>> >
>> > Most CPU fans I've seen come with a pad of conductive [something] which
>> > goes between the processor and the heatsink. I would think that something
>> > like this would be essential, given that the surfaces are probably not
>> > perfectly flat (on a nano scale).
>> I think it's more a case of sheer laziness. The thermal grease doesn't
>> come with the heatsink/fan combo, so has to be purchased seperately, and
>> applied.
It's not laziness, it's more like criminal negligence (my limited english
shows here,
but you'll get the idea). If a shop that build the machine says it doesn't
matter, then
I question their professionality.
>> At work, if we happen to see a tube of thermal grease, we'll apply some,
>> but we don't break our necks looking for it or anything.
You can get a tube of it from almost any shop that sells electronic components
(chips etc.) - at least here in Finland. It costs about 45 FIM = about 9 USD
and
lasts for about 40 machines.
If you want to try - put your finger on a bare processor (> 486DX33) and power
on the machine with some load on the cpu and see how long you can keep it
there ;-)
Note: some Cyrix etc. chips stay almost cool until they start to do something.
Within a month I've seen 4 fried processors. Two of them were because faulty
regulators on the motherboard and two were normally clocked *without* anything
between the processor and heatsink. Heatsinks were good.
A fried cpu is not always just dead. I've seen one that made funny things with
interrupts, and that was hard to diagnose.
--j 'liquid hydrogen for the processor' ;-)
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