"Timothy Daniels" wrote in message
m...
I'm putting a different motherboard in my XPS M1330 -
the motherboard WITHOUT the discrete nVidia graphics
chip. I find that there is about a 1.6mm gap between
the Intel system chip and the heat sink that is attached
to the copper heat pipe. I don't want to tighten the gap
down because that would put a tipping force on the CPU
heat sink junction, but 1.6mm seems like it would be too
large a gap for a thermal pad to conduct heat away well.
So I'm looking into using a copper shim - 1.5cm x 1.5cm
and either 1.5mm or 1.2mm thick. Are there any caveats
about using a copper shim? Are they better than using
thermal pads?

*TimDaniels*