weren't made for strength. All of the heatsink's weight is on that one small square of metal, minus the rubber stays which don't actually do much to spread out the force. Shims easily, VERY easily spread it out and thus dampen the force on the core, but retain enough pressure to conduct heat between the die and the heatsink.

The name of them escapes me, but I can recall seeing a heat sink which actually uses the four holes outside of the socket itself, and is connected to the system board with screws. I understand how someone can easily make the heat sink uneven along the core with these, but a shim would do fine.

first off i would like to say that
1. shims are always a good idea
2. they are not desinged for heat transfer
3. never got the AC II on the bridges it is bad (hours of cleaning & praying)
4. thought the board mounting is widly used with water cooling
5. i have an extra shim for the xp that is non-conductive if anyone needs one

well i think i has gotten across that for 4-5 buck it is a good idea if nothing esle than to make you sleep (like that ever happens) better. they are not in any way used to transfer heat and some have gaps of 1/2 in on all sides from the core so there should be no themal uptake on that.


most important of all if you do use AC II make sure it is only on the core (i think i smeared it when i put the shim on mine and it sucked)
:dead:

well i think that sum up my contribution