Replacing thermal compound

[Xaranar]

Has anyone had any experience with replacing the thermal compound on their cube? Not that the GC has any significant problems with overheating, but you should be able to clean it up, and slap some Arctic Silver on there, right?

[Air Conditioner]

I've done it with no issues. I would try it for an hour or so before you screw the shell back on. The GC has a thermal protection circuit built in.

[emu_kidid]

It needs to be pretty thick

[novenary]

Pretty sure the CPU and the GPU aren't the same height, also the heatsink standoffs add a lot of spacing between the chips and the heatsink itself. Use thermal pads instead (that's what it comes with).

[Xaranar]

Yeah I noticed that there is a large space in between where the heatsink sits and the chips. I wonder why they did it that way, as opposed to having them sit flush. Could always Dremel down the standoffs a little so it sits tighter.

[Xaranar]

Bought some Arctic thermal pads, they seem to be well reviewed, and it can't hurt to have better thermal conductivity as lower temps = longer lifespan. I got a big ol' square of it that's 145 x 145 x 1.5mm, as the only other size it comes in is 50 x 50mm, and after measuring all of the components that need a pad, it comes to around 2800mm², and 50 x 50 is not enough. There is a VERY slight height discrepancy between the CPU and GPU, but the pad should fill up the gaps nicely. Will let you know how it turns out.

[novenary]

Yeah I noticed that there is a large space in between where the heatsink sits and the chips. I wonder why they did it that way, as opposed to having them sit flush. Could always Dremel down the standoffs a little so it sits tighter.

They did this to avoid stressing the chips and the BGA.