copper shim on laptop system chip

"Mike Tomlinson" wrote:
Timothy Daniels escribió:

[ . . . ]

1.6mm seems a large gap for a TIM pad to fill. Perhaps you could polish
a copper penny to a smooth bright surface on both sides and use that
with a *small* amount of e.g. Arctic Silver as a shim.


It is illegal for me to deface or destroy U.S. currency, and although a
new penny is about 1.62mm thick, it certainly is not smooth, and it would
take a lot of sanding and polishing to get it planar and smooth. It's also not
pure copper - it is 97.5% zinc plus 2.5% copper plating.

*TimDaniels*

En el artículo , Timothy
Daniels escribió:

It is illegal for me to deface or destroy U.S. currency

Doer God, no one is going to give a **** about you destroying a penny!

, and although a
new penny is about 1.62mm thick

not after you grint it smooth, it isn't

, it certainly is not smooth, and it would
take a lot of sanding and polishing to get it planar and smooth. It's also not
pure copper - it is 97.5% zinc plus 2.5% copper plating.

It was only a suggestion, FFS. I was trying to help you, wish I hadn't
bothered. Try lateral thinking - something Americans aren't good at.

No wonder Usenet is dying on it's arse.

--
(\_/)
(='.'=)
(")_(")

"Mike Tomlinson" wrote:
Timothy Daniels escribió:

It is illegal for me to deface or destroy U.S. currency

Doer God, no one is going to give a **** about you destroying a penny!


I'm sorry, I should have included a smiley. That was meant
to be humor.


, and although a new penny is about 1.62mm thick

not after you grint it smooth, it isn't


I don't have a grinder or a vice or a work bench, and the
guy on eBay only charges $1.89 plus shipping for 6 shims
of the right size and of various thicknesses. It makes far
more sense to buy the copper shims from him.


, it certainly is not smooth, and it would
take a lot of sanding and polishing to get it planar and smooth.
It's also not pure copper - it is 97.5% zinc plus 2.5% copper plating.

It was only a suggestion, FFS. I was trying to help you, wish I hadn't
bothered. Try lateral thinking - something Americans aren't good at.

No wonder Usenet is dying on it's arse.


Please recall that my original questions we
"Are there any caveats about using a copper shim?
Are they better than using thermal pads?"

It wasn't about whether to use pennies or whether to substitute zinc.
I appreciate your views, and I merely explained why they wouldn't apply
to my situation.


*TimDaniels*

"Timothy Daniels" wrote:
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*

I've finally installed the used motherboard without
the nVidia graphics chip. It runs a little cooler than
the original motherboard that had the nVidia chip,
and I see no difference in YouTube videos of wingsuit
flying than when I watch them on my Precision T3500
workstation.

I used a 1.2mm thick copper shim with thermal paste
between the shim and the Intel system chip, and 0.2mm
thick Dell thermal pad between the shim and the chip's
heatsink. That combination put the least bending torque
on the heatpipe so the CPU heatsink would remain flat
against the CPU. Between the CPU and its heatsink I used
thermal paste.

Running YouTube wingsuit videos for half an hour caused
no speedup of the fan or any anomalies in the video display.
That's all the video performance that I need, and I wish that
I had not gotten the troublesome optional nVidia graphics
chip in the first place.

*TimDaniels*

"Timothy Daniels" wrote in message
m...
"Timothy Daniels" wrote:
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*

I've finally installed the used motherboard without
the nVidia graphics chip. It runs a little cooler than
the original motherboard that had the nVidia chip,
and I see no difference in YouTube videos of wingsuit
flying than when I watch them on my Precision T3500
workstation.

I used a 1.2mm thick copper shim with thermal paste
between the shim and the Intel system chip, and 0.2mm
thick Dell thermal pad between the shim and the chip's
heatsink. That combination put the least bending torque
on the heatpipe so the CPU heatsink would remain flat
against the CPU. Between the CPU and its heatsink I used
thermal paste.

Running YouTube wingsuit videos for half an hour caused
no speedup of the fan or any anomalies in the video display.
That's all the video performance that I need, and I wish that
I had not gotten the troublesome optional nVidia graphics
chip in the first place.

*TimDaniels*


I'm glad you got it working the way you want. I don't know about the heat
pipe setup on the Dell heat sink, but the one on my Gateway was fairly
easily bendable. I was just wondering if you couldn't have put a double bend
in it to make it sit flat on the CPU, and skip some of those shims/pads.

But no matter, it's cooling well enough to run the videos, and that's really
all that counts :-)

Good job!
--
SC Tom

"SC Tom" wrote in message ...


"Timothy Daniels" wrote in message
m...
"Timothy Daniels" wrote:
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*

I've finally installed the used motherboard without
the nVidia graphics chip. It runs a little cooler than
the original motherboard that had the nVidia chip,
and I see no difference in YouTube videos of wingsuit
flying than when I watch them on my Precision T3500
workstation.

I used a 1.2mm thick copper shim with thermal paste
between the shim and the Intel system chip, and 0.2mm
thick Dell thermal pad between the shim and the chip's
heatsink. That combination put the least bending torque
on the heatpipe so the CPU heatsink would remain flat
against the CPU. Between the CPU and its heatsink I used
thermal paste.

Running YouTube wingsuit videos for half an hour caused
no speedup of the fan or any anomalies in the video display.
That's all the video performance that I need, and I wish that
I had not gotten the troublesome optional nVidia graphics
chip in the first place.

*TimDaniels*


I'm glad you got it working the way you want. I don't know
about the heat pipe setup on the Dell heat sink, but the one
on my Gateway was fairly easily bendable. I was just wondering
if you couldn't have put a double bend in it to make it sit flat
on the CPU, and skip some of those shims/pads.


I would have preferred to do that if I had the bending tools
and the time to play with sub-millimeter dimensions. I also
didn't want to stretch a hole in the wall of the heatpipe. In ambient
room temps in the low 80s, HWMonitor tells me that the YouTube
wingsuit videos raise the CPU temp to 61°C, and the chipset temp
to 53°C. I think those are livable.

*TimDaniels*