Ok i just bought a new heatsink, the first stage in silencing my pc up( i know the power pack would be the most preferential one first but i aint got the cash yet).

Now i've orded some of that gel stuff(clue of how much i know) aswell so i should be all set but need to know a few things.

What can i use to clean my chip?

Is it a case of putin an even thin layer of the gel on the chip then putting the heatsink on and screwing in?

any help or advice on putting new ones in would be appriciated as i don't wana bugger my comp up.

cheers mate, do i need to use any fluid on it to clean it atall or will scraping it carefully do the trick?

Would a clean credit card do the job for scraping??

should i put the gel on a clean surface then pick a bit up with  the card or go straight onto the cpu?

I heard something about turning it round a bit to rub it round, is that worth it or pointles?

Im just really cautious because i know if i get it wrong the cpu goes melty.

Thanks again for your help, any questions i have il post em up here cause you seem to know what your on about from experience not manuals.

ok lads good stuff cheers!

Will get to work on it when i get the heat sink here.

If i don't post for a few weeks you  know why :P

couldn't find anything in the bios with an overheat turn off. I'll just assume its on! could you reccomend any programs for monitering temps?

find out who make the motherboard and go to their site, they should have a utility to download there.

like gouldy mentioned, be careful if prising heatsink clips with a screwdriver, one slip could be quite nasty!

but its not really that hard.

got that one trep suggested as i couldn't find one on the ASRock website.

According to this my CPU is 127c which aint good, and i got a hdd temp thing and there running at 40 and 65 which also aint good....i think my comps melting:S

turn it off!!

my athlon 1.33ghz has idled at about 90 before for a while when my fan was almost kaput (now 50C with new fan) but if 127 C is right then you need to sort that out. you did plug the power for the fan in didnt you

also try touching the heat sink. if it feels too hot to touch then you have a problem with the heatsink/fan. if it just feels warm/hot then it is a problem with the contact between the chip and heatsink - or there is no problem at all and the motherboard is reporting wrong temp. when you boot it up and go into the bios, does it tell you the cpu temperature in there? if so, let it  run for a bit just in the bios and see what the temp is.

heh this is with the old heatsink, new 1 hasnt been fitted yet!

its just that program(even though it was deffo in celcius) as in the bios says its sitting at 51 and i can touch the heatsink without getting 3rd degree burns. My new heatsink doesn't arrive till the 23rd as they dont get em in stock till the 21st.

Another problem i may aswell ask here - on a similar subject. My second HDD(not main one) is sitting at around 60 degrees C out of the case. The only thing i can think of doing for keeping it cool is once it goes back in slap a fan straight infront of it to suck cool air over it, and maybe site a few old heatsinks on it to draw heat out. I know this temperature is quite dangerous to run it and and the harddrive keeps on just disapearing from windows once a week or so.  What ya's think(assuming it isnt damaged beyond repair...)

Hey Cal.

I had exactly the same problem with my mobo. It said the processor was 120 ish. You don't happen to have a MSI k8t neo do you? I found that upgrading the bios made everything all right. It was readin the wrong sensor or was reading the right sensor in the wrong way.