mark lewis wrote in a message to JEAN PARROT:

 JP> Disturbing the dialectric used to give a better BTU
 JP> transfer from the CPU to the radiator, is not a good
 JP> thing unless one has some of that goo to replace on
 JP> the CPU.

 ml> /IF/ there is any heatsink compound used at all... some devices are
 ml> documented specifically to _not_ use any heatsink compund but
 ml> directly transfer the heat to the radiator via bare metal to bare
 ml> metal... several AMD chips are in this category...

Oh really?  I haven't seen that,  and it would seem to require awfully flat
surfaces to be all that effective...

 ml> and then there's also the use of the heatsink pad instead of the
 ml> "goo"... the pads are more uniform in size, shape and thickness and
 ml> provide better transfer than goo that relies on the gap and
 ml> pressure to spread out and hopefully be uniform in thickness...

I've wondered about those pads,  too.

---