shim + 0 thermal paste = -$100

[wyrlwyn]

ok, i'm a moron...
i bought a thermaltake mini super orb and useda shim, with no thermal paste. within 20 seconds of booting the system, i fryed my 1 gig athlon. my questio is, since it was in the middle of reading the ram, would that have wiped the motherboard or the bios?
i have an asus a7v133, and the athlon is dead. my question is, if i buy a new athlon, it should work fine right(with thermal paste and no shim)?

[Allan]

Rule #1: Always use thermal paste
Rule #2: Not too much though!



Oh dear, sorry to hear you fried your chip. See rule #1. My guess is that your motherboard is still fine. Get a new chip, and you should be rockin' again.

This time, apply a paper thin layer of thermal paste (see rule #2) between the CPU and the heatsink. You can still use the shim if you want to, but then make sure to put grease in between all the 'layers' (Like this: Cpu, grease, shim, grease, heat sink, fan).

The grease will fill the small spaces between the CPU and shim and/or heat sink to avoid small air pockets that can turn VERY HOT, but also to increase thermal conductivity.

Good luck with it!

[Áedán]

Originally posted by Allan
This time, apply a paper thin layer of thermal paste (see rule #2) between the CPU and the heatsink. You can still use the shim if you want to, but then make sure to put grease in between all the 'layers' (Like this: Cpu, grease, shim, grease, heat sink, fan).

I wouldn't recommend putting any thermal paste on the shim. The shim's job is just to prevent excess pressure from being applied to the corners of the silicon, rather than helping conduct heat.

AidanII

[wyrlwyn]

i know i didn't apply enough thermal paste, i didn't put any on.i understand i fryed the cpu, my question is that if the cpu is fryed DURing the post of the bios, will that destroy the bios for good? or since the biso is read only, and you can turn a computer off during the loading of the bios, would it still be ok if the cpu is fryed while reading, kinda like pulling the plug on a hard drive while your reading a web site, it would just stop. but i now that a web site and the bios are very diffrent, thats why i'm asking, would the bios be messed up?

[surlyjoe]

naw it shouldnt mess the bios. 95% chace your OK

[mrpcman]

it'll be fine. It's the same as hitting the reset button or turning it off during boot up.

[wyrlwyn]

well, i'll have to get a cpu then.
so, i'mg ueesing since the mobo probebly isn't busted, my xtasy geofroce3 ti 500, game theater xp, 56k modem, and 768 megs of mircon ram should be ok as well.

[mrpcman]

yeah. the only way they wouldn't be is if your power supply fried them, but I don't think that's the case here.

[Qube]

It's the shim. You cannot use any shims with ThermalTake orb coolers.

[Wa11y]

Shouldn't use shims at all. Heat sinks are that hard to put on. Just attach the first side, use the slack on the clip to lay the heatsink down flat, then attach the other side.

The rest of your computer should still be fine. As long as the CPU socket doesn't look melted or damaged, it should all be fine. Especially your expansion cards and RAM. A burned CPU should send any power spikes anywhere. They just melt. Fast.