test of thermal pad on AMD

Don Taylor wrote:
Stacey writes:

I just bought a Barton 2500+ on a chaintech 7NIF2 board for by brother. It
was a retail chip with a factory HSF. I just put it on as supplied and when
I booted it up, the idle temp was right at 50C in the bios. Seemed kinda
high but MBM5 said 40C so figured it was OK.


I've got the same but with ECS N2U400-A board. Room temp was 18C,
BIOS said cpu was about 48C, no case fans, side off the case. I
turned a big room fan against the open side of the case and it
dropped to the lower 40's. Those are about the same as my AMD 2000
with a Vantec TMD Aeroflow and the white goop.


So I took the factory HS off and removed the pad. It wasn't like intel's
pad, more like a gooey piece of cheeze?


Instructions said mine was a phase change material, water clear,
looked less than 1mm thick of rubber cement. Trying to get that
clip on the heat sink latched down was impressive, Even with a
screwdriver to apply pressure I couldn't get it to latch. Then
someone banged on the door and I had to move the case. The heat
sink fell off in the process. When I saw this the second time the
material had changed to a dark grey looking material with a big
impression in it where I had been applying all the pressure. I
wasn't sure whether it was one-time-only or not but I went ahead
and got up on the table with the screwdriver and REALLY applied the
pressure, along with prying the edge of the clip to let it slip
into place. Finally it popped on there.


So anyone installing a retail AMD chip, my advice is to ditch the pad,
sand the bottom of the HS on a piece of glass and throw on some white
HS compound and stay cool/quiet.


I didn't notice the bottom of the sink being rough. Maybe I just
didn't look closely enough. What did you use for polishing compound?

But I think I'm leaning in the direction of a big house fan that
will be ducted to drive air through the cases.

While I was doing all this, and listening to the old house fan
roaring away, the house down the street caught fire. That reminded
me of an old fan a friend and I had mounted in a window decades ago
to pump the hot august air out of the house. The fan made a lot
of noise and fortunately we happened to be in the kitchen looking
at it when it went up in flames.

Does anyone know of a relatively cheap smoke detector like device
BUT it will switch off maybe 1000 watts of power when it thinks
that something has caught fire? I'm surprised that there isn't
something like that out there that I've seen. I'm really not wanting
to come home some evening and discover that a fan failed, burned,
and took the whole place with it.

Feel free to start your own thread on this topic in some appropriate
newsgroup.

"kony" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 17 May 2004 19:32:46 -0500, (Don Taylor)
wrote:

"Ben Pope" writes:
Don Taylor wrote:
Does anyone know of a relatively cheap smoke detector like device
BUT it will switch off maybe 1000 watts of power when it thinks
that something has caught fire?
...
Cheap smoke alarm with a relay? Maybe you'd want some help with keeping
the
relay contacts connected - I suspect it would eat batteries. The other
concern is of course fail safety... no point in having a battery open
circuit the relay - when the battery runs out, it'll close again.

Besides, if the thing is on fire, there seems little point in switching
it
off. Kind of a bit late?

I was thinking that cutting off the power might help stop feeding the
fire as the fan was going up in flames.

I actually observed this happen with a house fan a few decades ago.

Why not just put a solenoid valve on a fire extinguisher and connect that
to the fire alarm?
Such measures are applied in industrial installations (like in electricity
cabinets of large machines in a factory - where water sprinklers are not a
wise anti-flame option). In non electrical / non chemical environements
water sprinklers remotely and automaticly switched open (for EE guys, open
means there's a current of water) by a relay connected to the fire / heat
alarm. Im sure there are trip-switches that also disconnect elevators and
such when there's a building fire...

Such measures are applied in industrial installations (like in electricity
cabinets of large machines in a factory - where water sprinklers are not a
wise anti-flame option). In non electrical / non chemical environements
water sprinklers remotely and automaticly switched open (for EE guys, open
means there's a current of water) by a relay connected to the fire / heat
alarm. Im sure there are trip-switches that also disconnect elevators and
such when there's a building fire...


Seen a LOT of panels/Other for the Nuclear & PetroChem industry's (cant say
I ever seen any automated fire ext kit for a sole peice of electronics)..

In reality, If something is allowed to get hot enough to burn your house
through an electrical fault (dead short) then it means that the consumer
unit is not properly set up. Once a fire is started removing electricity
(for most things that we have) will not stop the fire. Normally IF there is
a fire you would combat the whole area and not just the specific fire point
of detection (speaking about automated fire systems here).

But I would need to wonder HOW his pc burning (probably have 5-10 fuses
before it gets to the power strip) will spread to other things in the house.

Metal (normally metal) cases generally dont burn well, nor does the things
inside of a case.

My suggestion, Get proper electrical wiring.

"rstlne" wrote in message
news:ljvuc.595$cs4.259@newsfe4-gui...
Such measures are applied in industrial installations (like in
electricity
cabinets of large machines in a factory - where water sprinklers are not
a
wise anti-flame option). In non electrical / non chemical environements
water sprinklers remotely and automaticly switched open (for EE guys,
open
means there's a current of water) by a relay connected to the fire /
heat
alarm. Im sure there are trip-switches that also disconnect elevators
and
such when there's a building fire...


Seen a LOT of panels/Other for the Nuclear & PetroChem industry's (cant
say
I ever seen any automated fire ext kit for a sole peice of electronics)..

In reality, If something is allowed to get hot enough to burn your house
through an electrical fault (dead short) then it means that the consumer
unit is not properly set up. Once a fire is started removing electricity
(for most things that we have) will not stop the fire. Normally IF there
is
a fire you would combat the whole area and not just the specific fire
point
of detection (speaking about automated fire systems here).
Electrical fault can also be an arc - which means there's an ongoing spark
and heat source. Generally speaking, most of electrical components are in
some way or another flame retraded (all PCBs have UL-94 V-0 marking),
electric outlets should be FR-HIPS or melamine, cables are (intrinsically)
flame retarded PVC etc...

But I would need to wonder HOW his pc burning (probably have 5-10 fuses
before it gets to the power strip) will spread to other things in the
house.

Metal (normally metal) cases generally dont burn well, nor does the things
inside of a case.
Aluminum burns like hell(fire) ;-) steel (or copper) doesn't. Think about
airplane burning - it's not just the fuel, it's the whole fuselage.

My suggestion, Get proper electrical wiring.
Agreed. And standard components (UL, CE, TUV marks)