Thermal guide pads for advanced users: miracle or glare?
First, let's make sure that pad can never replace the thermal paste for the CPU or GPU. They should only be used to remove other components such as Voltage converter (VRM), coils, etc., whose distance to the cooling surface is greater, also to cool down.
Let us now turn to what is often neglected enough, including by industry. First, let's consider the very bilile tape used here on the voltage converters (picture below). This is not a homogeneous material (which would certainly cost more in mass production), but a simple, foamed mass, which is compressed again by squeezing at the relevant points.
Nevertheless, air is and remains the worst travel companion on the laborious heat removal. So if you have compact pads of sufficient strength and quality (or plan to buy them), you should definitely use them and replace the inexpensive foam carpet as quickly as possible.
These thermal conductive pads (or Tapes) are already available for small money in a wide variety of strengths (and colors). By the way, you can orientate yourself perfectly to the printing points of the original for an optimal selection, for this too we have various chart entries at the appropriate place.
So what should we consider? The best thermal lyre pad is just good enough, you should avoid foamed pads if possible, never use thicker pads as really necessary and still make sure that there is still enough pressure and that the pads are not too thin.
The backplate with pads as additional cooler
Nothing helps with cooling more than even more cooling surface! That's why we are now showing how an existing backplate could be included profitably in the cooling concept.
Let us quickly remember the pictures of the backplate and the mentioned film, which was glued indoors. Either you remove it completely (as in the picture below) or you cut with a cutter knife in the relevant places and only partially remove this foil.
It is very important to clean the exposed areas that will later have contact with the pads very thoroughly from the adhesives of the film and possible fingerprints – we already wrote about 2-propanol.
Please always keep in mind that too soft or thin backplates could already touch contacts of the board when printed! Either you really only cut out the necessary areas or you work on these relevant areas with further tape as an insulating layer, which can also dissipate heat, which would make more sense overall.
In the concrete example, we now place a suitable two millimeter thick pad on the place of the board where the GPU socket sits and directly below the one, very hot memory module. We used a little thermal paste on the side towards the backplate for better contact, as its inner surface is not very smooth and also curves a little under tension.
Since the plate has various air holes, we have put them on before and marked the holes on the tape easily. This way, we can avoid paste swelling out of the holes when applied, because we simply leave air in these places. This can be observed on the yellow pad for the voltage converters, where the small blobs then sit exactly between the holes.
There are certainly no breathtaking jumps possible, but every degree Celsius you can save additionally is in sum a welcome member of the club of the busy carriers. Most of the time, the memory benefits the most, which remains significantly cooler. This is above all an increase in operational reliability and durability and also opens up overclocking possibilities that one did not have before.
What we need to consider:
First, remove any glued film and remove adhesive residues, place the pads cleanly and, if necessary, remove the adhesive slacks. Use some thermal paste, pay attention to the holes in the backplate and of course avoid short circuits (visual inspection, inserting paper for testing)
- 1 - Einführung und Übersicht
- 2 - Grundlagen: Heatspreader und Heatsink
- 3 - Wärmeleitpaste: Funktion und richtiges Auftragen
- 4 - Sonderfall Grafikkarte
- 5 - Sonderfall Wärmeitpads und mögliche Verbesserungen
- 6 - Flüssigmetall und die Grenzen
- 7 - Testsetup und Messmethoden
- 8 - Testergebnisse: Wasserkühlung
- 9 - Testergebisse: Lüftkühlung (großer Turmkühler)
- 10 - Testergebisse: Lüftkühlung (Boxed-Kühler)
- 11 - Testergebisse: Grafikkarten-Kühlung (GPU)
- 12 - Testergebnisse: Viskosität
- 13 - Testergebnisse: Verarbeitung und Anwendungssicherheit
- 14 - Zusammenfassung und Fazit
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