Using thermal adhesive on the CPU?

rich99 · Post by **rich99** » Tue Jan 06, 2009 1:37 pm

This isn't a question about quiet cooling as such, but since it involves CPU's & heatsinks I figure someone here will have the neccessary answers. I have an old Athlon 64 which took a knock, resulting in 2 of the clips on the plastic mounting for the CPU heatsink shearing off, so I canâ€™t mount the heatsink. In an effort to get the machine running again with minimum expense, I was thinking of using arctic silver thermal adhesive to glue the heatsink on. However arctic silver warn against doing this. Any ideas why? If I canâ€™t glue the heatsink on, do you have any other (cheap!) ideas that would enable me to mount the heatsink? I canâ€™t find anywhere that sells just the plastic mounting for the heatsink. Are there cheap heatsinks that don't use the plastic mounting bracket?

Thanks,

Rich

Monkeh16 · Post by **Monkeh16** » Tue Jan 06, 2009 2:14 pm

Just search ebay. You're looking for a retention bracket.

Lawrence Lee · Post by **Lawrence Lee** » Tue Jan 06, 2009 2:22 pm

If you glue the heatsink to the CPU, the weight of the heatsink will tear the CPU right out of the socket. Unless your board lies horizontally.

Redzo · Post by **Redzo** » Tue Jan 06, 2009 8:07 pm

Just as ppl above said, that is a VERY bad idea. Just get a new retention bracket. Gluing a HSF to a CPU....wow

rich99 · Post by **rich99** » Tue Jan 06, 2009 11:59 pm

Redzo wrote:Just as ppl above said, that is a VERY bad idea. Just get a new retention bracket. Gluing a HSF to a CPU....wow

It's fine to have an opinion, but at least qualify it! This is a friends machine who will never want to swap his CPU. From that point of view there is no problem with glueing it on. That said, the CPU is mounted vertically & I hadn't considered that the weight would pull it out, so thanks for pointing that out!!

I've found some USA sellers who sell the retention bracket on EBay, but they have slightly different part names - B7, B5, B26, B22 etc. Looking at the pictures the metal backp;late seems to vary? Will I need to remove the whole motherboard in order to screw the plastic bracket onto the metal plate that is under the board?

Monkeh16 · Post by **Monkeh16** » Wed Jan 07, 2009 4:28 am

rich99 wrote:I've found some USA sellers who sell the retention bracket on EBay, but they have slightly different part names - B7, B5, B26, B22 etc. Looking at the pictures the metal backp;late seems to vary? Will I need to remove the whole motherboard in order to screw the plastic bracket onto the metal plate that is under the board?

I'm not sure what the different parts fit, find one which matches the board in question. And yes, you will.

pipperoni · Post by **pipperoni** » Wed Jan 07, 2009 6:53 am

For a really quick and dirty solution, glue will work. Glue is very often used in the industry (though not always on CPUs). I would expect temperatures to go up 5-15ÂºC from grease. Also, I would strongly suggest some RTV to connect the corners of the heatsink to the motherboard for extra support.