Heat Sink

[Eckslusive]

Hey i have several questions about the heatsink.

1) Is it okay if I remove it?
2) Is it recommended to remove it, if i want to.
3) Will it damage any hardware?

 

[Rower_CPU]

It depends on the CPU. I'd say any of the current G4 chips absolutely need it, and if your computer came with it on there it should be left there.

Unless you're going to cool the CPU via a peltier unit or water block...

 

[macphoria]

1) Is it okay if I remove it?
Not a good idea. Excess heat generated by the processor is dissipated by heatsinks.

2) Is it recommended to remove it, if i want to.
If you have other means of cooling the processor, though I can't imagine what.

3) Will it damage any hardware?
Probably. Any excess heat NOT dissipated will stay on your hardware and nothing good results in a machine that runs hot.

 

[acj]

NO!

Most CPU's will fry in far under 1 second without a heatsink.

The worst are some AMD Athlons. They have a surface area of about 1/2" squared. They prodoce in excess of 50 watts. You know how hot a 50 watt light bulb gets? Well that is spreading the heat over several times the surface area, and much is radiaded in light and IR energy. http://www.tomshardware.com did a test on this. It measured the surface temp of an AMD athlon getting to 600 degrees in under a second. Things started to smoke, and of course everything stopped working.

G4's are the same, but they produce slightly less heat. They will still fry nearly instantly. G3's are also about the same, although they are much lower powered.

Pentium 4's, believe it or not, are different. They have an integrated heat spreader that helps a little, but they have a technology that will throttle the CPU speed based on heat. Once they get up to about 80 degrees C, they cut the power and speed to almost nill. You actually can't fry them.

Some other ultra low power CPU's might work without a heat sink, like the Transmeta and Via C3 CPU's, but they could stil fry.

 

[idkew]

most cpus will automatically shut off if it gets too hot.

but, it still may have been damaged before that shut off point.

if anything, add a fan and a better heat sync rather than taking one away.