The thermal grease must be replaced whenever the heat sink has been removed from the top of the microprocessor and is going to be reused or when debris is found in the grease.
Important:
Thermal grease can be stayed on a heat sink for 2 years. Check the manufacturing date on the new heat sink and if is over 2 years, you need to remove the older grease from a heat sink and re-grease it to avoid seating issues.
When you are installing the heat sink on the same microprocessor
that it was removed from, make sure that the following requirements
are met:
- The thermal grease on the heat sink and microprocessor is not contaminated.
- Additional thermal grease is not added to the existing thermal grease on the heat sink and microprocessor.
Note:
- Read the safety information that begins on Safety.
- Read the Installation guidelines.
- Read Handling static-sensitive devices.
To replace damaged or contaminated thermal grease on the microprocessor and heat sink, complete the following steps:
-
Use the thermal-grease syringe to place 9 uniformly spaced
dots of 0.02 ml each on the top of the microprocessor. The outermost
dots must be within approximately 5 mm of the edge of the microprocessor;
this is to ensure uniform distribution of the grease.
Figure 1. Thermal grease distribution
Note: If the grease is properly applied, approximately half of the grease will remain in the syringe.Figure 2. Syringe
