Thermal grease 104

   Excuse me! This doesn't seem right. I've been taught that you NEVER run a modern CPU without a heatsink under ANY conditions!

   Tom's Hardware did exactly that a while back, just to see how quickly the chips would burn up. I seem to recall that the AMD Athlons went up in smoke within seconds. Intel Pent-3's and 4's took a little longer.

   The bottom line is that it's pointless to risk a perfectly good CPU just to save a little labor. Even a brief period of power-on with no heatsink can cause heat-related 'weakening' of the chip's internal connections. Oh, it might seem like you get away with it, and the system may appear to work fine afterwards, but you will have risked a significant decrease in the useful life of the CPU.

   The best way to remove the old compound is with a lint-free wipe, liberally dampened with 99% Isopropanol (fancy term for isopropyl alcohol that's only 1% water). This stuff is readily available from Fry's (MG Chemicals makes it), or even from your local pharmacy. DON'T use anything other than 99%. The 70 and 91% mixtures contain too much water to be safe for electronics.

   No need to wait so long. Isopropanol evaporates very quickly. A scrub with a dry lint-free wipe and five minutes of standing time is fine.

   This is true to a degree, but keep in mind that you're scraping CAREFUL! Do any needed scraping while the chip is firmly clamped edge- wise in a soft-jawed vise that's specifically built for electronics work (such as a Panavise), or installed in the motherboard socket. Use an anti-static wrist strap and work surface, or at least wear all-cotton clothing, to keep from zapping the thing.

   Worst idea possible. It only takes going a micron too far to ruin the chip permanently.

   Then again, I've never believed in overclocking.

   Happy tweaking.

-- Dr. Anton T. Squeegee, Director, Dutch Surrealist Plumbing Insbreastute. (Known to some as Bruce Lane, ARS KC7GR, kyrrin (a-t) bluefeathertechd=o=tcalm -- www.bluefeathertech.com "If Salvador Dali had owned a computer, would it have been equipped with surreal ports?"