PCA Forums

hey folks-

anyone use a cpu shim? do i put thermal grease on it? if so how much? does it help alot? hehe im full of questions, i have a young curious mind!!

DO NOT put any compound on any shims. It will possibly hurt the performance. And it also is a waste of compund, as it doesn't help what-so-ever.

ok so no thermal compound, now what bout the shim? is it worth it or not?

As Sean said, ONLY put thermal compound on the raised cpu core. Never on the shim.

This may help you and answer why a shim may be needed http://www.pcabusers.com/reviews/shim/tbird.html

http://www.crazypc.com has them cheap now but their site is down till tomorrow.

And always use these instructions for putting on thermal compound.

i use one on most my cpu's. if you get a good one it is worth it. if you get one that isnt high quality then they do Lots more harm then good. Crazy pc is mostly up now so check them out...some stuff still doesnt work though.

Greg

I have never used a shim and I'll never use one ... you just don't need them with most of todays quality HSF combos.
Instead of paying 6 bucks for a shim invest them in a better HSF

You might only need one with such infamous HSF like the Golden Orb or others that have a (round) body that doesn't cover the whole CPU and thus doesn't sit on 4 pads in the CPU corners.

I love my Alpha PAL8045, not a cheap one but a top performer with lownoise 80mm fan and I'd say it's almost impossible to chip the core with their mounting using the 4 holes.

hey thanks guys! i appritiate the info, i was just wondering cause my friend gave me one for free....im not gunna use it....

I bought one, Installed on my XP with a Swiftech MCX462. Any difference? No, it worked before I installed and well, it still is running.