Did a search for "tinting" on here but didn't see any hints. I'm waiting for my new i7 bits to arrive (hopefully tomorrow) and thought I'd ask those that have put some of these together might share some thoughts.

I was on the Arctic Silver website and it talks about "tinting" the heat sink. Basically gooping it up and then smearing it down to a thin layer w/ a credit card or something. Then using the standard application practices on the CPU itself.

I was wondering if anyone has done the tinting part on the heat sink. That's new to me (built a handful of systems before) and have only put the dab of TIM on the CPU, but never on the heat sink itself. Is this necessary w/ the i7? I was always brought up that less is better when applying TIM.

Thoughts?

That sounds like a HORRIBLE idea, but I'd like to see the link. Maybe I misunderstand.
When placing the heat sink on the cpu you only need a tiny dab of it. I don't see how gumming up your heatsink, even with a thin layer of anything could possibly be a good idea. Dust will do that for you soon enough. LOL


edit:
http://www.arcticsilver.com/pdf/appmeth/amd/ss/AMD_app_method_surface_spread_v1.1.pdf
Ok, yeah I did misunderstand. LOL
Not sure I'd bother, it will spread out just fine as hard as you have to push to get it on the cpu. The stuff isn't magic, you just need contact and it doesn't have to be across the entire surface.

Tinting is similar to smearing a very thin coat of oil on an engine beating during assembly. You put it on and wipe it off, just not all of it. Kind of like a coat of Pam on a skillet. You really wipe off 90 percent of it so there is no bare metal exposed.

Then on the heatspreader on the CPU, put a dab the size of a grain of rice. I guess the theory behind the tinting is it lubricates the heatsink helping to not create any air pockets as the heatsink gets smashed down.

Just remember, thinner is better than thicker.

I've done it as well. From what I've read, it basically fills in the microscopic pits and valleys on the heatsink so that it transfers heat more efficiently. Really I think it only makes minute differences (maybe just a few tenths of a degree); but it doesn't hurt.

I did my first CPU swap a couple of months ago, using stock paste on Q9400. 20 seconds after boot, I get the beeeeeeeeeep of overheat and almost break my finger on the power button. The problem was that I hadn't seated the fan clamps properly into the motherboard, but I borrowed some Zalman grease off a friend and spread it as thickly as butter over both CPU and heatsink before I replaced it.
Seems fine, stock cooler suffices for small (2.66 to 3.0GHz) overclock, temps haven't gotten over 48 degrees.

There are two camps on application of TIM. The first is the way I described. The way I do it is to tint the heatsink and then spread as thin an even layer as I can manage on the CPU with a credit card.

It's hard to get a smooth even coat that is very thin. Sometimes I have to attempt it more than once. Most instructions say not to let your fingers touch the surfaces to keep oil from your fingers off since the TIM won't stick to oil from your skin.

Like I said, the thinner the better within reason. Too thick and it becomes an insulator keeping the heat from passing from the heatspreader on the CPU to the heatsink. Too thin and it won't fill in the gaps. If you have a concave heatspreader on your CPU, it will take more TIM. If you have a very concave heatspreader, you might want to think about lapping it.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/259901-29-heatspreader-lapping-guide

Also a lot of TIM is conductive like Artic Silver. Be careful where you might get excess TIM. I use TIM that's non-conductive like MX-2 or Ceramique. Lot's of the generic stuff you see is just silicone and is not very good.

One test I've seen was of different ways of applying the TIM. Shapes used were a dot, a stripe, a cross and some other variations. IIRC the cross won. Last time I applied TIM to a CPU, I used a very thin layer and then added a tiny cross.

A lot of that has to do w/ the type of CPU you're applying it to. For the Conroe chips, a dab of rice was all that's necessary. Apparently for the new i7 processors, they recommend a line to be able to cover all four cores.

For what it's worth, I've always done the rice-sized application w/ good results, but smearing the stuff on to cover the "microscopic pits" makes sense intellectually. I just don't think I really want to bother just to save myself a degree or two. And I'm using the Ceramique as well.

Thanks for the input, guys. Sounds like it's not a crazy idea, just not necessarily a requirement. Guess I'll start messing w/it tonight since my parts showed up today.

Did a google and found the clip. It was done by HardwareZone: