Post
by GHz » Mon Aug 22, 2005 1:09 pm
Oliver: I'll try to answer all your questions, because I had to search all over the place to get information on this.
To take off the IHS: The first thing I did was take a bunch of cotton swabs and dipped them in my girlfriend's nail polish remover. Then I tipped the CPU sideways and soaked the edges of the IHS with the nail polish remover. The idea is that nail polish remover makes the black silicone that holds the IHS in place much softer. Then I used a flat, rectangular razor and sliced into one of the coners... very carefully. While doing this I had the CPU sitting on a soft foam mouse pad, so the pins wouldn't get damaged. Once the razor sliced into the corner, I started slicing into the edges... one side at a time, slowly. In-between I applied more nail polish remover. When I was confident that all of the silicone was cut, I took another razor blade and used both to pry the IHS off. It took almost no effort.
With the IHS off, the core was exposed. The TIM (Thermal Interface Material) used between the core and IHS was a grey material. It was very brittle... I'm not quite sure what it was. I cleaned it off using 91% isopropyl alcohol and cotton swabs. As you can see in the pic, I didn't try very hard to make it super clean, except on the core itself. I'm not worried about it because I doubt that the TIM was conductive.
I checked to see if the core was flat. Both flat razors seem to indicate that the core is not. It appeared to have the same shape as all the other A64s I've encountered, with a little hill in the middle. Fortunately, I don't think it matters when cooling.
With the IHS off, and the core cleaned of the old TIM, I applied my own: Ceramique. I follow the directions on Artic Silver's website. I drew a small line down the middle of the core, carefully placed the Zalman 7700-CU on, gave it a little twist back and forth, and bolted it down.
Anyway, I think it was worth the effort. It's really not hard to do, but you need nerves of steel, especially if you're trying this on an expensive CPU and don't have deep pockets. I can tell you I was sweating bullets doing this little operation, and it's not my first time.
My advice: TAKE YOUR TIME, and don't apply much pressure... let the razor do the cutting. HTH!
I shaved a few C off and best of all: I'm now running undervolted at 1.25V 
